>1) people are not motivated by higher level needs (perhaps within a given
>context, as Jay suggests) when lower level needs are unsatisfied. E.g. an
>employee will not work from self-actualization motives when security needs
>are threatened by arbitrary and capricious management decision-making
>habits with respect to terminations and promotions.
>2) Satisfied needs do not motivate. Eg. offering more money to someone
>who has all the material things they want, or offering the opportunity to
>work as a team to someone who is happy with existing work relationships,
>will not stimulate an increase in productivity or creativity or whatever
>is desired.
>I am intrigued by the question of how motivation under capitalism works in
>relation to Maslow's hierarchy. One interpretation may be that for many
>people, captitalism creates a constant state of financial insecurity in
>which safety needs are never quite satisfied, giving rise to the
>predominance of the "Type A" personality in U.S. culture. Type A's, while
>seeming achievement-oriented, are considered to be primarily fear-driven.
>Lee Holmer <llh@seattleu.edu>
One thing to note is that when an individual has experienced a higher
level of comfort, attained personally, they tend to gravitate back to it
-- while those who had that comfort "given to them" , i.e. an excess of
reward, tend to only become dissatisfied with themselves and their
"benefactor".
Case in point-- many "bottom up" reveloutions come from a large group
having had some sort of security that was granted them, taken away... The
French reveolution may have had some roots in the upper echelons, but the
force of the people was motivated by hunger. In this case hunger can come
back into the context as (a little metaphorical)... If I am hungry, but I
know how to cook - I will cook and feed myself; if I am fed everyday by
someone else, and never learned to cook I am in a state of duress when I
am hungry. This metaphore, from my daily interaction with my toddler, but
can represent ANY kind of hunger.
If my state on the hierarchy is one in which I know how to ammeliorate - I
will do so with little duress. If I customarily have that situation
amerliorated by an outside force, and that force is not present... I rage.
--Michael Johnson <mjohnson@deltabtg.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>