14 DAY TRIAL // The famous Pyramid of Needs devised by Abraham Maslow has recently been revisited by psychologists, who upgraded it by adding new objective and personality traits.
According to the team that reevaluated the priorities initially listed on the pyramid, it would appear that the field of parenting, with all of its components, is the most important for humans.
This includes caring for the young ones, nurturing them, feeding and educating them, and ensuring that they set out in life as well prepared as possible.
The group says that all of these needs are actually very deeply entrenched in the human psyche, which means that people are actively searching to become parents, and take care of their children.
Details of how Maslow's Pyramid looks like now appeared in the paper called “Renovating the pyramid of needs: Contemporary extensions built upon ancient foundations,” which was published in the March issue of the esteemed journal Perspectives on Psychological Sciences.
American scientist Abraham Harold Maslow lived between 1908 and 1970, and is widely credited to be the founder of humanistic psychology.
He is also renowned for having conceptualized a “hierarchy of human needs.” This work led to the design of the Pyramid, which was first created in the 1940s. Since, some of the needs inscribed on it have become outdated, hence the need for a change.
“Within the psychological sciences, the pyramid was increasingly viewed as quaint and old-fashioned, and badly in need of updating,” says Steven Neuberg, a professor at the Arizona State University (ASU) Foundation.
“It was based on some great ideas, several of which are worth preserving,” adds ASU professor of psychology Douglas Kenrick, the lead author of the new science paper.
“But it missed out on some very basic facts about human nature, facts which weren’t well understood in Maslow’s time, but were established by later research and theory at the interface of psychology, biology and anthropology,” he adds.
The new work included experts from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. Neuberg was a coauthor of the research paper.
“Among human aspirations that are most biologically fundamental are those that ultimately facilitate reproduction of our genes in our children’s children. For that reason, parenting is paramount,” Kenrick says of the need that now tops the revamped version of the Pyramid.
“The pyramid of needs is a wonderful idea of Maslow’s. He just got some of it wrong. Now people are talking about it again, which will help us get it right,” he concludes.