As discussed in chapter 3, section 3.1, UNICEF classified the needs of children as the need for food, good health, education, psychological, protection and the need for economic and material support. These were discussed from 3.1.1 to 3.1.6. Figure 3.3 shows the link between Maslow’s and UNICEF’s classification of needs. There appears to be a clear linkage between UNICEF’s classification of needs and the three levels of Maslow’s classification of needs namely physiological needs, security needs and the need for love and belonging. A weak link between self-actualisation needs with education need exists. There seems to be no apparent link between esteem needs in Maslow’s classification and UNICEF’s classification of needs.
UNICEF classification of needs was considered to be narrow and inadequate to assess the needs of orphans because it was merely descriptive. UNICEF described the mediation factors, coping strategies when the needs were not met and the consequences of unmet needs on the lives of orphans. Furthermore, advantages of using Maslow’s human motivation theory have been presented in section 3.8
Figure 3.3 : The link between Maslow’s and UNICEF’s needs classification.
3.8 Application of Maslow’s Theory: Limitations & Strengths
Some critics argue that the hierarchy pattern of needs, with a priority on lower needs, imply an individualistic approach to need (Hollyford and Whiddett 2002; Hollyford and Whiddett 1999). Maslow’s choice of five needs, and the nature of the ranking, was not considered to be scientific nor scholarly grounded (Rowan 1999; Neher 1991). This is because the methods of enquiry used did not appear to be based on systematic
observations, nor on experimental data. Maslow did not explain the rationale for the pattern of the hierarchy, therefore, the theory assumed to be Maslow’s personal values and beliefs (Neher 1991). In addition, the theory also fails to address the observation that some needs remain motivators, even when they have been satisfied, for example eating (Hollyford and Whiddett 1999). Further Maslow was not explicit about cognitive need. Maslow (1987b) suggested that cognitive motivations, such as the need for education, have been overlooked, because they were not considered as important in a clinically dominated field.
What appears to be the major contested concept of Maslow’s human motivation theory from literature was the assertion that there is a hierarchy of needs. Despite the critics, this thesis uses the hierarchy of needs to understand how orphans prioritise their needs. Apparently, the criticisms of Maslow’s human motivation theory do not dispute the assertions that needs motivate behaviour. In this thesis, Maslow’s human motivation theory was applied to show how needs motivated behaviour. Maslow’s human motivation theory facilitated the understanding of how the unmet needs of orphans’ and caregivers’ influenced their behaviour, towards solving or addressing their needs. Therefore, the behaviour of orphans is a verifiable indicator of need. In addition, the persistent behaviour of orphans towards addressing certain needs would help to identify priority needs. In return, that facilitated assessment of whether service providers were responding to priority needs of orphans. This was very important in this thesis, whose aim was to assess service responsiveness to the needs of orphans.
Besides, the theory made specific reference to children’s needs and their consequences on the children’s well-being, if the needs were not satisfied. This may assist service providers to plan for future preventive services, and provide better strategies for assisting orphans. The findings of the application of Maslow’s classification of needs and orphans’ behaviour in relation to relative to needs are reported in chapter six.
Further, this chapter looked at the ethnocentrism of Maslow’s theory. According to the Oxford dictionary ethnocentrism refers to the use of one’s cultural norms as a universal yardstick to make generalizations about other peoples' cultures and customs.
This therefore underscores the fact that culture is different and depends on the context in which one lives. This thesis recognises the ethnocentricism of Maslow’s human behaviour theory because the theory is based on a western culture.
Cianci and Gambrel (2003) and Hofstede (1984) suggested that western culture was individualistic hence more self-centred while non-western cultures were collective and tended to value more collective views as opposed to the need for freedom and individuality. Besides, hierarchy of needs may depend on age, individual differences or social-economic status of the individual (Goebel and Brown 1981; Heylighen 1992). For example, Maslow’s work was based on elite children while orphans in this study came from poor households. Furthermore, Maslow developed this theory in the 20th century, while this study worked with 21st century orphans. Ultimately, Maslow’s work did not have orphans in mind. In this thesis, the orphans pursued education as a standalone need. At the same time, orphans demonstrated the existence of interdependence between education and food need.
3.8 Summary of the chapter
This chapter described the Sub-Saharan Africa literature on the needs of orphans. Maslow’s human motivation theory was chosen to inform the thesis because of its appropriateness to fulfilment of the objectives of the thesis. The rationale for the choice of Maslow’s theory, the link between Maslow’s and UNICEF’s classification of needs has been discussed.