Why Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Matters
Presenter:
Alain De Botton
Time:
6:31
Summary
Maslow's Hierarchy, (or Pyramid), of Needs is one of the central ideas in modern economics and sociology. The work of a once little-known American psychologist, it has grown into an indispensable guide to understanding the modern world. This film explains who Maslow was, what his pyramid is, and why it matters so much.
Transcript
One of the most legendary ideas in a history of psychology is located in an unassuming triangle, divided into five sections, referred to universally simply as Maslow's Pyramid. Of needs this profoundly influential pyramid. First saw the world in an academic journal in the United States in 1943, where it was crudely drawn in black and white, and surrounded by dense and jargon rich text.
It has since become a mainstay of psychological analyses, business presentations, and TED talks, and grown ever more colorful and emphatic in the process. The pyramid was the work of a 35 year old Jewish psychologist of Russian origins called Abraham Maslow, who'd been looking since the start of his professional career, for nothing less than the meaning of life.