When basic needs get in the way

The idea in one sentence: when basic needs like sleep, food, safety or feeling part of a team aren’t met, they can crowd out learning. It’s a useful prompt to ask what else is going on for someone, but the evidence for a fixed order of needs is weak.

You’ve seen this already

Try following a podcast when you’re starving, or reading a book when you’re worried about a bill you can’t pay. The words go in one ear and out the other. It isn’t that you don’t care about the podcast. Something more pressing has your attention.

Once you’ve eaten, or sorted out the bill, it’s easier to focus. Most of us know this from everyday life.

Why it matters for your teaching

Picture a healthcare assistant at a 9am training session after her third night shift in a row. She’s quiet, doesn’t answer questions and seems to forget what you showed her. It would be easy to decide she isn’t interested, or to redesign the session. But she may simply be exhausted. Or she may be worried about her contract, caring for someone at home, or feeling she doesn’t fit in on the team.

The same goes for others you teach. A newly qualified midwife who says nothing in a group discussion may not be bored. She may be protecting how others see her, in a team where she’s the most junior. A porter who keeps missing training may be stuck with rotas or childcare, not short of motivation.

Teaching starts with what people need to do differently. Part of that is asking what might stop them. Sometimes the answer isn’t the teaching at all.

Try this

• Ask before you redesign. If someone isn’t learning, ask yourself what else might be going on: tiredness, hunger, worry, or feeling left out.
• Fix the simple things. Pick times that suit shift workers, allow breaks and have water to hand. Avoid teaching people straight after a night shift if you can.
• Ask with curiosity. “Help me understand what got in the way” can open a conversation. You don’t need to solve what you hear. Notice it, name it, and point the person to the right support.
• Make it easier to belong. Learn names, pair new starters with someone friendly, and make it safe to ask. (See psychological safety, a separate idea with its own evidence.)

How sure are we?

Not very sure about the theory itself. The evidence for the hierarchy is weak. A 1976 review of the research found little or only partial support for Maslow’s order of needs, or for the idea that meeting one need switches on the next. Later researchers have tried to rebuild the model, but there’s still no strong evidence for a fixed ladder.

The best-known picture is a myth. Maslow never drew a pyramid. He wrote that the order is “not nearly as rigid” as his own description might suggest, and he listed exceptions. He also said needs are usually only partly met at any one time. People can and do learn, care for others and work hard while some basic needs go unmet.

So use it as a prompt to ask “what else is going on for this person?”, not as a tested model. The everyday point, that tiredness, worry and feeling left out make learning harder, is common sense. Maslow’s theory doesn’t add tested evidence to it. It isn’t part of the Teaching That Lands sessions; it’s here because people often ask about it.

Where it comes from

Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, set out the idea in a 1943 paper. He described five kinds of need: physiological (food, warmth, sleep), safety, belonging and love, esteem, and self-actualisation (growing into everything you’re capable of being). In 1976, Wahba and Bridwell reviewed the research that had tested it. The pyramid came later than the paper. It first appeared in a 1960 business magazine article by a management consultant, and spread through management textbooks from there.