Modern-day presentations of Maslow’s theory often leave out this critical notion of an integrated hierarchy and instead focus on the stage-like pyramid—even though in his published writings Maslow never actually created a pyramid to represent his hierarchy of needs.
Todd Bridgman and his colleagues examined in detail how the pyramid came to be and concluded that “Maslow’s Pyramid” was actually created by a management consultant in the sixties. From there, it quickly became popular in the emerging field of organization behavior. Bridgman and his colleagues note that the pyramid resonated with the “prevailing [post-war] ideologies of individualism, nationalism and capitalism in America and justified a growing managerialism in bureaucratic (i.e., layered triangular) formats.”
Unfortunately, the continual reproduction of the pyramid in management textbooks had the unfortunate consequence of reducing Maslow’s rich and nuanced intellectual contributions to a parody and has betrayed the actual spirit of Maslow’s notion of self-actualization as realizing one’s creative potential for humanitarian ends. As Bridgman and his colleagues noted, “Inspiring the study of management and its relationship to creativity and the pursuit of the common good would be a much more empowering legacy to Maslow than a simplistic, 5-step, one-way pyramid.”
Todd Bridgman and his colleagues examined in detail how the pyramid came to be and concluded that “Maslow’s Pyramid” was actually created by a management consultant in the sixties. From there, it quickly became popular in the emerging field of organization behavior. Bridgman and his colleagues note that the pyramid resonated with the “prevailing [post-war] ideologies of individualism, nationalism and capitalism in America and justified a growing managerialism in bureaucratic (i.e., layered triangular) formats.”
Unfortunately, the continual reproduction of the pyramid in management textbooks had the unfortunate consequence of reducing Maslow’s rich and nuanced intellectual contributions to a parody and has betrayed the actual spirit of Maslow’s notion of self-actualization as realizing one’s creative potential for humanitarian ends. As Bridgman and his colleagues noted, “Inspiring the study of management and its relationship to creativity and the pursuit of the common good would be a much more empowering legacy to Maslow than a simplistic, 5-step, one-way pyramid.”
- Scott Barry Kaufman, Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization, 2020
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