A lonely boy from Brooklyn asked what people really need. His answer became the most famous triangle in psychology — drawn by somebody else.
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Easier version: read this lesson at A2/B1 level →
Ten items. Say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Read the sentence, guess the meaning of the word in bold, then reveal.
The three words are: rigid · hierarchy · esteem. Read each meaning, say the word, then reveal.
One missing word fits every phrase in the group. Say it, then reveal.
Read each part. After it, answer the quick check from memory, then discuss one question.
Abraham Maslow was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1908, the eldest of seven children. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Kyiv, in what was then the Russian Empire. The family was poor, and the streets could be unfriendly to Jewish boys. Maslow later described his childhood as lonely and unhappy, and his relationship with his mother as very difficult.
He found his escape in public libraries, where he read everything he could. At university, he fell in love with psychology. He studied at the University of Wisconsin, where he worked with the psychologist Harry Harlow, who studied monkeys. Watching the animals, Maslow began to wonder which needs come first, and which only matter once others have been met. The question stayed with him for the rest of his life.
Most psychologists of the time studied what goes wrong with people — illness, fear, strange behaviour. Maslow grew more interested in a different question: what do healthy people need in order to grow?
1. Where did Maslow's parents come from?
2. What question did the monkeys make Maslow ask?
3. How was Maslow's question different from most psychologists' questions?
1. From Kyiv, then part of the Russian Empire.
2. Which needs come first, and which only matter once other needs are met.
3. Most studied what goes wrong with people; Maslow wanted to know what healthy people need to grow.
In 1943, in the middle of the Second World War, Maslow published a paper called “A Theory of Human Motivation”. In it, he described five groups of needs. First come the needs of the body: food, water, sleep, warmth. Next comes safety: shelter, order, a life without constant danger. Then love and belonging: family, friends, a group. Then esteem: respect from others and for yourself. And finally, what he called self-actualisation: becoming the fullest version of yourself.
His key idea was that a need we have satisfied stops motivating us. A person who is starving thinks only about food; a person who is well fed begins to care about safety, then friendship, and so on. But Maslow was careful. He said that the levels overlap, that most people are partly satisfied on several levels at once, and that the order is not the same for everyone.
To find out what the top level looked like, he studied people he admired, such as Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt and Albert Einstein. They seemed, he wrote, to be creative, independent and deeply connected to others.
1. What are the five groups of needs, from the bottom up?
2. What happens to a need once it has been satisfied, according to Maslow?
3. What did Maslow say about the order of the levels?
1. Body needs, safety, love and belonging, esteem, self-actualisation.
2. It stops motivating us.
3. That the levels overlap, people are partly satisfied on several at once, and the order isn't the same for everyone.
In his 1943 paper, and in everything he wrote later, Maslow never drew a pyramid. The famous triangle seems to have appeared first in 1960, in a business magazine article called “How Money Motivates Men” by a consulting psychologist, Charles McDermid. McDermid wanted to help managers get the most effort from their workers at the lowest cost, and a pyramid was a perfect picture for a training room.
Managers loved it. Within a few years, the pyramid was in textbooks all over the world, and most people assumed Maslow had drawn it. But the neat shape made his ideas more rigid than he meant them to be. It suggested that you must complete one level before you can climb to the next, which is exactly what Maslow had warned against.
Maslow himself kept developing his theory. Before he died in 1970, he wrote about a level beyond self-actualisation: self-transcendence, meaning living for something bigger than yourself. Critics still argue about the model. Some point out that people living through war or poverty often put friendship, faith and meaning first. Yet the pyramid survives, perhaps because it is so easy to draw.
1. Who first drew the pyramid, and in what kind of publication?
2. How did the pyramid shape change the meaning of Maslow's ideas?
3. What did Maslow add to his theory later in life?
1. Charles McDermid, a consulting psychologist, in a 1960 business magazine article.
2. It made the ideas more rigid — it suggested you must complete each level before moving up, which Maslow didn't say.
3. Self-transcendence: living for something bigger than yourself.
The pyramid puts the most basic needs at the bottom and growth at the top. Read it as a rough guide, not a staircase: the levels overlap, and different people put them in a different order.
Which level does each example mostly belong to? (The top level, Growth, is Maslow's self-actualisation.) Choose, then check.
1. Safety — security and protection from danger.
2. Esteem — respect and recognition.
3. Basic body needs — the body's needs.
4. Growth — becoming the fullest version of yourself.
5. Love & belonging — friendship and connection.
6. Esteem — status and respect from others.
Not a staircase. People don't finish one level before starting the next — Maslow said so himself.
Culture changes the order. In many societies, family and belonging come before personal achievement.
Hard to test. Researchers have found only partial support for a fixed order of needs.
Talking about needs and motives means using verbs like want, avoid, hope, enjoy — and each one is followed by a particular form. A few verbs take both, with a change in meaning.
Write the verb in brackets in the right form: to + verb or -ing.
1. After the move, the family couldn't afford (eat) out any more.
2. Most people avoid (think) about their basic needs until something goes wrong.
3. She finally managed (find) a flat near her friends.
4. I'm interested in (learn) how motivation works.
5. He gave up (play) the guitar when his children were born.
1. to eat
2. thinking
3. to find
4. learning (after a preposition)
5. playing
Complete each sentence with the right form of the verb in brackets.
1. I'll never forget my first day at school — I remember (cry) all morning.
2. On the way home, we stopped (look) at the sunset.
3. The doctor told him to stop (smoke) immediately.
4. If you can't sleep, try (read) a boring book.
1. crying (a memory)
2. to look (we paused in order to look)
3. smoking (end the habit)
4. reading (an experiment — see if it works)
Now describe your own needs: one thing you want to do this year, one thing you keep doing that you'd like to stop doing.
Use the pyramid on real lives. Choose a task, start the timer, and talk.
Go through the five levels for your own life. Which is strongest? Which needs the most attention right now?
Think of someone moving to a new country, perhaps someone you know. Which needs are hardest to meet in the first year?
What could an employer or school do for each level of the pyramid? Give one idea per level.