The Shape Was Not His

The ninety-first article was about a sentence dropped from an abstract. This one is about something stranger: a claim carried entirely by a picture, where the picture was drawn by somebody other than the person credited with it.

The Verdict, Stated First

Five claims, in descending order of confidence.

One. The pyramid is not Maslow's. This is stated flatly in a published abstract in a peer-reviewed management education journal.

Two. The theory has gained little support in empirical studies, which the same abstract states as established background rather than as its own finding.

Three. On our own arithmetic the shape argues. A five-band triangle asserts a nine-to-one ratio between base and apex, and a reader supplies what the ratio is of.

Four. The shape also asserts a sequence, because a pyramid has one path through it, and the same five needs in a list or a wheel would assert nothing of the kind.

Five. Sequencing has a computable cost, and on our own invented figures it can leave a firm doing nothing while a cheap and effective option sits unused.

Our Grades For These Claims

Applying the scheme from the first article in this series.

Grade A for both central claims, from an abstract obtained verbatim from the publishing association's own journal record.

Grade C for the origin trace, which reaches us through a non-academic article's account of the paper's findings rather than from the paper.

Grade D for the 1976 review, which reaches us as a citation in four separate reference lists and whose contents we did not obtain.

Grade D for the 1943 original, which we did not obtain at all and about which we therefore say very little.

Grade A for our own geometry, which is exact and checkable by anyone with a ruler.

Our position: the historical finding is well sourced and the arithmetic is ours, and the second is the part we would want a reader to keep.

Which is a slightly unusual balance for this series, ours. Most articles here rest on a finding and use arithmetic to interpret it. This one rests on a fact about a picture and uses arithmetic to show what the picture claims.

A Note On Method

Everything here is verified to August 2026.

We obtained the 2019 abstract verbatim from the publishing association's journal record[1], which is our only academic source for any finding.

The origin trace comes from a non-academic article describing the paper's investigation[2], flagged at every use.

Three further sources are non-academic[3][5][6] and are used for citation confirmation only.

We did not obtain the 2019 paper itself, the 1976 review, the 1943 original, or any of the works discussed within our sources.

All arithmetic is ours. The geometry is exact; every commercial figure is invented.

This article discusses research on motivation and on how diagrams carry claims. It is not management or human resources advice.

What Is Taught

The version in circulation, as the paper describes it.

The abstract records: "Abraham Maslow's theory of motivation, the idea that human needs exist in a hierarchy that people strive to satisfy progressively, is regarded as a fundamental approach to understanding and motivating people at work."[1]

And: "It is one of the first and most remembered models encountered by students of management."[1]

Four observations, ours.

The word carrying the operational content is "progressively." That is the sequencing claim, and it is what distinguishes a hierarchy from a list.

"One of the first and most remembered" is a claim about position in a curriculum, and first models are load-bearing in a way later ones are not.

It is also, in our experience, one of the very few pieces of psychology a working manager can reliably name, which makes its accuracy a matter of some consequence.

And the abstract's framing is careful. It describes what the theory is regarded as rather than asserting it, which is the correct way to open a paper that intends to complicate it.

Two things that make this framework unusually consequential for a small firm, ours. It is the only motivation theory most owners can name, so it is not competing with a better one; it is competing with nothing.

And it arrives with a person's name attached, which is the property the eighty-ninth article found doing the same work. An attributed model is not questioned the way a rule of thumb is, and this one is attributed to somebody who did not draw it.

The 2019 Paper

The source.

Bridgman, T., Cummings, S., and Ballard, J. (2019), Who Built Maslow's Pyramid? A History of the Creation of Management Studies' Most Famous Symbol and Its Implications for Management Education, Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18(1), 81–98, March, DOI 10.5465/amle.2017.0351[1].

A non-academic source records that it won that journal's best paper award for 2019[6], which we could not verify independently.

Four observations, ours.

The journal is specifically about management education, which is the right venue for a paper about what students are taught rather than about what is true.

The title asks a historical question, and the paper is a history rather than a study, which matters for how to weigh it. Historical claims about who drew what are checkable in archives rather than replicable in samples.

That makes this an unusual entry in this series. Most articles here concern whether a finding holds; this one concerns where a picture came from, and the two require different kinds of evidence.

And we did not obtain the paper, only its abstract, so we cannot describe the archival work that supports its central claim.

