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Evaluate the need hierarchy theory by maslow
Evaluate the need hierarchy theory by maslow
Maslow hierarchy essay
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In the year 1943 the notorious twentieth century psychologist, Abraham Maslow, developed a theory concerning the hierarchy of human necessities. Maslow organized his theory into a pyramid consisting of psychological needs as the base, safety as the second tier, love/belonging as the third tier, esteem as the fourth tier, and self-actualization at the pinnacle. In the novel, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, the reader witnesses all tiers of the pyramid through the perspective of Ishmael. Ishmael begins his journey as a child, and is thrusted into the horrifying life of war. As result, he’s stripped of every tier in Maslow’s pyramid of needs, and must work to regain self-actualization. To begin, Ishmael lives his early child and the beginning …show more content…
of his teen years in a village near Mattru Jong. He lives peacefully with older brother, father, and stepmother, who despite this bliss life, causes some tension between his father and himself. One day as Ishmael, his brother, and a group of friends traveled to Mattru Jong to perform as a rap group, they received news of a rebel attack on their home village, Mogbwemo. Following this news Ishmael, accompanied by his brother and friend, traveled to a village near their home to await news from their hometown. After being greeted by the living and dead bodies of inhabitants in their Mogbwemo they knew that they had no home. Ishmael stated, “we must return to Mattru Jong, because we had seen that Mogbwemo was no longer a place to call home, and our parents couldn’t possibly be there anymore”(Beah 14). This first atrocity in Ishmael’s life violated the first, and third tiers in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Ishmael lost the homeostasis of his life which was disrupted by the touch of war. Secondly, his safety, security of body, and property were violated when the rebels wreaked havoc on his home village of Mogbwemo stripping Ishmael from the second tier of needs. Also, his third tier of needs were robbed when he lost all means of contact with his father, mother, and younger brother. Moreover, an example of Ishmael’s needs residing higher on Maslow’s pyramid occurs when Beah and his new companions travel to a village located on a beach.
Ishmael began traveling with his new companions after being separated from his brother and friends. He was then forced into terrifying isolation while stranded and lost in a jungle. After navigating his path through the jungle he encountered several boys he knew from secondary school in Mattru Jong. Although not the most familiar with these boys they recognized him and allowed Ishmael to travel with them. As they went from village to village, all the encountered were bare, desolate and abandoned towns. Once they discovered an old man left behind, he revealed that the villages kept fleeing in horror after hearing the news of several boys traveling together. After hearing this they continued their path to a village located on the beach. These villagers attacked and stripped the boys of their shoes leaving, which in its own way was a punishment without reason. Ishmael stated, “We didn’t realize what sort of punishment the fishermen had given us until we stopped running away from their village”(Beah 60). This forced circumstance left the boys walking on the ground which was being scorched by 120 degree weather. As a result, this venture taken with the group has left multiple villages with fear of annihilation. Forcing the villagers to fight or take flight. This directly affected Ishmael’s second and fourth tier on Maslow’s pyramid. The second tier was affected, because Ishmael’s life was in danger as he entered each village. The villagers could only assume the boys were rebels to protect their loved ones, and ensure their needs weren’t violated. Also, his fourth tier, which is labeled esteem, was affected when strangers began to assume he was a rebel. This violates that tier because he’s lost the respect of others who can’t find trust for strangers
anymore. However, despite Ishmael’s story of tragedy and horror, he achieves the pinnacle of the pyramid years following his revival from war. Previous to this achievement, Ishmael was picked up by soldiers and forced to fight the rebels. Having seen hundreds of people die and having killed many to survive this left him emotionally disturbed. Even after the war and during a recovery camp filled with child soldiers from the RUF and the military, he was still traumatized and believed he had to fight. Ishmael and other child soldiers fought leaving 6 dead and plenty wounded. Ishmael stated, “During the fight Mambu had blinded one boy by plucking his eye out with a bayonet”(Beah 136). Clearly, Ishmael has seen and participated in such horrific events that would mentally scar anyone. Although he has witnessed terrible crimes, Ishmael eventually finds some peace. While telling the story he takes a brief pause to talk about a dream he had years after reaching America, where he had a family and home. He wakes from the nightmare and says, “Memories I wish I could wash away, even though I am aware that they are an important part of what my life is; who I am now”(Beah 19). Evidently, this falls in line with Maslow’s theory that in order to reach the pinnacle of his pyramid you must achieve every underlying section. Once he went through recovery, Ishmael was adopted by an American family where he was provided the basic necessities of life. This family also provided Ishmael with a family to belong to. Another thing they provided Ishmael with was self-esteem and a reason to be in this world despite his story. As a result, Ishmael was able to reach self-actualization and accept the fact that he is who is he because of every struggle he went through. All in all, throughout the story the reader witnesses Ishmael reach every section in maslow’s pyramid of needs. However, as the story progresses Ishmael is stripped of everything, and even basic necessities such as food become an issue. Although he’s robbed of the life he lived before, he manages to find a path to rebuild his life. Once the war is over he is brought to America where he once again worked his way to pinnacle of Maslow’s pyramid, achieving self-actualization.
