Revising Maslow: My model places social connection at the hub, as fundamental to achieving all human needs, from sex and safety to esteem

In response to Denning’s column, Maslow scholar and executive coach Don Blohowiak objected to the simplification and misrepresentation of Maslow’s work. I very much appreciate Mr. Denning’s attention to my revision of Maslow and furthering the discussion I started. And I want to take the responsibility for any misrepresentation of Maslow’s hierarchy in “Maslow Rewired” relative to Maslow’s published works. I was speaking to the common heuristic of Maslow’s work, which, as many may know, doesn’t reflect the depth of thought and understanding of a remarkable thinker and scholar. I have no doubt but that Maslow himself would be somewhere between astonished and appalled at the way his theories have been simplified, recast, reinterpreted and applied over the years. My personal favorite is the Hierarchy of Hats, but I have seen it altered to frame approaches to everything from interaction design to education and management styles.

It is not surprising that powerful ideas go, in contemporary terms, viral. As we often talk about in social technologies, the content producer doesn’t control the message — and this is true whether it’s a brand or a philosophy, Coke or Maslow.

The functional definition of brands and theories comes from the meaning the receivers make of the information they get and the experiences and context surrounding them. This is an additive process, with meaning the product of distinct bits and pieces from different things accumulated over time.  There is an increasing amount of interest and attention around the idea of ‘transmedia storytelling’ these days because of our increased awareness of converging and permeable media technology boundaries, but humans have always been transmedia storytellers. Stories are the brain’s native language, giving us the ability to store the things we ‘know’ in ways that make sense by creating multi-sensory connections through our neural networks. A vast array of theorists from Mead and Vygotsky to Beck and Bandura, support what we all intuitively know: experience changes our understanding of the world, which is saying that what we experience changes the stories we tell to others and ourselves.

We get information over time, additively, from multiple sources, what we might now call ‘transmedia’, and process it based on the stories we already hold.  As Mr. Denning as so brilliantly shown in his work, stories are fundamental to not just what we do, but who we are as individuals, organizations, and countries. This is a long way of saying that Maslow’s work has become a story, a significant cultural reference for many who have never and will never read his work.

The ability of Maslow’s ideas to by synthesized into a visual representation using the archetypal symbol of a pyramid has also played an important role is their dissemination and adoption because we are contributing our own understanding of symbols and visual and semantic metaphors that amplifies (and possibly distorts) the meaning.  We live in a media-rich world where multi-sensory communication is the rule not the exception.  It is rare to see an article about Maslow’s theory without a pyramid.  The labels and number of levels sometimes vary, but our fundamental and immediate understanding of the pyramid structure is like Maslow on broadband.  We get it and immediately look for ways to apply it to our own worldview.  If it were not so clear, far fewer people would know of it and employ it, but without that shorthand, more might have actually read his work.

My primary point in “What Maslow Missed,” which Mr. Denning spoke to, is the widespread assumption represented by the pyramid, that human connection is NOT a primary drive and instinct, but one we worry about after we’ve found the cave, slain the wooley mammoth, or paid the heating bill. While this is not something I would attribute to Maslow himself, is it one that can be effectively addressed by tapping a well-known mental model such as the Hierarchy of Needs has become.

People seem to be surprised by the rapidity with which social tools, like Facebook or Pinterest, are adopted and they become preoccupied with and anxious about the tools themselves. In the process, they miss the import of the psychological shifts that come from not just the ability to connect and act effectively on the environment, but in knowing and believing that we can. There are significant implications in this fundamental shift for everything from the obvious, such as marketing and branding, to how we view organizational processes, such as management and education, as Mr. Denning discusses in the context of his concept of Radical Management.

I used Maslow’s hierarchy as a convenient point of reference to argue that the drivers of social connection are intimately interwoven into our basic survival, rather than an upward climb from food and shelter. So while it does a disservice to a scholar’s understanding of Maslow, I hope that it provides a glimpse into a new way of thinking about the ways that our core assumptions — our stories of who we are and how we fit into the world — shift with the empowerment of technology and the implications for communicating, engaging, and individual and society-wide expectations.

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Cross-posted on Psychology Today

Here is a recent question:

Dear Dr. Rutledge,

I am conducting research in media psychology and stumbled upon this dissertation and I am more confused than anything. A dissertation by Andrea Macari Ph.D. defines a “media psychologist” as a psychologist that conducts a session with a patient on air. She compares what a psychologist does in private with a patient with what Dr. Phil does on air in front of a live TV audience. I conducted a phone survey where I contacted clinical psychologists in NYC randomly and asked how they felt about Dr. Phil and everyone said that they had a low opinion of Dr. Phil.  However according to Macari’s thesis psychologists rating were supportive of the “media psychologist”…  Can you comment?

