Maslows hierarchy of needs

maslows hierachy of needs, maslow hierarchy of needs

The needs of humankind

What are the human needs? Why do most of us human beings go to work each day, why do we live with a partner, why do we have children? What are we trying to achieve in all of this? What indeed are we striving for? Is it merely to obtain food, to procreate, or do we want to purchase as many objects as possible, possess company shares, make careers for ourselves, go down in history, exercise power over others?

Much has already been written on the objectives and origins of human actions, we want here therefore to extract what we believe to be the most important of the different theories and to add our own thoughts to this.

Maslows hierarchy of needs


The benefits of modesty



The meaning of life


About the meaning of life


Time for change



The hierarchy in personal objectives

  At the start of this treatise we considered the needs of humankind and during this we referred particularly to the hierar­chy in human needs using the example of the Maslow theory: At the lowest level were the existential needs of a person and at the highest level the achievement of a state of lasting happiness, self-realization, salvation of the soul, harmony within oneself or whatever we like to call this state. On the basis of these needs the human being sets his own personal goals according to this theory. If for example his existence is assured, he attempts to realize the needs of the next highest level of hierarchy by setting his goals accordingly. The hierarchy of needs, which we have referred to already many times, therefore corresponds with a similar hierarchy of objectives: Our own goals can also be hierarchically arranged.

In other words: According to the needs which we wish to satisfy, we should select our goals from the corresponding hierarchical level. What sounds so simple and logical is however frequently a cause of disappointment in our personal development: Needs and objectives don’t correspond but often even contradict each other in a flagrant way.

The pyramid as a symbol of human development



the pyramid as a symbol of human development

Figure 1: The pyramid of personal development


Substitute dealings

If we consider the effort which drives certain people to feel the abovementioned feeling of happiness, if only briefly, it becomes clear that many of us – probably for a long time - have been searching for ways of achieving perpetual inner harmony, that is the top level of our needs. Here is just a small selection of the ways which are undertaken:


Advertising responds to our needs

In no other branch of industry are the needs of human beings so intensively investigated than in advertising. If it is known what the potential consumer group which purchases a given product or service really strives for, where these people set their highest priorities, it is possible to respond exactly to these needs in the advertising and hence earn lots of money!

The striving for harmony and happiness, for a life spent in love and peace is therefore frequently exploited in advertising: First we see a suffering person who has an affliction, an illness or a problem, then a product (pill, ointment, food, drink, car, washing powder, software, computer, telephone, holiday place etc.) and finally we see the same person who – thanks to the use of the product shown - is happy. Often too the happy person is shown together with the product. Just try sometime to deliberately observe how frequently the advertising messages are set up in this way regardless of the product on offer.

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