A group of psychologists recently argued that we need to revise Maslow’s Hierarchy. They claim we should delete

“self-actualization” from the pinnacle and replace it with

“parenting.” Right below this peak, they added “mate retention”

and “mate acquisition. They claim that too many people see Maslow’s triangle as “aspirational”—a description of what fulfilled individuals “should” do—rather than as an explanation of how human motivation actually works.

Their perspective is evolutionary; if the only purpose of art, music, and literature is self-fulfillment, how does that contribute to the survival of the species? One of the proponents of this view observes, “If you are a good poet or a good musician, there is a reproductive payoff: women are attracted to men with these abilities. What a man is saying when he is playing his guitar up there is ‘look at my good genes.’”

What do you think—do our motivations to buy, have, and be ultimately come down to survival of our gene pool?