Educational Psychology

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Being Needs Aesthetic needs

Self-actualization needs

Deficit needs: getting the basic necessities of life

Deficit needs are the basic requirements of physical and emotional well-being. First are physiological needs—
food, sleep, clothing, and the like. Without these, nothing else matters, and especially nothing very “elevated” or
self-fulfilling. A student who is not getting enough to eat is not going to feel much interest in learning! Once
physiological needs are met, however, safety and security needs become important. The person looks for stability
and protection, and welcomes a bit of structure and limits if they provide these conditions. A child from an abusive
family, for example, may be getting enough to eat, but may worry chronically about personal safety. In school, the
student may appreciate a well-organized classroom with rules that insures personal safety and predictability,
whether or not the classroom provides much in the way of real learning.

After physiological and safety needs are met, love and belonging needs emerge. The person turns attention to
making friends, being a friend, and cultivating positive personal relationships in general. In the classroom, a
student motivated at this level may make approval from peers or teachers into a top priority. He or she may be
provided for materially and find the classroom and family life safe enough, but still miss a key ingredient in life—
love. If such a student (or anyone else) eventually does find love and belonging, however, then his or her motivation
shifts again, this time to esteem needs. Now the concern is with gaining recognition and respect—and even more
importantly, gaining self-respect. A student at this level may be unusually concerned with achievement, for
example, though only if the achievement is visible or public enough to earn public recognition.

Being needs: becoming the best that you can be

Being needs are desires to become fulfilled as a person, or to be the best person that you can possibly be. They
include cognitive needs (a desire for knowledge and understanding), aesthetic needs (an appreciation of beauty and
order), and most importantly, self-actualization needs (a desire for fulfillment of one’s potential). Being needs
emerge only after all of a person’s deficit needs have been largely met. Unlike deficit needs, being needs beget more
being needs; they do not disappear once they are met, but create a desire for even more satisfaction of the same
type. A thirst for knowledge, for example, leads to further thirst for knowledge, and aesthetic appreciation leads to
more aesthetic appreciation. Partly because being needs are lasting and permanent once they appear, Maslow
sometimes treated them as less hierarchical than deficit needs, and instead grouped cognitive, aesthetic, and self-
actualization needs into the single category self-actualization needs.

People who are motivated by self-actualization have a variety of positive qualities, which Maslow went to some
lengths to identify and describe (Maslow, 1976). Self-actualizing individuals, he argued, value deep personal
relationships with others, but also value solitude; they have a sense of humor, but do not use it against others; they
accept themselves as well as others; they are spontaneous, humble, creative, and ethical. In short, the self-
actualizing person has just about every good quality imaginable! Not surprisingly, therefore, Maslow felt that true
self-actualization is rare. It is especially unusual among young people, who have not yet lived long enough to satisfy
earlier, deficit-based needs.

Educational Psychology 55 A Global Text