Abraham Maslow

Wilber's View

Maslow's needs hierarchy is one of Wilber's recurring proof-texts for the claim that development proceeds through a fixed sequence in which each new level solves the previous level's central problem while introducing a new one. Wilber treats the progression from safety/power needs to belongingness needs to self-esteem needs to (eventually) self-actualization and beyond as "precisely the same Great Holarchy in modern form" — the same nested, transcend-and-include structure he finds everywhere else in SES, just recovered independently by a psychologist studying human motivation rather than a philosopher studying holons. He pairs Maslow consistently with Loevinger (belongingness needs alongside the "conformist" self; self-esteem needs alongside the "conscientious" self) and credits Maslow, alongside Baldwin, Werner, Graves, Piaget, and Loevinger, as one of the researchers who — only in the second half of the twentieth century — finally gave stage-development theory a rigorous empirical basis it had previously lacked.

In Sex, Ecology, Spirituality

One can't help but notice that this hierarchy of "deficiency needs" or "scarce resources" bears striking resemblance to Abraham Maslow's (and Jane Loevinger's and others') present-day ontogenetic needs hierarchy—from safety/power to conventional security/belonging to personal/egoic value to existential meaning.

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 5

The deeper or higher motivations are not simply given from the start; one has to grow, develop, and unfold to effect these changes (just as in Maslow's needs hierarchy, which is precisely the same Great Holarchy in modern form).

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 11

"Who am I?" becomes, for the first time, a burning question, and the self-esteem needs emerge from the belongingness needs (Maslow), or a "conscientious" self emerges from a "conformist" mode (Loevinger).

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 6

In Integral Psychology

Integral Psychology gives Maslow his own profile among the "modern pioneers," and adds a historical note not in SES: Maslow's fall and recovery in academic standing across the postmodern turn.

Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) is well known enough that I will only make a few passing comments. Like all truly great integral thinkers—from Aurobindo to Gebser to Whitehead to Baldwin to Habermas—he was a developmentalist. — Integral Psychology, ch. 7

He was one of the first to gather substantial empirical and phenomenological evidence suggesting that each level in the Great Nest has a different need, that these needs emerge hierarchically and prepotently, and that each of us carries the potential for all of these levels-needs…Instrumental in founding both the Third Force (Humanistic-Existential Psychology) and the Fourth Force (Transpersonal), Maslow's ideas had an extraordinary impact on education, business, and values research. — Integral Psychology, ch. 7

Maslow's work fell into temporary disrepute during the eighties, when an extreme postmodernism, dominating both academia and the counterculture, made all forms of holarchy subservient to what certainly seemed to be a form of flatland dogmatism. But as the world awakens from that reductionism, Maslow's pioneering works are there to greet all who would genuinely embrace a more integral and holarchical view. — Integral Psychology, ch. 7

See Also

• Chart 7: Miscellaneous Developmental Lines — Maslow's needs hierarchy correlated against the basic-structures spine
• loevinger — the ego-development stages Wilber runs in lockstep with Maslow's needs hierarchy
• great-chain-of-being — the structure Wilber says Maslow's hierarchy recovers "in modern form"
• kohlberg — the parallel moral-stage sequence completing the same preconventional/conventional/postconventional arc