Maslow v. Herzberg
While looking into both Maslow's and Herzberg's hierarchies of needs there are two large differences that I noticed. Maslow's hierarchy tends to be geared more toward life as a while where as Herzberg's concentrates heavily on success in a workplace.
Maslow's model portrays needs as endless occurring goals and is split into five levels. These levels are psychological, safety, social, esteem, and self actualization. As one is met another emerges and you climb your way up the list. Herzberg's model is split into two categories and simply lists actions that can be taken to get a good effect from certain actions. These two categories are hygiene and motivators.
I took the quiz to figure out where I fall in Maslow's schema. There were a few things that I realized about myself in doing so. My biological, safety, sense of belonging/love, and esteem (deficiencies) are all fulfilled. My transcendence and self actualization (focus on personal growth) are fulfilled as well. The one thing that stuck out to me was that my cognitive was not fulfilled. The cognitive aspect of his model is actively seeking beauty and having an interest in the arts central to me. It sounds harsh but I do not care much to make an interest in arts or actively seeking out beauty a mainstream in my life.
After looking at and comparing/contrasting both Maslow's and Herzberg's hierarchies of needs I prefer Herzberg's. It was pointed out in the book Company Officer that (Smoke) "Maslow's concept suggests one-way movement, that we are always moving up the steps in the hierarchy." (P. 139, para. 2) I completely agree with this. Although Maslow's hierarchy enables someone of authority, such as a company officer, to realize that their staffing has needs, everyone has some sort of turbulence in life. Because people experience turbulence in life it is never one straight climb to the top. There will always be parts of Maslow's hierarchy of needs that are either inconsistent, exist constantly, or cease to exist for periods of time. Therefore, Maslow's one-way movement is not accurate to me. Herzberg's model to me makes more sense. It is very easy to relate to and portrays that without certain actions and individual will not get nor receive certain effects. This, to me, is accurate.
As far as that “test” went, it is flawed in a few aspects. Most noticeably is the section that you have an issue with, “aesthetic needs.” This did not come around until the 60’s or 70’s. Go figure that it included something of the culture of the time. In addition, it is a humanist theory in psychology, which I will not get into but it has a lot of issues, once again follows the culture of the 60’s and 70’s. In other regards I definitely do not see Maslow’s Hierarchy as being one directional. From taking a retrospective look on my life I can see where I was missing certain aspects and was at a lower level. I fell that not everything has to be present in order to be at that higher level, just enough so that the lower level is not constantly on your mind. I do agree with you in the regards that Herzberg makes a lot of since and is easy to relate to, also I kind of feel that a lot of people are wanting things given to them instead of finding their motivation to work for them.
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