Maslow’s Hierarchy in Schools: What It Says and How to Use It Sensibly

Few psychology diagrams are as familiar as Maslow’s pyramid. It appears in teacher training slides, staffroom posters and safeguarding training, usually with the message that a hungry or frightened child cannot learn. That message is broadly sensible. The pyramid itself, though, is less solid than its popularity suggests, and some common uses of it go further than the evidence allows.

What Maslow proposed

Abraham Maslow set out his theory in a 1943 paper in Psychological Review, “A theory of human motivation”. He described five groups of needs:

1. Physiological needs, such as food, water and sleep.
2. Safety needs, including security, stability and freedom from fear.
3. Love and belonging, meaning affection, friendship and a place in a group.
4. Esteem, both self-respect and respect from others.
5. Self-actualisation, the desire to become what one is capable of becoming.

His central claim was that needs are arranged in order of priority. When lower needs are badly unmet, they dominate a person’s attention. As they are reasonably satisfied, higher needs start to matter more.

What he did not say

Maslow never drew a pyramid. The triangle seems to have come later, from management writing. Todd Bridgman, Stephen Cummings and John Ballard (2019) traced it to a 1960 article in the journal Business Horizons by the consultant Charles McDermid, and argued that the pyramid made the theory look more rigid than Maslow intended.

In the 1943 paper, Maslow said the order was not fixed and that people rarely have any level fully satisfied. He gave an illustrative example of an average person being perhaps 85% satisfied in physiological needs, 70% in safety, 50% in love, 40% in esteem and 10% in self-actualisation. That is a picture of overlapping needs, not a ladder where you must finish one rung before stepping onto the next.

What the evidence says

Maslow based his theory mainly on clinical observation and his reading of exceptional people, not on systematic data. When researchers later tested it, the results were mixed.

Mahmoud Wahba and Lawrence Bridwell (1976) reviewed the research available at the time and found little clear support for a strict ranking of needs, or for the idea that satisfying one level makes the next become active.

A much larger study by Louis Tay and Ed Diener (2011) used Gallup World Poll data from 123 countries. They found that needs similar to Maslow’s were linked to wellbeing around the world, which supports the idea that these needs matter broadly. But the order in which needs were met made little difference to how much they contributed to wellbeing. People could gain from social relationships and respect even when basic needs were not fully met.

Douglas Kenrick and colleagues (2010) proposed an updated version grounded in evolutionary psychology, which places needs such as finding and keeping a partner and caring for children within the framework. Whether or not you agree with their revision, it shows that researchers have taken Maslow seriously enough to rework him, which is a kind of compliment.

So the fair summary is something like this: Maslow was right that people have a range of needs beyond the purely physical, and that pressing physical and safety needs can crowd out everything else. The strict hierarchy is not well supported.

Why it still matters in schools

The strongest school version of Maslow is a simple one. Pupils who are hungry, exhausted, frightened or isolated are likely to find learning harder, and schools can do something about some of that.

There is some evidence behind practical responses. The Education Endowment Foundation evaluated a free, universal breakfast club programme run with the charity Magic Breakfast in over 100 English primary schools. The original 2016 report found Year 2 pupils made around two months’ additional progress in reading, writing and maths. A 2019 revision corrected an error and concluded that this result was less secure than first thought, and found no clear effect for Year 6. It is an encouraging finding, honestly reported, and a good example of why one study should not be treated as the last word.

Belonging and safety are also well supported as conditions for learning in their own right, through research on relationships and attachment. In school, I find that a pupil who knows one adult has noticed them, and that the classroom will be predictable, often settles into work far more readily.

Where Maslow gets misused

The pyramid becomes a problem when it is used as a rule about who is ready to learn.

• “This child’s needs aren’t met, so we can’t expect learning.” Children living through hard circumstances still learn, and for some, school is the most stable part of their day. Low expectations can do their own harm.
• “We’ll work on self-esteem first, then academics.” Esteem often grows from real success at something difficult. Separating the two can mean a child misses the experience that would build confidence.
• “Higher levels are for later.” Belonging and curiosity are not luxuries. Tay and Diener’s findings suggest that relationships and respect matter even when basic needs are under strain.

A sensible way to use it

I think Maslow works best as a prompt for noticing, not as a sequence to follow. When a pupil is struggling, it can be a useful checklist:

• Have they eaten? Are they sleeping?
• Do they feel safe in school, on the way to school and at home?
• Do they have friends, and an adult who knows them?
• Do they experience success and respect here?

Any one of these might be part of the picture. A concern about safety, of course, always goes to the designated safeguarding lead without delay.

Then, alongside meeting those needs where you can, keep teaching well and keep expectations high. Maslow himself would probably have agreed that needs overlap and that people grow on several fronts at once.

For more on motivation, see self-determination theory, which has stronger research support for the needs of autonomy, competence and belonging, and attachment in the classroom.

When to get help

If you are worried a child is going hungry, unsafe or neglected, speak to the school’s designated safeguarding lead or contact your local authority children’s services. Families who are struggling to afford food can ask the school about free school meals and local support. In an emergency, call 999.

Further reading

• Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-396.
• Bridgman, T., Cummings, S. and Ballard, J. (2019). Who built Maslow’s pyramid? A history of the creation of management studies’ most famous symbol and its implications for management education. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 18(1), 81-98.
• Kenrick, D. T., Griskevicius, V., Neuberg, S. L. and Schaller, M. (2010). Renovating the pyramid of needs: contemporary extensions built upon ancient foundations. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(3), 292-314.
• Tay, L. and Diener, E. (2011). Needs and subjective well-being around the world. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(2), 354-365.
• Wahba, M. A. and Bridwell, L. G. (1976). Maslow reconsidered: a review of research on the need hierarchy theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 15(2), 212-240.
• Education Endowment Foundation. Magic Breakfast: evaluation report (2016, revised 2019). educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk.

Cover image: Photo by Ashley Winkler on Unsplash.