Page 11 - Navy Journal E-Book 7-6-20

Hierarchy of Needs ...

romantic relations, sports team, community groups, religious groups, etc
for sustaining relationships. These aim at being liked and loved by fellow
members of a group and provide for emotional security against loneliness,
depression, anxiety, etc.
d. In the next level, individuals desire to be appreciated and respected by
peers and be considered an important member of the group, be that family,
social, cultural, professional, etc. They enjoy being appreciated, and thus
valued. Their expectations grow further as those are attained, and they
then wish to be appreciated among other groups around. Such aspirations
might include being the leader of own group, or a few such groups – thus
emerges the requirement for ‘Esteem Needs’.
As shown in Figure 2, esteem and social needs together make up the
‘Psychological Needs’.

e. As individuals progress further up the pyramid, their needs become
increasingly sophisticated and intangible, and feelings of accomplishment
take priority over all lower needs. The topmost level of needs thus is the
‘Self-Actualisation Need’, which is a process of growing and developing
as a person in order to achieve an individual’s perceived full potential. It
is a state of continual process of becoming rather than a perfect state that
one might reach and remain at permanently. Most people can probably
never reach this state.
Physiological, Security, Social, and Esteem needs are together grouped as
‘Deficiency Needs’ that arise due to deprivation of essential elements for living.
The lone remaining higher need is ‘Growth Need’ – it does not originate from the
want of something but is from the aspiration to be something cherished. The
hierarchy of needs is not also strict. There might be individuals willing to opt
more for esteem needs at their sacrifice of lower needs.
The top level deserves more discussion as this is the realm at which any
self-aware individual would aspire to be. It is the full use of one’s talents,
potentialities, efforts, etc to achieve for her/him the best that she/he perceives
2
her/himself to be capable of. Maslow himself described this as “It refers to the
desire for self-fulfilment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized
in what he is potential.
2. Maslow, A H, “A Theory Of Human Motivation” available at http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm,
accessed 22 Oct 2018.

3