Two consequences of that gap, ours. We cannot tell you how exhaustively they searched, and a negative historical claim is only as strong as the search behind it.

What raises our confidence is the venue and the specificity. A peer-reviewed journal printing a flat negative about a famous figure has invited exactly the correction that would follow if it were wrong, and we found no such correction.

Two Claims In One Abstract

The finding, quoted in full because the two halves are usually separated.

The abstract states: "Despite gaining little support in empirical studies and being criticized for promoting an elitist, individualistic view of management, Maslow's theory remains popular, underpinned by its widely recognized pyramid form. However, Maslow never created a pyramid to represent the hierarchy of needs."[1]

Four observations, ours.

There are two separate claims here and they are independent. The theory could be well supported and the pyramid still not be his, or the reverse.

The first is presented as established background, in a subordinate clause, rather than as the paper's finding. The authors are not arguing it; they are assuming their readers accept it.

The second is the paper's own contribution and is stated flatly. "Maslow never created a pyramid."

And the sentence joining them is the interesting one. The theory remains popular, "underpinned by its widely recognized pyramid form", which asserts that the picture is doing the work the evidence is not.

Little Support In Empirical Studies

The first claim, and the limits of what we can say about it.

The phrase is "gaining little support in empirical studies"[1], offered without elaboration in the abstract.

Four separate reference lists we obtained cite the same review in support of that position: Wahba, M. A., and Bridwell, L. G. (1976), Maslow reconsidered: A review of research on the need hierarchy theory, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 15(2), 212–240[3][4].

We did not obtain that review and can report only that it exists, is titled as a review of research on the theory, and is cited wherever this criticism appears.

Four observations, ours.

A review published in 1976 means the empirical difficulty has been in the literature for fifty years, which is longer than most managers currently using the model have been working.

The specific claim most in question is prepotency: that a lower need must be substantially satisfied before a higher one activates. That is the part that makes it a hierarchy.

We would want that review before saying more, and a reader should treat our account of the empirical position as thin. One clause in an abstract and a citation appearing in four bibliographies is not a literature review.

What we can say with confidence is narrower and sufficient. A peer-reviewed journal published, without argument, the statement that the theory has gained little support, which tells you how uncontroversial that is inside the field.

And there is a second thing that clause tells you, ours. It appeared in a paper about something else entirely. The authors were writing a history of a diagram and did not need to establish the empirical position, so they stated it in passing.

Claims stated in passing are useful evidence about consensus precisely because nobody bothers to hedge a point they expect no argument about, which is the reverse of how the seventy-first article read a hedged claim.

He Never Created It

The paper's own contribution, stated in one sentence.

"However, Maslow never created a pyramid to represent the hierarchy of needs."[1]

Four observations, ours.

The claim is historical and falsifiable, and of a kind that can be settled by looking. Either a pyramid appears in his published work or it does not.

It is published in a peer-reviewed journal by three authors who investigated it, which is as good as a historical claim gets without our reading the archival work ourselves.

And it is the sort of fact that produces an immediate reaction in anyone who has taught the model, which is presumably why the paper attracted attention.

The consequence is not that the theory is wrong. It is that the most widely known representation of a theory was made by somebody who was not its author, and every claim the shape carries beyond the words is therefore unattributed.

Where It Came From

The trace, reported through a non-academic account of the paper's findings.

That account records that the earliest illustrated version the authors could find was in a 1957 management textbook by Keith Davis, showing "a series of steps leading to the top" rather than a pyramid; and that the pyramid itself is attributed to Charles McDermid, in an article titled "How money motivates men," Business Horizons, 3(4), 93–100, 1960[2].

The McDermid citation is independently confirmed in a peer-reviewed paper's reference list[4]. The attribution itself reaches us only through the non-academic account, flagged.

Four observations, ours.

The intermediate step is worth noticing. Steps came before the triangle, and steps carry the ordering claim without the size claim, so the two were added separately.

The title of the 1960 article is "How money motivates men," which is a specific commercial argument rather than a neutral summary of a psychological theory.

That context matters for reading the shape. A diagram drawn to make a point about money is not a neutral rendering, and the point it was drawn to make is in its title.

And we have not seen either the 1957 or the 1960 item, so the trace reaches us at two removes and we grade it accordingly.

One further thing worth noting about the 1960 venue, ours. Business Horizons is a practitioner journal, so the diagram was made for managers rather than for psychologists from the outset.

