The following is a brief technical comparison between Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs model and Clayton Alderfer’s E.R.G. theory. The latter is an experimentally-confirmed, albeit less widely-known upgraded version of Maslow’s model. (E.R.G. Theory is the acronym for existence needs, relatedness needs and growth needs.)
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory postulates that needs could be categorized into 5 broad categories, namely: Physiological, Safety, Love, Esteem, and Self-Actualization. These were arranged into a pyramid of hierarchical order character, with the presumption that primary needs, such as physiological and safety needs would be at the base of the pyramid, and as implied by the size of the base of such a pyramid, they would consume most of an individual human being’s attention. What are deemed “higher needs” would only receive attention once these lower needs were satisfied. (Maslow, A. 1954). As we discussed in earlier chapters, we believe that most human groups are organized along lines of primary needs.
Yale University behavioral scientist Clayton Alderfer was interested in knowing whether Abraham Maslow’s model was correct, and on the very first page of his book, he states as much in the acknowledgments section, saying he owes an intellectual debt to the man. In fact, Alderfer asked Maslow to read a first draft of his manuscript, so he might offer comments, which he did. Still, in a close reading of Maslow’s writings, Alderfer determined that Maslow’s categories suffered an absence of observation-based rigor.
For example, drawing on one of Maslow’s own discussions about safety needs, on page 25 of Alderfer’s 1972 book, he states: “Maslow mentions issues such as physical illness, pain, and assault as one set of issues and parental outbursts of rage, name calling, and speaking harshly as another. E.R.G. theory proposes that physical threats might be usefully put together with Maslow’s physiological category, and, thereby, fit the existence need category. Safety issues involving interaction with other people would be considered part of love needs and, thereby, included with relatedness needs.”
Alderfer makes a similar observation in relation to Maslow’s esteem needs. Maslow viewed esteem needs in a bifurcated manner, into either (a)“the regard a person receives from others” (i.e. social approval, which in VPT terms = outside-in processing), or (b)“esteem which depends on the internal cues from [one’s own] real capacity, achievement and independence” which is internally generated (in VPT terms inside-out processing). In VPT terms, these are distinguishing criteria between the AP and the FP.
Alderfer concluded that Maslow was actually discussing seven discrete need categories rather than five, namely: (1) physiological; (2) material safety; (3) interpersonal safety; (4) belonging (love); (5) interpersonal esteem; (6) self-confirmed esteem; and (7) self-actualization. These were then collapsed into three categories of what VP theory would call overlapping function, namely: Existence needs, comprised of categories (1) and (2); Relatedness needs, comprised of categories (3), (4) and (5); and Growth needs, comprised of categories (6) and (7).
Alderfer defines each of these three global need categories as follows. “Existence needs reflect a person’s requirement for material and energy exchange and for the need to reach and maintain a homeostatic equilibrium with regard to the provision of certain material substances. Relatedness needs acknowledge that a person is not a self-contained unit but must engage in transactions with his human environment. Growth needs emerge from the tendency of open systems to increase in internal order and differentiation over time as a consequence of going beyond steady states and interacting with the environment.” (Source: page 9.)
Although E.R.G. theory is a persuasive recasting of Maslow’s model, it is also the result of taking other substantive hypotheses and thinking into consideration. One such was Clark Hull’s Drive Reduction Theory from 1943, Open-Systems Theory as espoused by Gordon Allport 1960 and 1961, and Ludwig von Bertalanffy in 1968. Alderfer also took into account what he calls the Simple Frustration Hypothesis as was argued by Morse in 1953, Homans in 1961, Morse in 1963, Zaleznik in 1966, and Berkowitz in 1969 (see pages 21 through 24).
Although Alderfer made a point of stating that E.R.G. was “in a loose sense…derived from open-systems view of man” (page 9); he also said that the Simple Frustration Hypothesis was particularly valuable not only in Alderfer’s formulation of the E.R.G. theory, but in helping to prove the validity of the theory itself (see page 23 for a discussion of this question).
The hypothesis essentially states that as need satisfaction goes up, desire/motivation goes down; and that as satisfaction goes down, desire goes up; and that as dissatisfaction goes up, desire also goes up. In other words, Alderfer saw how “frustrated needs” could cause a person to behave in a manner that was not in strict accordance with the hierarchical premise found in Maslow’s theory. Reference source: Alderfer, Clayton (1972).
Of course, from a VPT perspective, emotion is the energy generated for the satisfaction of needs. As such, each VP position will handle the frustration and satisfaction of needs differently. In the DP position, the frustration of needs is an “acceptable” state because exposing one’s needs also exposes the person to danger. For AP, needs that fall outside of one’s roles are “frustrated” and “accepted” as such. Needs that fit within the role are both accepted and met. For the FP, needs are easily recognized and fought for, and often recognized as the opposite of what the external controller said they should be. So for the person in the FP mindset, the frustration of needs is deemed unacceptable, and this is what sets the person to move into this position. In the ISF, needs are recognized from within, and the environment is perceived as a facilitator in the meeting of those needs, so there is minimal frustration. So from the VPT perspective, Alderfer’s view of how frustration could cause people to override compliance to a hierarchical needs sequence would be correct when it comes to the FP mindset and the ISF.
According to these models, humans are biologically, socially and hence psychologically motivated to address basic life needs, like physical security, prior to fulfilling other less-critical-to-life needs.
While Maslow felt the human mind was pretty much locked into this sequence (as amygdala hijacking would also suggest), Alderfer was less convinced. He suggested humans had both the capacity and potential to deviate from the needs hierarchy sequence when less important needs became overly frustrated. Still, it is safe to say Alderfer did not completely reject the view that as a general rule, people tend to sequentially move from existence needs to relatedness needs to growth needs. In sum, the two theorists only differ in terms of degree, but not in terms of substance.
Where Alderfer’s and Maslow’s models become especially relevant to Victimization Theory is in how need hierarchy sequences impacted the evolution of the brain. How much time an organism spends fulfilling one or more particular needs can affect the function-to-structure dynamic. This is especially the case when it came to brain development, as neuroplasticity research would suggest.