Theory of human motivation

The hierarchy of needs is a theory about the needs that motivate all humans developed by Abraham Maslow, a central figure in humanistic psychology and in the human potential movement. Maslow began to work out this theory of human motivation in the 1940s, and first published his thoughts in Motivation and Human Personality in 1954. Rejecting the determinism of both the psychoanalytic and behaviorist approaches, Maslow took an optimistic approach to human behavior that emphasized developing one's full potential. He based his studies on successful historical and contemporary figures whom he considered "self-actualizers," including Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), Jane Addams (1860-1935), Albert Einstein (1879-1955), and Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962). In addition to drawing up a list of the common traits of these individuals, Maslow placed self-actualization at the peak of his hierarchy of human...