Which fits the pattern this series keeps finding. The version that reaches business is produced by somebody writing for business, and the simplification happens at that step rather than in the original research.

The Diagram Made It Popular

The claim we find most interesting, from the same non-academic account.

It records the view that "it wasn't until Maslow's model was turned into a pyramid that it became popular."[2] Non-academic, flagged, and we did not obtain the paper's own version of this.

It is consistent with the abstract's own phrasing, which says the theory remains popular "underpinned by its widely recognized pyramid form"[1].

Four observations, ours.

If that holds, the diagram is not an illustration of the theory but the reason anyone knows it, which inverts the usual relationship between an idea and its picture.

It also explains the durability. A theory with little empirical support and a memorable diagram will outlast a better theory with no diagram, and this series has covered several of the latter.

And it gives the practical question a sharp form. What is the diagram claiming that the words are not?, which is the rest of this article and which we can answer with arithmetic.

We flag that this is our framing built on a non-academic summary, though the abstract's own wording supports the direction.

What The Shape Asserts

Our own arithmetic, and it is exact rather than estimated.

A list of five needs makes no claim about their relative size. A triangle divided into five bands of equal height makes one automatically, because the area of a triangle scales with the square of its height.

Cutting a triangle into five equal-height bands gives areas proportional to the differences of consecutive squares: 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9, from apex to base, totalling 25.

Four observations.

The arithmetic is elementary. The area down to height k is proportional to k squared, so each band is k squared minus the previous, and the odd numbers fall out.

Nothing about this depends on the artist. Any triangle drawn with five equal tiers produces these proportions, whatever the intention.

Which means the claim is a property of the format rather than of the content, and is made whether or not anybody notices.

And the resulting shares are the next section.

Nine To One

The shares. Ours, exact.

Self-actualisation, at the apex: 1 unit, or 4 percent of the figure.

Esteem: 3 units, 12 percent. Love and belonging: 5, 20 percent. Safety: 7, 28 percent.

Physiological needs, at the base: 9 units, 36 percent.

Four observations.

The base occupies exactly nine times the area of the apex, and a reader takes something from that whether or not they articulate it.

What they take is unspecified and therefore supplied by them. Importance, prevalence, how many people are stuck there, how much of a life is spent there, and the picture endorses all of them equally.

A list of five words asserts none of it. Written vertically on a slide, the five needs occupy identical space, and the reader draws no conclusion about magnitude at all.

And this is the specific sense in which the diagram argues. It adds a quantitative claim to a qualitative theory, using no numbers and citing no evidence, and it does so silently.

Two tests of whether that matters, ours. Ask somebody who knows the pyramid whether most people spend most of their lives on the lower tiers. Most will say yes, and nothing in the theory says it.

And ask where they got that. The honest answer is the picture, which is the only place it appears.

The Shape And The Order

The second thing the format asserts. Ours.

Four observations.

A pyramid has exactly one path through it, bottom to top, one band at a time. That is what the shape is for.

You cannot easily draw a person working on two tiers at once without the picture looking wrong, which is a constraint imposed by the format rather than by any claim about people.

The same five needs drawn as a list, a wheel, or a set of overlapping circles would carry no ordering claim whatever, and would be equally faithful to a list of five needs.

And the earlier version reportedly used steps[2], which carry the ordering claim without the size claim. The two claims entered the diagram at different times, on that account, which is a detail we like and cannot verify.

One consequence for anybody teaching this, ours. Steps would be a more faithful rendering than a triangle, if the ordering claim is wanted at all, since they add only the claim the theory makes.

That is a cheap improvement available to anyone with a slide deck, and it costs nothing but the familiarity of the shape everyone expects.

What Sequencing Costs

Our own arithmetic, on entirely invented figures, because the sequencing claim is the one with a commercial consequence.

Suppose a firm has two levers. A pay increase, addressing a lower need, costing $60,000 a year and worth 4.0 points of retention. And a recognition programme, addressing a higher need, costing $8,000 and worth 3.0 points.

Return per ten thousand dollars spent: the pay increase returns 0.67 points, the recognition programme 3.75 points.

Now give the firm a budget of $20,000.

Under the hierarchy, the lower need comes first, and $20,000 does not fund a $60,000 pay rise. So the firm does nothing, and gains zero points.

