Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs Study

Maslow's hierarchy of needs, represented as a pyramid with the more basic needs at the bottom

One of the main theories relating to motivation is Maslow's hierarchy needs. This is theory in the field of psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow an American psychologist in his 1943 paper " A theory of human motivation". This is a theory predicted on fulfilling innate human needs in priority.

In this Maslow stated that most basic needs should be satisfied before the next level of needs emerge. He stated that the individual needs are arranged in a hierarchy from lower level to the higher level of needs which is classified into 5 modules which is psychological needs, security needs, belongingness needs, self- esteem needs and self-actualization.

This case is explained below when the person is fond of activity.

Psychologists Mark R. Lepper and David Greene from Stanford and the University of Michigan performed an experiment on "overjustification effect".

A survey has been conducted with fifty children between 3 and 4. These children are selected by making sure that they are interested in drawing. Lepper and Greene wanted to analyze the effects of rewards on the performance of the children. Even though the experiment was done on children, experts considered that this phenomenon is more or less similar when applied to adults as well.

If the person is fond of activity,

Children were randomly assigned to different situations expected reward, surprise reward and no reward. Children were allowed to draw for 6 minutes in separate rooms by imposing different conditions on them as mentioned above.

Expected Reward: Children in this condition will get a certificate with a gold seal and ribbon after the completion of the task.

Surprise Reward: In this condition children weren't told about the reward until after the drawing task was completed. They would receive the same reward as

The overall hypothesis shows that the mind sometimes work in a typical way. the children who were already motivated intrinsically to draw changed their motivation when they were rewarded for the activity. before they were drawing they enjoyed drawing, but now it seemed like they were drawing for the reward. At the inception they drew more but later on it decreased.

Sometimes rewards are dangerous as they remind us obligations, making us to do things even when we do not want to. when money is associated with work, work can become dull, tedious, and painful even when it is not.

Tangible rewards tend to have negative effect on intrinsic motivation. even when they are offered for good performance, they decrease intrinsic motivation for tasks which are inherently interesting.

Rewards sometimes makes people worse at problem-solving and even less creative.

Yes, rewards sometimes do work significantly when they do not want to do anything. but when the tasks are interesting, reward can damage the motivation by undermining our natural talent for self