Throughout the book the audience has seen Ishmael go through adventure and sorrow. In the novel Ishmael is forced to go to war at age thirteen, but what keeps him going were his grandmother's wise words. His grandmother was the one who told him powerful lessons that he could use in real life. These lesson that Ishmael is keeping him grounded is not only from his grandmother but also from his friends. Lessons that were seen by the readers are “wild pigs”, “Bra Spider”, and the story about the moon.
The human mind is the most complex thing we know of to date, as we've only been able to figure out a fraction of its many ins and outs, mainly through guess work. Maslow spent much of his time and resources learning the intricacies of human needs. The Hierarchy of Needs by Abraham Maslow is incorrect in its representation of the needs of characters within the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. The ordering of the Hierarchy of needs pyramid is flawed, it fails to progress from one level to the next linearly, and the level of self-actualization is unobtainable for any character in the play.
In Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road, the two main characters struggle to keep moving forward. Their motivation to push onward is found in the bottom levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which are physiological, safety, and emotional. Each of the levels are equally important in order for the man to reach self-actualization. In order to reach the top level, however, the man must fulfill the bottom level first. The physiological level, which is at the bottom of the pyramid, must be carried out first in order to reach the top level of self-actualization.
Ishmael starts his journey with a will to escape and survive the civil war of Sierra Leone in order to reunite with his mom, dad, and younger siblings, who fled their home when his village was attacked by rebels. Having only his older brother, who he escaped with, and a few friends by his side Ishmael is scared, but hopeful. When the brothers are captured by rebels, Ishmael’s belief in survival is small, as indicated by his fallible survival tactics when he “could hear the gunshots coming closer…[and] began to crawl farther into the bushes” (Beah 35). Ishmael wants to survive, but has little faith that he can. He is attempting to survive by hiding wherever he can- even where the rebels can easily find him. After escaping, Ishmael runs into a villager from his home tells him news on the whereabouts of his family. His optimism is high when the villager, Gasemu, tells Ishmael, “Your parents and brothers wil...
At the rehabilitation center, Ishmael hears that an uncle he never knew about has offered Ishmael a home with him in Freetown. There is Ishmael is welcomed by his uncle, his aunt and all of his cousins and then begins to adapt to finally having a family he cares about and being far away from the war. When living with his uncle, Ishmael makes another acquaintance, Laura Simms, when he goes to New York to speak about the problems child soldiers face. Shortly after returning to Sierra Leone, the civil war reaches Freetown. The entire town is in chaos and no one dares to venture out of their homes for fear the rebels or the military could kill them. It is at this time when Ishmael suffers another loss; the death of his uncle. After his uncle dies, Ishmael decides to escape Sierra Leone, in order to evade the military. If I was in this situation, I feel that I probably would have not left Sierra Leone as quickly as Ishmael did. Ishmael made an impulsive decision that I wouldn’t have made because I am not able to make choices quickly. Furthermore, in his situation, I feel that the thought of fleeing Sierra Leone would have been on my mind but I wouldn’t have had enough courage to go through with the plan. As a sixteen year old boy, I would have been to scared to try to escape the country illegally because of the repercussions I might face if I was caught. Even if I did leave the country, I wouldn’t have left my grieving aunt and cousins by themselves, right after they just lost one person. Ishmael made the choice to escape the country because he was too afraid that he was going to be found by someone who knew him when he was in the military. That would have been a big concern for me too, but I would also feel that I wouldn’t have the strength to leave the family that I had just recently gained. For me, family is
Ishmael learned human language and culture at zoos and menageries, and began to think about the world in a way completely differently than he would have in the wild. The narrator has similar feelings of living in captivity, but has trouble articulating how or why.
As Ishmael’s life as a boy soldier slowly came to an end, these changes were the hardest to accept. He was given all knew clothes, lots of help, and was practically given his life back. A normal person would be happy to accept that, but Ishmael wasn’t exactly a normal person. His life was dedicated to being a boy soldier, and through that he develops a very violent mindset. When he is taken away from this atmosphere, he resorts to violence and has extreme drug withdrawal. ALong with that, he had severe migraines and wanted to be fighting for his country. Many other soldiers looked up to him for his dedication and contribution. Even though all they wanted to do was help him, he just wanted to fight.