Under a view in which the needs are independent, the firm funds the recognition programme, gains 3.0 points, and has $12,000 left.

Four observations.

The sequence is the entire cost. The hierarchy does not say the cheap lever is worthless; it says you may not pull it yet.

Which produces the worst outcome for exactly the firms least able to afford it. A business that cannot fund the expensive lower-tier intervention is told to wait, and waiting is free only in the sense that nothing improves.

The figures are invented and the structure is not. Pay and physical working conditions are capital-intensive; recognition, autonomy and clarity are mostly free, so cost and tier commonly run in opposite directions.

And that opposition is what makes the sequencing claim expensive rather than merely wrong.

Two further costs the table does not show, ours. The delay compounds: a firm waiting to afford the pay rise loses people in the meantime, and each departure raises the cost of the remaining problem.

And the sequence is never completed, because pay is not a tier you clear. There is always a higher wage available, so a strict reading of the ordering means the upper tiers are permanently deferred.

When Sequencing Is Free

The fair statement of when the hierarchy costs nothing. Ours.

Four observations.

If the lower-tier lever also has the better return per dollar, the hierarchy and the independent view recommend the same thing, and the sequencing rule is harmless.

That case is real and common. A workplace that is genuinely unsafe, or wages that do not cover rent, plausibly dominate everything else, and a firm in that position needs no theory to know it.

The hierarchy is also a reasonable rough guide at the extremes, which may be most of why it feels true. Nobody disputes that a starving person is not thinking about esteem.

And that is where its plausibility comes from and where its usefulness stops. An idea that is obviously right at the extremes and unsupported in the middle is being used in the middle, which is where every actual firm operates.

That pattern is worth naming generally, ours, because it is not unique to this framework. A claim true at the boundaries acquires credibility it then spends in the interior, where the boundary evidence does not reach.

And it is very hard to argue against, because every counterexample offered is answered with the boundary case. Nobody disputes the starving person, and the starving person is not who the firm is deciding about.

Which suggests the useful question to put to any such framework, ours. Ask what it predicts about the case actually in front of you, rather than about the case it was built to explain.

One Thing We Could Not Compute

A section we drafted as arithmetic and are publishing as reasoning, because it did not survive.

We intended to compute how often the sequencing rule costs a firm anything, expressed as a frequency.

That requires knowing the joint distribution of cost and tier across the interventions a real firm considers, which nobody has and we could not invent responsibly. Any figure we produced would have been our assumption dressed as a result.

Three observations, ours.

What we can say is directional and honest. The rule costs something whenever a cheaper high-tier lever is available and a lower-tier one is unaffordable, and that combination is easy to describe and impossible for us to count.

We record the attempt because the difference between a computed frequency and an asserted one is the difference this series exists to police, and we would rather show where our own arithmetic stopped.

And a firm can compute its own version in an afternoon. List your available levers with costs and expected effects, and the question of whether the sequence binds becomes a fact about your list rather than about human nature.

Two properties of that exercise make it worth the afternoon, ours. It surfaces levers nobody had costed, which in our experience is most of the free ones, because a lever with no invoice attached tends not to appear on any list.

And it forces an estimate of effect, which is uncomfortable and useful. A firm unable to guess what a recognition programme would do has learned that it has never measured anything about retention, which is the eighty-sixth article's finding arriving from a different direction.

The Other Pyramid In Your Firm

The same geometry, applied to a diagram nearly every business has drawn. Ours.

Four observations.

A sales funnel is the pyramid inverted, and it makes the identical magnitude claim. Drawn as a smooth cone in equal bands, the top stage occupies nine times the area of the bottom.

Which is frequently true of a funnel and is asserted by the drawing rather than measured, in exactly the same way. A firm whose actual conversion runs 100, 90, 85, 80, 75 has a funnel shaped like a cylinder and will draw a cone anyway.

And the consequence is a misallocation the shape invites. A cone says the losses are at the top, so that is where attention goes, and a firm with a cylinder is losing its money somewhere the picture does not show.

The fix is the one this article keeps arriving at. Draw the shape your numbers make, which takes five minutes and produces a diagram that argues for something true.

What A List Gives Up

The fair objection to our own recommendation, since neutrality has a cost. Ours.

Four observations.

A list is harder to remember than a shape, which is not a trivial objection. The pyramid's durability is evidence that memorable beats accurate in practice.

