Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: Updated for the 21st century | Scott Barry Kaufman | Big Think

People get a lot of things wrong about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. First of all, Maslow never even drew a pyramid. A lot of people might not know that. You are probably very used to seeing a diagram on Facebook or in your introductory psychology class or management class. Just see this pyramid with self-actualization at the top and different needs.

Well, I looked through Maslow's writings, and he never actually drew a pyramid to represent his theory. He actually viewed human needs as a dynamic process. It was very clear to Maslow that life is not a video game. It's not as though you reach some level in life, like safety needs, and then you get a certain number of points for that. Then some voice from above is like, "Congrats! You've unlocked connection!" and then you go, "doo-doo-doo-doo," and you move up to connection. That's not how life works.

Maslow was very clear about that. In a lot of ways, Maslow was a developmental psychologist at heart. He really believed that human development was constantly this two steps forward, one step back dynamic. We're constantly choosing the growth option, then we're failing in some way or we have some struggle, which is an inevitable part of life, and then we continue forward. Life is not some trek up a mountain, and then you reach self-actualization as though you've achieved it, and then the final credits come on, you know?

Again, continuing the video game metaphor, no, life is not like that. Self-development is a process. It's constantly a form of development, and we are constantly becoming. Our being in the world is constantly becoming, and Maslow was very clear about that. Abraham Maslow made it very clear that self-actualization is not the same as achievement. A lot of people, in fact, may achieve quite a bit in their lives and maybe be on the cover of magazines. They may have all the awards and have the whole trophy shelf in their house that they show off, yet they feel deeply unfulfilled.

We feel much more fulfilled when we actualize our potentialities—our deepest potentials, the things that make us unique, the things that we can uniquely contribute to the world in ways that have a positive impact on it. Just realizing your talents without the context of the meaning behind it is a recipe for a lot of talented people to live a very unfulfilled life. So Maslow defined self-actualization as becoming everything that you're capable of becoming and that you're most uniquely capable of becoming.

We have a lot of potentials that we share with other humans. We have the need for safety, the need for connection, and the need for respect and a certain level of feeling worthy or self-esteem, and we share that with others. But Maslow thought of self-actualization as those potentialities within you that, if grown to their full heights, will have the biggest impact on the world uniquely. What do you most uniquely have to contribute to this world? I think that's how Maslow really thought about self-actualization, and that's how I tend to think about self-actualization as well.

So I've revised Maslow's hierarchy of needs for the 21st century, building it on a solid scientific foundation. My revised integrated hierarchy of needs views human development as a process of higher and higher levels of integration. Instead of a trek up a mountain, we're actually a whole vehicle; we're an integrated set of parts. Our whole can become greater than the sum of its parts, but how we integrate those parts is really important for fulfillment in life and ultimately transcendence.

Many people might not realize, but towards the latter years of Abraham Maslow's life, he was working on a new theory of transcendence, arguing that our highest motivation in life wasn't self-actualization, but it was actually transcendence. What is good at the highest level of human development, the highest level of human motivation? Transcendence. What is good for oneself is automatically good for others, so the notion of selfishness breaks down. In fact, at the highest level of consciousness, we have a lot of dichotomy; transcendence, as Maslow put it, makes things such as evil versus good no longer make any sense.

They're all part of an integrated whole. Selfishness and unselfishness don't make sense because what does it mean to be selfish when what is good for you is simultaneously good for society? What does that even mean anymore? So my revised hierarchy of needs is a better metaphor than a static pyramid. It's a sailboat.

With a sailboat, we absolutely need to feel to have a boat that is safe and secure, or else we don't go anywhere. If you have a huge leak in your boat, you're not going to go very far in life or on the ocean. But having safety and security and having a secure boat is not enough, or else we won't go anywhere. What we need to do is open up our sail as well.

When we open up our sail and feel very comfortable and safe enough to do so, we can really move through the ocean in the direction that we want. Usually, it's in a purposeful direction; we have some sort of meaning or purpose in life. But as we're moving, we're still moving in the vast unknown of the sea. The truth is, we're all in this together. We're all in our own boats going in our own direction, but we're all in the sea, in the vast unknown of the sea.

Especially in this time we’re living in right now, we all see quite clearly how choppy these waters are. But it's important that we recognize that while safety is important in these unknown times, we must not neglect our higher possibilities in life. They're just as important.

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