The material that has long since been recognized as “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs” was originally published as the second part of a single, four-part paper in 1943 in Psychological Review. However, that was the second directly related paper Maslow published that year. Earlier that year his paper titled “Preface to Motivation Theory” was published in Psychosomatic Medicine. Both papers can be accessed through adequate libraries, or they can be found online. Psychosomatic Medicine continues publication, and as of this writing, it sells online access to the (I believe) still copyrighted “Preface to Motivation Theory.” I am unaware of the details, but at some point in its history, the second and more famous paper of the two, Maslow’s “A Theory of Human Motivation” from Psychological Review, fell out of copyright protection and into the public domain. For that reason, I am able to add a link here on the MindingMaslowsMystery.com website to post Maslow’s original theory of human motivation in its entirety. Though permission to reprint was not necessary, I do note that the American Psychological Association has since resumed or assumed the publication of Psychological Review, and it now offers an authoritative posting for the later, famous paper through its website for a reasonable fee. For the reader who may appreciate having both papers side by side in a single, printed, and bound volume, I recommend picking up any edition of Maslow’s book, Motivation and Personality, initially published in 1954. In that book, evidently depending on which edition you find, “Preface to Motivation Theory” appears as the third or fourth chapter, with “A Theory of Human Motivation” immediately following as the fourth or fifth chapter. This is the simplest, least costly, and most generally available way I know to obtain Maslow-approved, formally published, bound copies of both papers in a single volume. (Please note the link to Maslow’s paper, “A Theory of Human Motivation,” reposted in its entirety here at MindingMaslowsMystery.com.)

References

Lowry, R. J. (Ed.). (1979). The journals of A. H. Maslow (Vol. 1, p. 190). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Maslow, A. H. (1943a). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370– 396.

Maslow, A. H. (1943b). Preface to motivation theory. Psychosomatic Medicine, 5(1), 85– 92.