Summary

(1) There are at least 5 sets of goals, which we may call basic needs:

1. Physiological
2. Safety
3. Love
4. Esteem
5. Self-actualization

In addition, we are motivated by the desire to achieve or maintain the various conditions upon which these basic satisfactions rest and by certain more intellectual desires.

(2) These basic goals are related to each other, being arranged in a hierarchy of prepotency.

• The most prepotent goal will:
  • monopolize consciousness
  • recruit the various capacities of the organism.
• The less prepotent needs are minimized, even forgotten or denied.

But when a need is fairly well satisfied, the next prepotent (‘higher’) need emerges. This in turn:

• dominates the conscious life and
• serves as the center of organization of behavior.

This is because gratified needs are not active motivators.

Thus, man is a perpetually wanting animal.

Ordinarily, the satisfaction of these wants is not altogether mutually exclusive, but only tends to be.

The average member of our society is most often partially satisfied and partially unsatisfied in all of his wants.

The hierarchy principle is usually empirically observed in terms of increasing percentages of non-satisfaction as we go up the hierarchy.

Reversals of the average order of the hierarchy are sometimes observed.

An individual may permanently lose the higher wants in the hierarchy under special conditions.

There are not only ordinarily multiple motivations for usual behavior, but in addition many determinants other than motives.

(3) Psychological threats are:

• any thwarting of these basic human goals
• danger to the defenses which protect them, or to the conditions upon which they rest

With a few exceptions, all psychopathology may be partially traced to such threats.

We define a basically-thwarted man as a ‘sick’ man.

(4) It is such basic threats which bring about the general emergency reactions.

(5) Certain other basic problems have not been dealt with because of limitations of space.

Among these are:

• (a) the problem of values in any definitive motivation theory
• (b) the relation between appetites, desires, needs and what is ‘good’ for the organism
• (c) the etiology of the basic needs and their possible derivation in early childhood
• (d) redefinition of motivational concepts, i. e., drive, desire, wish, need, goal
• (e) implication of our theory for hedonistic theory
• (f) the nature of the uncompleted act, of success and failure, and of aspiration-level
• (g) the role of association, habit and conditioning
• (h) relation to the theory of inter-personal relations
• (i) implications for psychotherapy
• (j) implication for theory of society
• (k) the theory of selfishness
• (l) the relation between needs and cultural patterns
• (m) the relation between this theory and Alport’s theory of functional autonomy.

These as well as certain other less important questions must be considered as motivation theory attempts to become definitive.

Notes

[1] As the child grows up, sheer knowledge and familiarity as well as better motor development make these ‘dangers’ less and less dangerous and more and more manageable. Throughout life it may be said that one of the main conative functions of education is this neutralizing of apparent dangers through knowledge, e. g., I am not afraid of thunder because I know something about it.

[2] A ’test battery’ for safety might be confronting the child with a small exploding firecracker, or with a bewhiskered face; having the mother leave the room, putting him upon a high ladder, a hypodermic injection, having a mouse crawl up to him, etc. Of course I cannot seriously recommend the deliberate use of such ’tests’ for they might very well harm the child being tested. But these and similar situations come up by the score in the child’s ordinary day-to-day living and may be observed. There is no reason why those stimuli should not be used with, far example, young chimpanzees.

[3] Not all neurotic individuals feel unsafe. Neurosis may have at its core a thwarting of the affection and esteem needs in a person who is generally safe.

[4] For further details see (12) and (16, Chap. 5).

[5] Whether or not this particular desire is universal we do not know. The crucial question, especially important today, is “Will men who are enslaved and dominated inevitably feel dissatisfied and rebellious?” We may assume on the basis of commonly known clinical data that a man who has known true freedom (not paid for by giving up safety and security but rather built on the basis of adequate safety and security) will not willingly or easily allow his freedom to be taken away from him. But we do not know that this is true for the person born into slavery. The events of the next decade should give us our answer. See discussion of this problem in (5).

[6] Perhaps the desire for prestige and respect from others is subsidiary to the desire for self-esteem or confidence in oneself. Observation of children seems to indicate that this is so, but clinical data give no clear support for such a conclusion.

[7] For more extensive discussion of normal self-esteem, as well as for reports of various researches, see (11).

[8] Clearly creative behavior, like painting, is like any other behavior in having multiple, determinants. It may be seen in ‘innately creative’ people whether they are satisfied or not, happy or unhappy, hungry or sated. Also it is clear that creative activity may be compensatory, ameliorative or purely economic. It is my impression (as yet unconfirmed) that it is possible to distinguish the artistic and intellectual products of basically satisfied people from those of basically unsatisfied people by inspection alone. In any case, here too we must distinguish, in a dynamic fashion, the overt behavior itself from its various motivations or purposes.

[9] I am aware that many psychologists md psychoanalysts use the term ‘motivated’ and ‘determined’ synonymously, e. g., Freud. But I consider this an obfuscating usage. Sharp distinctions are necessary for clarity of thought, and precision in experimentation.

[10] To be discussed fully in a subsequent publication.

[11] The interested reader is referred to the very excellent discussion of this point in Murray’s Explorations in Personality (15).

[12] Note that acceptance of this theory necessitates basic revision of the Freudian theory.

[13] If we were to use the word ‘sick’ in this way, we should then also have to face squarely the relations of man to his society. One clear implication of our definition would be that (1) since a man is to be called sick who is basically thwarted, and (2) since such basic thwarting is made possible ultimately only by forces outside the individual, then (3) sickness in the individual must come ultimately from sickness in the society. The ‘good’ or healthy society would then be defined as one that permitted man’s highest purposes to emerge by satisfying all his prepotent basic needs.