Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology that proposes people act or are motivated by a predetermined order of needs. Those needs, physiological, safety, etc are predetermined in order of importance. That order is often depicted as a pyramid consisting of five levels: the lowest level is associated with physiological needs, while the uppermost level is associated with self-actualization needs, particularly those related to identity and purpose.

Maslow’s hierarchy is one of the first theories taught to marketing students as a basis for understanding consumers’ motives for action. A variety of other disciplines and agendas, from mind control to motivation of employees, also look to Maslow for understanding of how to motivate or understand human nature. Marketers have historically looked towards consumers’ needs to define their actions in the market. By designing a product that meets a consumers’ needs, consumers will more often choose that product than of a competitor. Whichever product better fulfills this void will be chosen more frequently, thus increasing sales.

People only focus on the higher needs in Maslow’s hierarchy when the lower needs in the pyramid are met. Once an individual has moved upwards to the next level, needs in the lower level will no longer be prioritized. If a lower set of needs is no longer being met, the individual will temporarily re-prioritize those needs by focusing attention on the unfulfilled needs, but will not permanently regress to the lower level. For instance, a businessman at the esteem level who is diagnosed with cancer will spend a great deal of time concentrating on his health (physiological needs), but will continue to value his work performance (esteem needs) and will likely return to work during periods of remission.

It always baffled me to read this because from where I stood, Maslow was wrong. The mix of needs was not this clean, this simple or this structured. It was raw, jumbled, erratic and disordered. People, I thought, each had their own hierarchy based on who they were, where they were and what was important to them. I grew up watching people deny their base needs to meet the needs of others. I watched people give up food, shelter, safety and self-esteem in pursuit of self-actualization. Then I recently learned that Maslow didn’t study the kind of people I did. Maslow studied what he called exemplary people such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass rather than mentally ill or neurotic people, or even the average man on the street. Maslow said that “the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy.”

But if you study a population that’s in the minority, how can you extrapolate your findings and apply them to people who “mentally ill, neurotic or average”? My guess is - you can’t. And that’s why I think Maslow was wrong. He was right about the people he studied, but wrong about motivation and people in general. Yet we go on following his model. Why? Because it’s there. It’s easy.

Something not as popular as his hierarchy is his addition to the chart later in life. According to Wikipedi, “…near the end of his life Maslow revealed that there was a level on the hierarchy that was above self-actualization: self-transcendence. “[Transcenders] may be said to be much more often aware of the realm of Being (B-realm and B-cognition), to be living at the level of Being… to have unitive consciousness and “plateau experience” (serene and contemplative B-cognitions rather than climactic ones) … and to have or to have had peak experience (mystic, sacral, ecstatic) with illuminations or insights. Analysis of reality or cognitions which changed their view of the world and of themselves, perhaps occasionally, perhaps as a usual thing.” Maslow later did a study on 12 people he believed possessed the qualities of Self-transcendence. Many of the qualities were guilt for the misfortune of someone close, creativity, humility, intelligence, and divergent thinking. They were mainly loners, had deep relationships, and were very normal on the outside. Maslow estimated that only 2% of the population will ever achieve this level of the hierarchy in their lifetime, and that it was absolutely impossible for a child to possess these traits.”

I think he was wrong about that too. I think the number is higher than 2%. I think human beings experience cognitions which change their world every day. It’s why we seek God, take drugs, fall in love, visit new places on our vacations. We want that transformation, that escape from the ordinary.

It’s not enough just to say, “Maslow was wrong,” but it’s a start.