The theme of survival/resilience despite great suffering was shown throughout the book. Ishmael’s ventures from village to village while running away from the RUF, going through treacherous circumstances such as burning sand, angry citizens, and even
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is a memoir of a young, emotionally distraught child soldier who takes his audience through his mental and physical journey to his eventual escape of the Civil War in Sierra Leone. For the past few days, our World Literature class have been trying to figure out/argue what category A Long Way Gone falls under. In Tim O'Brien's book, The Things They Carried, he distinguishes between two types of stories: (1) stories that need to be real and (2) stories that rely on the emotional truth. To me, A Long Way Gone is a novel that relies on the emotional truth and should be read as such; it relies on the emotions of human beings for the story to be understood as it was written by a boy like one of us. Initially I was not sure what the emotional truth was, so I googled the definition and got that, “an emotional truth is writing in such a way that readers not only learn the facts of an event, but can feel the joy, sorrow, anger, envy, love, hate, poignancy that the participant feels.” And I believe that a story that relies on the emotional truth is not any less significant than stories that strictly state the truth. A story told using emotional truth/validity is a story that, in my opinion, offers more of the real picture than that of a story that doesn’t tug on the emotions of a reader and just blatantly state the true happenings of an event.
Contents INTRODUCTION 2 CHRONOLIGICAL ARRANGEMENT OF EVENTS THAT LEAD TO CONFLICTS 3 CONCLUSION 5 INTRODUCTION An attention-grabbing story of a youngster’s voyage from beginning to end. In “A LONG WAY GONE,” Ishmael Beah, at present twenty six years old, tells a fascinating story he has always kept from everyone. When he was twelve years of age, he escaped attacking the revolutionaries and roamed a land rendered distorted by violence. By thirteen, he’d been chosen by the government, military and Ishmael Beah.
First, Ishmael arrived at the village Yele which then became a symbol of hope and innocence. In this passage, Ishmael’s inner nature was battling society because he did not want to go to war, however the army wanted to brainwash him into thinking it was the right thing to do. Further, characterization of his thoughts reveals how innocent and child-like he still was because when he first saw the injured people on their way to Yele he felt “nauseated”(Beah 100) and had to look away, this indicates that he disliked war and violence. This also indicates that Ishmael would never have joined the army without its influence.Then Ishmael looked away the soldier said that he would get used to it. This interaction with the soldier makes Ishmael seem more child-like because the soldier’s acted superior and more experienced. In addition, he was still a child upon arriving in Yele, where he could finally feel safe. In Yele there was always “lively chattering and laughter” (Beah 101). It was a place where “girls played clapping games”(Beah 102), the boys “played soccer”(Beah 102). Thanks to this village Ishmael had regained some of his childhood. But then the army took it away again. The lieutenant got up in front of all the civilians and told them to fight. He said that they had a choice but he was lying, the rebels had surrounded the village, if they left they would have no food, and no protection, they would be wal...
Huitt, W. (2007),Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University, (http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/regsys/maslow.html), [Accessed 29 December 2013].
Maslow believed that there was a hierarchy of five innate needs that influence people’s behaviors (Schultz & Schultz, 2013, p.246-247). In a pyramid fashion, at the base are physiological needs, followed by safety needs, then belonginess and love needs, succeeded by esteem needs, and finally the need for self-actualization. Maslow claimed that lower order needs must be at least partially satisfied before higher level needs are addressed. Furthermore, behavior is dominated by solely one need
Unlike many of his colleagues at the time who were focusing on psychopathology, or what is wrong with individuals, he focused on how individuals are motivated to fulfill their potential and what needs govern their respective behaviors (McLeod)). Maslow developed the hierarchy over time, adjusting from a rigid structure where needs must be met before being able to achieve a higher level, to where the individuals can experience and behave in ways across the hierarchy multiple times daily depending on their needs. The hierarchy is comprised of 5 levels; Physiological, Safety and Security, Love and Belonging, Esteem, and Self-Actualization. The bottom two levels are considered basic needs, or deficiency needs because once the needs are met they cease to be a driving factor, unlike psychological needs. Loving and Belonging and Esteem needs are considered psychological needs, and are different from basic needs because they don’t stem from a lack of something, but rather the desire to grow. Maslow theorizes that individual’s decisions and behavior are determined based on their current level of needs, and the ideal level to achieve full potential culminates in self-actualization; however, operating on this level cannot be achieved until the preceding levels of needs have been
Similarly, Maslow's theory also reflects that humans have an internal force to reach their highest potential (Maslow, 1968). Maslow examined the hierarchy of basic human needs and developed a pyramid of requirements which motivates human beings and shapes their personality. At the bottom of his pyramid are found the basic physiological motivations which are necessary for survival such as food and shelter. The next level incorporates the need for safety, both physical and psychological. This is followed by love and belongingness which relate to receiving and giving affection. Presuming the love need is met, the next level up is the need for esteem which includes the feeling of self-esteem and self-respect. At the top of the pyramid stands the complex need for self-actualization which is a meta-need as per Maslow (1964) and we can reach it through peak experiences. It is the highest level of growth when someone reached her or his capacity to the fullest. Maslow estimated that only 1 percent of people ever really fulfil this need (Maslow,