Your new post is loading...
Abraham Maslow’s Pyramid of Needsis one of the iconic images of psychology. The simple diagram, first introduced in the 1940s, spells out the underlying motivations that drive our day-to-day behaviour and points the way to a more meaningful life. It is elegant, approachable and uplifting.
But is it also out of date?
That’s the argument of a team of evolutionary psychologists led by Douglas Kenrick of Arizona State University. Their new formulation is intellectually stimulating, but emotionally deflating. “Self-actualisation,” the noble-sounding top layer of Maslow’s hierarchy, in their model has not only been dethroned, it has been relegated to footnote status.
It has been replaced at the top with a more mundane motivation Maslow didn’t even mention: “Parenting.”
Via The Learning Factor
What are the fundamental forces that drive human behaviour? A group of evolutionary thinkers offer an answer by revising one of psychology’s most familiar images.