Maslow's hierarchy of needs and its relationship with psychological health and materialism

Abstract

Maslow's (1954) theory of a hierarchy of human needs has generated little research, perhaps because of the lack of specific, concrete operationalisation of concepts such as ‘psychological well-being’ and basic need satisfaction. The Need Satisfaction Inventory (NSI: Lester, 1990) was developed to measure basic need satisfaction and 157 undergraduate subjects completed both it and the Beck Depression (BDI) and Anxiety Inventories (BAI), as well as Spielberger's (1986) Anger-Expression questionnaire (AX). The latter three questionnaires represent an operationalisation of Spielberger, Ritterband, Sydeman, Reheiserdc Unger's (1995) notion that emotions act as indicators of psychological well-being. The hypothesis that scores on the NSI would be significantly correlated with the BDI, BAI, and AX was supported. Ss also completed the Richins and Dawson (1992) materialism index, and it was hypothesised that if hoarding material goods does in fact represent compensatory neurotic behaviour, then materialism would also be negatively correlated with the NSI. The hypothesis was confirmed, providing further evidence for Maslow's (1970) theory that basic need satisfaction is associated with psychological health. However, in the absence of norms for the NSI, there was no conclusive evidence to suggest that basic needs reside in a consistent, and strict global hierarchy.

Investigating the Influencers of Materialism in Adolescence

“…That is, adolescents with low self-esteem tend to have a higher degree of materialism, confirming the result with several other studies (Burroughs & Rindfleisch, 2002;Chaplin & John 2007;Kasser & Kasser, 2001;Munro Saunders, & Bore, 1998;Yurchisin & Johnson, 2004). The negative relationship between variables 'adolescent Materialism ' and 'Self-esteem' is justified by the fact that individuals with low self-esteem are in search of what can help them improve their image or how they feel (Chaplin & John, 2007).…”

A Snapshot of Five Materialism Studies in Australia

“…If persons who score high on materialism are more dependent on comparisons with others, then it might be reasonably hypothesised that they would also score lower on self-esteem. Some support for this might be found in Saunders, Munro and Bore (1998) who reported a significant negative correlation between scores on the same materialism index as used in the present studies and a measure of Maslow's Esteem level needs. This was interpreted as suggesting that the acquisition of material goods may be seen as a neurotic defence for unsatisfied esteem level needs.…”

Linking individual differences in satisfaction with each of Maslow's needs to the Big Five personality traits and Panksepp's primary emotional systems

“…(1983) finding similar results (with the exception of no link between Extraversion and Self-actualization ) using a different measure to assess individual differences in the satisfaction of Maslow's needs, but relying again on Eysenck's PEN model. A study by Saunders et al. (1998) also observed associations between higher negative emotionality (assessed via the Beck Depression/Anxiety and Anger Expression scales) and lower satisfaction with Maslow's needs as measured by Lester's Need Satisfaction Inventory .…”