LEILA HOUSTON
  • About
  • PROJECTS
    • Encrypted Sounds of Wellbeing
    • Straightening out the petals
    • A Local Voice
    • Conversation Series
    • Dialogues
    • They believed the river did sing
    • Am I losing you or have you left already?
    • From the 12th floor
    • EC Arts
  • Video/ Sound
  • Portfolio
  • Blog
  • Media
  • Contact
  • About
  • PROJECTS
    • Encrypted Sounds of Wellbeing
    • Straightening out the petals
    • A Local Voice
    • Conversation Series
    • Dialogues
    • They believed the river did sing
    • Am I losing you or have you left already?
    • From the 12th floor
    • EC Arts
  • Video/ Sound
  • Portfolio
  • Blog
  • Media
  • Contact
LEILA HOUSTON

Corona Viewed From Maslow’s Hierarchy of NeedsWhy a public health crisis supersedes all else

6/11/2020

0 Comments

 

Glenn Geher, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is founding director of the campus’ Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) program.
Online:
 Dr. Glenn Geher's website at SUNY New Paltz,

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/darwins-subterranean-world/202003/corona-viewed-maslow-s-hierarchy-needs

Imagine this: You’re on vacation and are about to take a swim in the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of southern Florida. You check your phone right before you head to the water, only to find some pretty upsetting news:
You just received an email from your supervisor indicating that you’ve been passed over for the promotion to Director. Worse, one of your not-so-favorite colleagues, Ted, who has stabbed you in the back every chance he’s gotten for years, apparently got the position. 
You shake your head and put your phone down. What a blow to your self-esteem. Uggh. You cannot believe it!
Well, you’ve paid all this money to come to Florida so you might as well make the most of it. With your tail slightly between your legs, you walk to the water and dive into a nice-sized wave. The water is warm and you’re in. That email, of course, still smarts …
Suddenly, to your surprise, you find yourself smashed by a huge wave. You are actually fully submerged and scared. You can’t seem to touch the ocean bottom and you are having a hard time breathing and, for a moment, you can’t figure out which way is up. This is downright frightening!
After about 20 seconds (which seems like an hour), you find your footing, get your head above the water, and you realize you’re going to be OK. Thank goodness.
But for that 20-second bit of time, you were petrified. And for that whole while, the disappointing news of your having been passed over for the promotion had completely escaped your mind.
 
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Picture
In 1943, iconic psychologist Abraham Maslow presented a theory of human motivation that was so elegant that it has, for decades, been met with strong acceptance and praise. The basic idea of Maslow’s model is well-conceptualized if you think of a pyramid with five levels.
The levels represent five categories of needs, with “higher” needs being dependent on the satisfaction of “lower” needs. Thus, based on this model, if your “lower” needs are not met, then you’re not in a position to work on fulfilling your “higher” needs.
​

These needs, starting with “the highest” on the pyramid, are as follows:
Self-Actualization: The need to become the best version of yourself that you can be.
Esteem: The need to genuinely appreciate and respect oneself.
Love and Belonging
: The need to feel fully and unconditionally supported by someone else, and the need to provide such support and love to another.
Safety: The need to feel physically and emotionally safe from harm and genuine threats.
Physiological
:
Needs that are biologically basic, such as the need for water, food, or air.
In the fictitious example provided above, you went from being someone who was worried about esteem needs (based on that unfortunate email about your not getting the Director position) to suddenly being flooded, literally, with a physiological need: the ability to breathe. As predicted by Maslow’s model, if your primary needs are lower on the pyramid, then you find yourself less focused on needs that are higher on the pyramid. In short: If you’re drowning, you’re not worrying too much about being passed over for a promotion ...
Corona and Maslow’s Hierarchy
If you’re like most readers of Psychology Today, then you likely have most of your physiological needs met. After all, if you’ve got no food or water, what business do you have reading a blog post?
In terms of Maslow’s hierarchy, most normal adults can be thought of as working, generally, on the upper parts of the pyramid. Trying to figure out love needs (such as trying to re-ignite a long-term romantic relationship), taking steps to advance your esteem needs (by, perhaps, applying for leadership positions within your organization), and/or trying to achieve that elusive state of self-actualization (perhaps by meditating, doing yoga, or going on retreats in the mountains, for instance).
But the coronavirus situation, a worldwide pandemic, has knocked many of us, regardless of where we may have been “on the pyramid” just a few weeks ago, to the bottom of the pyramid.
As Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, said in a statement that was released earlier this week:
I understand that this is a burden to businesses. ... There is going to be an impact on the economy, not just here in New York but all across the country, and we're going to have to deal with that crisis, but let's deal with one crisis at a time. Let's deal with the crisis at hand and the crisis at hand is a public health crisis.
Put in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy: While the fiscal fallout of the corona pandemic will be nothing short of enormous, that must take a back seat to the more imminent health crisis that we are facing as a broader community.
We can’t worry about higher-level needs when we’ve got physiological and safety needs that need to be addressed. 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Leila Houston

    Leila Houston (London, 1977) is a visual artist whose work investigates the social, political and historical aspects of a place.

    Categories

    All

    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Archive

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.