JRN 2109 History & Theory of Advertising

Maslows hierarchy of Needs & Human needs & wants

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow (born in New York in 1908 & died in 1970), although various publications appear in Maslow's name in later years. Maslow's PhD in psychology in 1934 at the University of Wisconsin formed the basis of his motivational research (he was initially studying rhesus monkeys). Maslow developed the Hierarchy of Needs model in 1940-50s USA, and the theory remains valid today for understanding human motivation, management training, and personal development. Abraham Maslow's book Motivation and Personality, published in 1954 (second edition 1970) introduced the Hierarchy of Needs. He later moved to New York's Brooklyn College.

Human Needs & Wants

Human needs are often understood as whatever is necessary to enable a human to continue to live. It is generally understood that humans need food, clothing, and shelter, in ways that they do not need art and literature and perfume. People can and do die of starvation and exposure. Nobody dies of the lack of music or good looks. Merely listing human needs food, clothing, shelter, and so on - does not explain how these things, and not others, act to maintain life. Food Nobody wishes to merely possess food. They need to eat it. By eating food, humans take on a store of chemical energy, which provides them enough energy to sustain them for some future period of time.

Human Needs & Wants

Clothing: The rate at which humans lose heat is largely determined by the temperature of their environment, which is usually lower than 37 degrees. The greater the temperature difference between body core and the external environment, the greater the rate at which heat is lost. An unclothed human in cold high latitudes loses heat far more rapidly than a human in hot low-lying tropical regions. In cold climates, the threat is that body temperature may fall too low. In hot climates, the threat is that body temperature may rise too high.

Human Needs & Wants Food: At the same time, eating substantial amounts of hot food at regular intervals through the day was necessary to fuel this level of constant activity. "Keeping busy" in a hot tropical climate, by contrast, is suicidal. The energy content of food is not a measure of the value of food to humans in forward days of life

Human Needs & Wants

Shelter Both clothing and housing perform essentially the same task, and so can be lumped together as shelter. Both serve to insulate humans from the environment, with clothing taking the form of a kind of glove which humans don, and housing providing an insulated space in which humans can move. The major difference between the two is that houses also provide shelter for human possessions which would otherwise rot or rust or be damaged, and houses are - in cold climates usually heated.

Human Needs & Wants

The Necessities of Life Food assures the continuity of life. Shelter assures the continuity of life. The underlying nature of these human needs is that they provide time for people, forward days of life. The value of human needs is measured in the time - hours, days, years - that they supply. A necessity is anything that makes time for men. Necessity is not just food and shelter, but all the tools and techniques which serve to expedite their production, or increase their value.

Wants.. Human wants consist of things which are desired for themselves - amusements, diversions, luxuries, toys, games, art, music, literature, and countless others. If human need is singular, human wants are plural. Human wants appear when people have idle time on their hands, and begin to wish to amuse themselves in their idle hours, in one way or other. Human wants act to fill idle time, to use up idle time. The problem for idle people is not how to come by idle times, but what to do with it once they have it.

Wants
What is commonly called "wealth" consists in human wants. "Rich" men are commonly held to be those who possess large mansions, with stables and gardens, yachts and fast cars and airplanes, fine art, expensive furniture, tailored clothes, jewellery, and so on. Or if not these things, then the money that can buy them. Human wants arise in idle time, and are satisfied in idle time. Whoever has a wish to play chess requires the idle time in which to make a chess set, and then to play the game. Whoever wants to sail in a yacht requires the time to build a boat, and then to sail about in it.

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