Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Actions carried out by people are always motivated actions. This was first described in the theory called “A Hierarchy of Needs” written and proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1968 (Wood & Schweitzer, 2010). Maslow expressed this as human beings ' need to communicate in order to meet a range of needs. There are eight levels in the hierarchy of needs, they are: physiological, safety, belongingness and love, self-esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization, and peak experiences (Wood & Schweitzer, 2010). The theory conveys that the most basic needs must be fulfilled prior to any other level of need before moving to the next need. (Wood & Schweitzer, 2010). Maslow expressed this by using a pyramid, with the most basic of needs at the bottom. The most basic of needs that has to be met first is the physiological needs. Physiological needs are needs that humans must obtain to survive (Wood & Schweitzer, 2010). Communicate plays a key role in achieving different levels of needs in Maslow 's theory. Without communicate people would be unable to state what they require to meet their needs at each level. Using communication verbally or nonverbally allows others to help fulfill specific needs in the pyramid. One of the eight levels in the hierarchy of needs is cognitive needs (Wood & Schweitzer, 2010). Cognitive needs expresses the natural human need to learn, explore, discover and create to get a better understanding of the world around them. Cognitive needs include the want for knowledge, understanding, and novelty (Wood & Schweitzer, 2010). This indicates that humans have the need to have knowledge about many things and be able to understand those ideas. Humans have a demand to widen their perspectives, involve themselves in new challenging experiences, and the want to learn many different skills (Wood & Schweitzer, 2010). I have used communicate in my life to express what I needed to attain a full level of a specific

References: Wood, J., & Schweitzer, A. (2010). Everyday Encounters: An introduction to interpersonal communication. Toronto, Canada: Wadsworth.