Analysis of Maslow's Need Hierarchy with three social class groups

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is often cited as a possible basis for a fuller understanding of the individual's needs, particularly with regard to Quality of Life. The reluctance to use these concepts is based primarily on lack of empirical evidence in this field. To rectify this situation, a new methodology based on Q sorting was developed to measure the individual's need importance for each of the five needs Maslow proposes. After an estimation of reliability, the test was administered to 240 adults, made up of three social groups, lower class, working class and middle class, balanced for age and sex. The results provided evidence that individuals of a similar social class share similar notions of which needs are most important to them, and these notions differ across social class. It appeared the majority of the middle class sample were esteem, self-actualization orientated, while the majority of the working class were esteem, belonging orientated. Conversely, the majority of the lower class sample were physiology and belonging orientated. However, a cluster analysis of the need items revealed that the items representative of a need were not necessarily assigned similar importance by any one group. It would appear that each need can not be viewed as a unitary whole of equal importance, but rather must be seen as a conglomerate. Methodologically, the article illustrates the feasibility of directly measuring need importance and the use of cluster analysis to group both need items and individuals. Further, the assessment of group differences allows a fuller understanding of needs and the importance the individual assigns to their satisfaction.