Maslow Heirachy of Needs Theory

Several developmental theories have been put forward by different theorists. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory, Erik Erikson’s psychosocial theory and Newman-Newman life stage theory are good examples of such theories. Apart from application into our life developmental stages, some of these theories are also often applied in management of employees. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is largely applied by managers in order for them to understand the needs that are more important for their employees. In his model, he shows that there are low level (physiological) needs that we must satisfy first before we move to actualization level. Erik Erikson’s model on the other hand has eight stages of development and his ideas were largely influenced by Freud. Erikson’s theory pays much attention to culture influence on people’s behavior and thus his theory sheds more light on external world influence like wars and depression (Harder, 2009). Newman-Newman life stage theory studies life span using a chronological approach and most of his ideas are drawn from Erikson’s psychosocial theory. People often use these theories and apply them into their life stages. It’s true that for individual’s dealing with horrendous childhood circumstances, they often have problems to negotiate later life stages. For example, an orphan stroked or who wasn’t held while he was an infant experience difficulties to connect with others when he becomes an adult. The objective of this paper is to describe the aforementioned three theories and later apply Erikson’s psychosocial theory and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in our life stages.

It was in 1943 when psychologist Abraham Maslow put forward his hierarchy of needs concept in a paper titled “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Subsequently, he produced his famous book “Motivation and Personality” and these two contain his ideas on how we are motivated so that we may fulfill our basic needs before we proceed to other needs. His hierarchy of needs is often...