Section: OLCA311A027 Subject: BSAELE01 – Human Behavior in Organization

Student: 20135750 – Mar A. Tundag Instructor: Francis Ruiz

Activity 3

1. What is Motivation?

Motivation is frequently used to describe why a person does something. It is the driving force behind human
actions. Motivation includes the biological, emotional, social, and cognitive forces that activate human
behavior. It is the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. Motivation is the
desire to act in service of a goal. It's the crucial element in setting and attaining our objectives. It  is all
about our internal desire to accomplish something that is important to us.

2. Explain Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory.

Maslow believed that humans all have needs that must be satisfied, from the most basic needs to the most
complex. According to Maslow, people will be consumed by their basic needs before moving on to other, more
advanced needs.
- According to Maslow, we have five categories of needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-
actualization.
- In this theory, higher needs in the hierarchy begin to emerge when people feel they have sufficiently
satisfied the previous need.
- Although later research does not fully support all of Maslow’s theory, his research has impacted other
psychologists and contributed to the field of positive psychology.

In order to better understand what motivates human beings, Maslow proposed that human needs can be
organized into a hierarchy. This hierarchy ranges from more concrete needs such as food and water to
abstract concepts such as self-fulfillment. According to Maslow, when a lower need is met, the next need on
the hierarchy becomes our focus of attention.

These are the five categories of needs according to Maslow:

Physiological
These refer to basic physical needs like drinking when thirsty or eating when hungry. According to
Maslow, some of these needs involve our efforts to meet the body’s need for homeostasis; that is,
maintaining consistent levels in different bodily systems (for example, maintaining a body temperature of
98.6°).
Maslow considered physiological needs to be the most essential of our needs. If someone is lacking in
more than one need, they’re likely to try to meet these physiological needs first. For example, if someone
is extremely hungry, it’s hard to focus on anything else besides food. Another example of a physiological
need would be the need for adequate sleep.
Safety
Once people’s physiological requirements are met, the next need that arises is a safe environment.
Our safety needs are apparent even early in childhood, as children have a need for safe and predictable
 environments and typically react with fear or anxiety when these are not met. Maslow pointed out that in
adults living in developed nations, safety needs are more apparent in emergency situations (e.g. war and
disasters), but this need can also explain why we tend to prefer the familiar or why we do things like
purchase insurance and contribute to a savings account.
Love and Belonging
According to Maslow, the next need in the hierarchy involves feeling loved and accepted. This need
includes both romantic relationships as well as ties to friends and family members. It also includes our
need to feel that we belong to a social group. Importantly, this need encompasses both feeling
loved and feeling love towards others.
Since Maslow’s time, researchers have continued to explore how love and belonging needs impact
well-being. For example, having social connections is related to better physical health and, conversely,
feeling isolated (i.e. having unmet belonging needs) has negative consequences for health and well-
being.2
Esteem
Our esteem needs involve the desire to feel good about ourselves. According to Maslow, esteem
needs include two components. The first involves feeling self-confidence and feeling good about oneself.
The second component involves feeling valued by others; that is, feeling that our achievements and
contributions have been recognized by other people. When people’s esteem needs are met, they feel
confident and see their contributions and achievements as valuable and important. However, when their
esteem needs are not met, they may experience what psychologist Alfred Adler called “feelings of
inferiority.”
Self-Actualization
Self-actualization refers to feeling fulfilled, or feeling that we are living up to our potential.
One unique feature of self-actualization is that it looks different for everyone. For one person, self-
actualization might involve helping others; for another person, it might involve achievements in an
artistic or creative field. Essentially, self-actualization means feeling that we are doing what we believe
we are meant to do. According to Maslow, achieving self-actualization is relatively rare, and his
examples of famous self-actualized individuals include Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, and Mother
Teresa.