Introduction
Do you like yourself?
Do you consider yourself a confident person?
Do you wish you had more confidence in yourself?
When other people are critical of you, does it make you feel real bad about yourself?
This article will foster on people's esteem needs and talk about ways where we can have more self-respect and just in general be happier with ourselves.
Esteem Needs
When it comes to humanistic psychology, there is one theory known as the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, one of those needs is the esteem needs.We will look a little more in details at how the hierarchy of needs relates to our self-confidence and our self-esteem.
This is the original Maslow's hiearchy of needs.
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* The Maslow hierarchy of needs
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(image of the maslow hiearchy of needs)
It should be emphasized that this isn't necessarily the most perfect model of human behaviour but it certainly is an observable model and that we can easily observe that people are motivated by wanting to fulfill these various needs.
But we dont necessarily need a perfect model in order to have a useful model and Maslow's hierarchy is a very useful model in looking at our own behaviour and things that motivate us, as well as what motivates other people to behave the way that they do.
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* The Maslow's expanded hierarchy of needs
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(image of maslow's expanded hierarchy of needs)
This is Maslow's expanded hierarchy of needs. Three different levels have been added: there is a need to understand as well as a need for beauty and, on top, a need to transcend the self.
You will also notice that under psychological needs, one more level has been added, which is the need to avoid pain and experience pleasure.
Another level called the need to contribute has been added in between the need for understanding and the esteem needs.
Now this is the psychic truth hierarchy of needs, which can be explored at a later stage.
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* The Deficiency Needs
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(image of maslow's original hierarchy of needs but highlight all deficiency needs)
If we go back to the original Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the first four levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs are the physiological needs, the safety needs, the loving-belonging needs, and the esteem needs. You refer to those four levels as the deficiency needs, meaning that, if you're ever deficient and that, if you have those needs, it will motivate you into action to fulfill them.
Some really easy to see examples might be 'I feel hungry, so I eat', 'I am lonely, so I call up a friend', 'Im feeling low self-esteem or feeling badly about myself, so I seek approval from other people'.
Maslow also referred to people fulfilling these needs as coping behaviour.
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* The Being Needs
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(image of maslow's original hierarchy of needs but highlight the remaining needs)
Now the rest of the needs, a need to understand, a need for beauty, self-actualization needs, and the need to transcend the self, these higher needs are referred to as the Being needs. Attempts to fulfill those needs was called expressive behaviour.
It's important to note the distinction between coping and expressive behaviour. In general, coping behaviours are an attempt to satisfy a deficiency. And, in this way, they are an attempt to receive or consume.
Expressive behaviour, on the other hand, is generally an attempt to express the self. And, in this way, it's generally more geared towards giving or creating something.
So, while the coping needs are trying to produce an inflow of things to consume, the expressive behaviour is actually producing an outflow from the self.
Some examples of coping behaviour might be 'You are thirsty and you get a glass of water, then you drink' or 'You are feeling low self-esteem and bad about yourself so maybe you go fish for a compliment' or maybe 'you pick a fight with someone just so you can make them wrong'.
Another example might be that you feel lonely and so, maybe you buy a prostitute or engage in promiscuous behaviour.
On the other hand, an expressive behaviour might be to cook a meal for all of your friends or setting a goal of something you've always wanted to achieve and achieving it. Creating art or music also falls in this category of behaviour. You might also build a house, which is another example of expressive behaviour.
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* Self-respect
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In order to achieve self-respect, it's important to focus on the expressive needs more so than the coping needs.
If we go back to the Maslow's original hierarchy of needs, basically, the theory works like this: at the very bottom, you have your physiological needs. And, if you have got to a point in life where you were satisfying all of your physiological needs, such as eating, sleeping, and other related needs in that category, then you can begin addressing your safety needs.
Once you fulfill those, you can start addressing love and belonging needs. And once you fulfill the love and belonging needs, you can then address your esteem needs. And once you achieve the esteem needs, you can start looking at the higher needs, the self-actualization needs.
Now, maybe that's where the Maslow's hierarchy is somewhat flawed because, in some opinions,
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