What Is It That You Really Need? Sometimes it seems as if we never get what we want. But sometimes when we do get what we want, we realize that it’s not what we really want. That’s because our wants don’t always match our needs. The solution to this problem is to try to understand and satisfy our real needs.

Psychology is the scientific study of the human mind and human and animal behavior. A lot of psychological research has been done about human needs and how they should be satisfied. Studies have shown that humans have basic needs that must be consistently met. Studies have also shown that there is an order of importance in which these needs must be satisfied. An individual’s basic functional needs must be satisfied before he or she can go on and meet other more creative and self-fulfilling needs.

Abraham Harold Maslow (1908–1970) was an important psychologist who became famous for his studies regarding human needs and wants. He wrote two major works, Motivation and Personality and Toward a Psychology of Being. Maslow stressed that basic needs must first be satisfied before a person is able to be creative or function independently. He created his famous hierarchy of needs theory, which separates human needs into five layers. Each layer in the hierarchy must be satisfied before a person can proceed to the next layer. The five layers of human needs, according to Maslow, are as follows:

1. physiological needs
2. safety and security needs
3. love and belonging needs
4. self-esteem needs
5. self-actualization needs
Physiological Needs
Physiological needs include the basic requirements for physical survival, such as oxygen, water, protein, salt, sugar, minerals, and vitamins. Other physiological needs include a proper body temperature and pH balance, physical activity, a lack of pain, and adequate sleep.

Safety and Security Needs
These needs become relevant only after the physiological needs are generally satisfied. The person will then become increasingly interested in such things as being safe and protected and having a stable life. He or she might also begin to need structure and order.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Love and Belonging Needs
Once a person feels reasonably secure in life and has his or her basic bodily needs satisfied, he or she wants to be a part of a community or group, to have friends, and to be in loving and caring relationships.

Self-Esteem Needs
This level of needs has two components. The first includes a person’s need to be respected by others and achieve fame, attention, and dignity. The second component of this level of needs includes a person’s needs for self-respect, confidence, independence, and freedom.

Self-Actualization Needs
The highest level of needs is different from the other levels in a crucial way. All the previous levels discuss needs that need to be satisfied; once they are satisfied, we no longer think about them. If we feel well fed, safe, appreciated, and confident, we don’t think about those needs anymore. But on the complex level of self-actualization, a person continues to feel this need even after he or she has achieved it. This need drives us to be the most complete people we can be—to be the best that we can be.

The next time you are feeling as if something is missing from your life, think about Maslow and his theory of needs. Have you really satisfied the basic needs before trying to satisfy the higher levels of needs? Maybe you need to redefine what you are really searching for.

1
Select the correct answer from the drop-down menu.
Read the passage. Then choose the best way to complete the sentence.

The author uses graphic features to

1. help the reader better understand Maslow’s hierarchy

2. show how Maslow’s hierarchy developed over time

3. provide a cross section of Maslow’s hierarchy

4.explain each layer of Maslow’s hierarchy in detail