— Overview
An organizational-behavior assignment reaches for the most basic theory of motivation it can find, and still finds Maslow waiting there. More detailed theories have arrived over time, the author says, but this one is still used as a common account of what moves a person. Two premises do most of the work: only an unsatisfied need can generate behavior, and needs form a hierarchy. A sentence about bread makes the first premise hard to shrug off.
A person does not live by bread alone — but for someone who is starving, a piece of bread is everything.
— Contents and key concepts
The theory a course still reaches for first
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is introduced as the most basic theory for explaining human motivation. Finer and more specialized theories have been added with time, the author writes, and yet this one is still used as a general theory of motivation. It is recognized as a pyramid: human needs arranged in a hierarchical order, from the ones that keep a body alive to the ones that ask a person to become more than they already are.
Two premises are where the theory begins. The first is that behavior can be generated only through an unsatisfied need. The second is that the various needs form a hierarchy. A later line repeats the first idea in plainer words: a satisfied need is not a motivating factor. That is the whole engine. Nothing here depends on a sales figure or a workplace survey this report does not give.
Five landings, and a sentence that will not leave the table
The five levels are listed from the bottom. At the lowest landing are physiological needs, including food, clothing, and shelter, tied directly to the maintenance of life. Above them is the need for safety, the pursuit of physical and economic security. Then comes a social need, the wish to belong to some group. After that, a need for self-esteem, seeking evaluation and respect from other people. At the highest landing is the need for self-actualization, in which a person tries to become a creative human being by exercising potential capacity. When the need at the lower level is satisfied, the person is said to pursue the one above; needs already met are not supposed to motivate.
The line that stays with a reader is not a diagram. 'A human being is not a creature who lives by bread alone, but for people who are truly starving, a piece of bread is everything.' The sentence is doing the work of the first premise. Until that lowest need is met, the higher landings can wait. The discussion title sits in organizational behavior, and the introduction also promised examples and a note on applying the same ladder to social-work practice, including its limits. Those later pages are not clearly in the source.
Sources
- An organizational-behavior account on Maslow's five-level hierarchy of needs, including two basic premises and a sentence about bread. An application to social-work practice is announced in the introduction but is not clearly present in the source.
Last updated: 14 November 2026
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