What can an LIWC Sentiment analysis on Maslow's works reveal?

Brief introduction:

In his 1943 paper for Psychological Review, A Theory of Human Motivation, Abraham Maslow promoted a visual representation of his psychological theory. The model, dubbed as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, was a tiered hierarchy of human needs; it was a motivational theory in psychology. The five-tiered version of this hierarchy has been widely used in various fields.

This framework, however, is mostly utilized in business settings. Some leaders might consider this theory when planning project productivity goals, while most leaders turn to this theory to investigate and explain why productivity goals were not met. Here, negative connections can be drawn to the framework.

Exploring Maslow’s existing works with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) tool, might provide more insight into how his framework is applied. If his works are more negative than positive, this may assist in surmising why leaders employ his structure as a tool that categorizes employee problems, rather than individuals utilizing it as an inspirational and aspirational structure. Despite Maslow’s hierarchy being well-known in business environments, leaders may seldom employ this model to assess themselves and their personal goals. Moreover, businesses are more likely to create employee surveys based on this framework than directly educate employees on the framework’s possible application to their individual lives, and how their productivity in the workplace is impacted by it.

Hypothesis:

  • Maslow’s works are more negative than positive in tone.

Topics to be discussed:

  • What can an LIWC Sentiment analysis on Maslow’s works reveal about the overall tone of his contributions?

    • Is the tone of his work being misinterpreted as innately negative?

  • Which psychological processes best illustrate his works?

    • Should it be assumed that the “affective processes” of negative and positive be the only areas for exploration, or should other areas be explored?

    • Can his work be best assessed as focusing on “personal concerns” like work, leisure, home, money, and religion; or by “drives” of affliction achievement, power, reward, and risk? Perhaps the sexual and ingestion “biological processes” are his true focus, or the “social processes” topics of family, friends, female references, and male references.

    • Can the LIWC’s psychological processes be categorized into the structure of Maslow’s psychological needs, or would there be areas of overlap?

    • Can a visual mapping be created to display this interaction?

Additional LIWC capabilities:

  • Are all the psychological needs quantifiably equal when paired with their relative psychological processes? For example, does the score of “belonging and love” within the lens of the “biological process” match “social processes”’s?

  • Are all levels of the hierarchy equally discussed, or are do they vary based on their position in the structure and their topic matter? For example, is the topic of “physiological needs” going share the same word count as “self-actualization”? Do they have the same “analytical thinking” score?

  • Or do these “psychological needs” demonstrate a score reflective of their position in the structure.

More reading is required on the LIWC. Since both the LIWC and Maslow’s hierarchy utilize similar terminology associated with psychological needs/ processes, was its creation influenced by Maslow? If so, what was the extent?

Sources for Maslow’s works:

  • This includes a comprehensive list of interviews, articles, audio and video material, and books in and out of print: http://www.maslow.com/