My response:

As media technologies become more ubiquitous and intertwined with everything we do, the more we need to understand their impact and potential. Without people there is no technology. It is psychology that gives us insight into people, as individuals, groups, cultures and society. Therefore, psychology is also instrumental to understanding media technologies because people are not separable from the media communication eco-system.

The use of the term ‘media psychologist’ is evolving over time. It is confusing because, in fact, its origins did come from clinicians who appeared in the media. This is a bit misleading since a more accurate and informative way to describe a media psychologist who appears in the media is as a media personality or a clinical psychologist who appears in the media. We don’t call Dr. Oz a media cardiologist because his ‘patients’ or the focus of his expertise is the person, not the media technologies. When I use the term media psychologist or refer to the field of media psychology, I am referring to psychologists who apply psychological theory to understanding the development, experience, use and impact of different types of media technologies and how media impacts content perception and messaging. There are psychologists who appear in the media who also know a lot about media technologies and whom I would consider media psychologists.  There are also psychologists who appear in the media because that is an effective way to disseminate information, both therapeutic and otherwise. That does not make them a media psychologist as I define it. To do so devalues the expertise of the many psychologists who dedicate their efforts to understanding the interaction of human experience with the use and development of media technologies and the individual, social, and global ramifications.

An additional point of confusion is the fact that there are many kinds of psychologists. Psychologists who do clinical work (clinical psychologists) are only one professional avenue within the broader field. Clinical psychology requires a specific type and focus of training and, in order to practice with patients, licensure in the state where the practice is offered. Not all psychologists are clinicians, in fact, there are as many, if not more, psychologists teaching in academic institutions, performing research or contributing to everything from organizational management and leadership to technology development and user experience. A clinician is no more equipped to do those things without training than an organizational psychologist is to do therapy without training. (It is also illegal and unethical for the any psychologist without licensure to do therapy, even if they have clinical training.)

The field of psychology is rich with theories that are applied in many ways outside of a therapeutic context. Areas in psychology include developmental, positive, cognitive, behavioral, political, social, educational, cultural, neurological, and narrative, to name a few. A field within psychology is a descriptor of the theory and focus of the psychologist’s training and work. A cognitive psychologist will be trained in areas of cognition, meaning, perception, etc., for example. A media psychologist will be trained in applying areas of psychology to media technologies. For a specific example, see the curriculum for the new master’s degree program at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology which shows how different areas in psychology are applied to media technologies, ranging from educational technology and media literacy to persuasive communications and social marketing.

To make matters more confusing, psychology also has ‘theoretical orientations’ that inform the way a psychologist approaches their work no matter what the venue. A cognitive psychologist, who is also trained as a clinician, may use a predominantly cognitive-based therapeutic approach. This is not just true for clinicians, however. A media psychologist may also be trained as a cognitive psychologist and focus their work with media technologies on the cognitive and perceptual aspects of technology use and development. I consider myself a media psychologist because my background combines academic training in psychology and in the human impact and technological affordances of media and emerging technologies. I draw from cognitive, positive, and narrative psychologies in my consulting, research and analysis. I, however, focus on individual, social and commercial implications and trends and, although I have clinical training, I am not licensed and do not have a clinical practice.

The dissertation you cite by Dr. Macari tests whether or not a population of 115 randomly selected respondents (psychologists and non-psychologists) had a bias for or against a clinical psychologist who appeared in the media based on the respondents’ reactions to transcript of a fictitious session given by each ‘category’ of psychologist. I am assuming that respondents who were psychologists were, in fact, clinical psychologists, but I have not read the full dissertation. There is a big difference, however, in making a judgment about the quality of a therapy session from a transcript and from what a person might observe of Dr. Phil’s approach. The fact that Macari defines ‘media psychologists’ for the purpose of her research as a clinician who appears in the media doesn’t make it a universal definition. It makes it the operational definition of that variable in her research, which is a necessary and important component of her project. Every research project must specifically define terms and variables under analysis as part of the methodology. Understanding research methodology and analytical tools and practices is an important component in any psychology curriculum at multiple levels: designing research, interpreting results, and disseminating the information accurately. Those same skills are used ‘in reverse’ to evaluate the research of others.  This is a particularly important skill in media psychology as journalist’s reports of psychological research do not always accurately reflect the findings, especially when the topic lends itself to a provocative headline.

The American Psychological Association (APA) Division 46 (Media Psychology) has been working through this definitional transition as well. As media technologies become more ubiquitous and intertwined with everything we do, the more we need to understand its impact and potential. That is my definition of media psychology and the goals of a media psychologist.