Concept Exploration

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INTRODUCTION

Choose a theory from your undergraduate education in any discipline. It should be a commonly used theory for the general public such as Maslow, Darwin, Descartes, or others you used in physiology courses, chemistry, business courses, etc. Do not use a nursing theory.  Provide the theory in your response.  Identify the two concepts and the proposition between them.  Explain the concepts. How might the terms used differ from the general use of the term?  How might the term be confused or misinterpreted? Format your theory in the form “psychosocial development (Concept A) progresses through (Proposition) stages (Concept B)”.

 

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THE TASK

 

  • MAKE A PEER RESPONSE OR REVIEW ON THE ESSAY BELOW
  • Length: A minimum of 150 words per post, not including references
  • Citations: At least one high-level scholarly reference in APA per post from within the last 5 years

For this week’s assignment we were asked to choose a general theory not based in nursing and identify applied concepts. I chose Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory. Maslow’s theory attempts to explain human development by naming basic needs and listing them by priority. Most interpretations use a pyramid to visualize how basic needs are being prioritized and build on each other. The first priority are physiological needs, followed by safety needs, love and belonging, esteem needs and last self-actualization needs (McLeod, 2020). Applying the conceptual model to this theory, concept A is the statement of the five basic human needs, the proposition is the fact, that each need has to be met in order to move on to the next stage of needs. Maslow later refined his theory by acknowledging that the hierarchy is not as rigid as he first proposed and that the priority of human needs can change at any time based on life circumstances and environmental factors, leading to concept B (McLeod, 2020).

Confusion might arise in how to interpret or define certain needs. Physiological needs can differ from person to person. While everybody requires food and water for survival, physiological needs should also include physical wellbeing which will require different actions based on health status and the environment of the individual. The need for safety also depends on the individual’s life circumstance, as the safety needs of a person in a stable society can be very different from the safety needs of a person living in a country with increased crime and poverty or at war. Maslow’s five basic needs are mostly divided in deficiency needs and growth needs (McLeod, 2020. While literature identifies the first four needs as deficiency needs and the fifth need of self-actualization as a growth need, again, one might argue that the belonging and esteem need can also be labeled as growth needs in my opinion.

Maslow used his hierarchy of needs to identify human behavior and individual motivation. In his opinion, not every human being will achieve the fifth level of self-actualization and provided a list of individuals that achieved this level. The problem with his application is, that analysis of behavior and human development are mostly based on the opinion of the person evaluating their biographies and can be biased. In case of Maslow, he mostly analyzed male individuals with only few female representations, which could be determined outdated in the current society.

Reference:

McLeod, S. (2020). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Online publication. Retrieved from: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html#def

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