A diagram that asserts nothing also communicates nothing beyond its labels, and a manager wants a picture that tells them something, which is why they reach for one.

So the honest recommendation is not neutrality for its own sake. It is that the claims a shape makes should be claims you would defend in words, and a shape making true claims is better than a list making none.

And that is achievable. A funnel drawn to your own conversion rates asserts something true and is just as memorable, which is the version of this advice a firm can actually use.

One more reason to prefer it, ours. A shape drawn from your own numbers updates when they change, and a template shape does not, so the first is a measurement and the second is a decoration that outlives the situation it described.

What Actually Survives

Our reading, stated directly.

Five statements.

Maslow never created the pyramid, on a peer-reviewed journal's published abstract.

The theory has gained little support in empirical studies, stated in the same abstract as accepted background rather than as a finding.

The pyramid form underpins the theory's continued popularity, on that abstract's own account.

On our own geometry the shape asserts a nine-to-one ratio that appears nowhere in the theory.

And the shape asserts a sequence, which has a computable cost when cheap levers sit above expensive ones.

Those five are unusual in this series for being mostly about a picture rather than about a finding, ours. We have spent ninety-one articles on whether claims are supported, and this one is about whether a claim was ever made, which turns out to be a different and occasionally more important question.

Needs Are Real

Because this could be read as dismissing the whole subject, which would be wrong. Ours.

Four observations.

Nothing here suggests people do not have needs, or that the five categories are badly chosen, or that motivation is not worth thinking about.

What is in question is the hierarchy specifically: the claim that the needs must be addressed in order. That is the part with the empirical difficulty and the part the shape enforces.

Other frameworks exist and our sources cite several, including a proposal to replace the pyramid with a different metaphor entirely[3] and a typology of thirteen needs for design work[4]. We obtained none of them and name them only to show the field has moved.

And a firm losing people can act without any of this. Ask them why they are leaving, which the eighty-eighth article's caution about sample size applies to and which still beats a framework.

Two refinements to that, ours and cheap. Ask the people who stayed as well, since a leaver's account is selected on the outcome in the way the eighty-second article described.

And ask before they resign rather than after, because an exit interview is conducted with somebody who has already decided and has nothing to gain from precision.

What We Are Not Saying About Maslow

A caution about our own scope, since it would be easy to overreach.

Four observations, ours.

We did not obtain the 1943 paper, and therefore say nothing about what Maslow actually argued, how strongly he claimed the ordering, or what qualifications he attached to it.

Our sources suggest he was more nuanced than the pyramid, and we are not in a position to confirm that, which is exactly the position we criticise others for occupying.

The paper's own framing points the same way, calling for "a rethink of how Maslow is represented in management studies"[1], which is a claim about representation rather than about the man.

So the target here is precise. The pyramid as taught, and the sequencing rule it enforces, and not the underlying work, which we have not read.

Which is a distinction worth holding on to generally, ours. A theory and its teaching version can diverge far enough that criticising one says nothing about the other, and this series has now found that twice in four articles.

Why A Picture Beats Evidence

Our reading of why this survives, offered as reasoning rather than evidence.

Four observations.

A diagram is remembered and a caveat is not. A manager who saw the pyramid once at twenty-two can redraw it at fifty, and no amount of contrary evidence arrives in a form that competes.

It is also self-explaining, which no equation or effect size is. Nobody needs the theory explained after seeing the shape, which means the shape can travel without the theory attached.

And it is usable immediately. A manager can locate an employee on it in seconds, which is the property this series has repeatedly found in claims that outlive their support.

Against which the correction has none of those properties. "The empirical support is weak and the diagram was drawn by a consultant in 1960" is a sentence, not a picture, and sentences lose.

Shapes That Would Claim Less

A constructive section, since criticising a diagram without offering an alternative is cheap. Ours.

Four observations.

A plain list asserts order and nothing about magnitude, which is already a substantial improvement and costs nothing.

Five equal bars assert neither order nor magnitude, and are the most neutral rendering of five categories we can think of.

Overlapping circles assert that the needs coexist and interact, which is closer to what a firm actually observes and is a claim rather than an absence of one, so it should be made deliberately.

And one of our sources describes a published proposal to replace the pyramid with an entirely different metaphor[3], which we did not obtain and mention only to note that people have taken the problem seriously enough to work on it.

Pay And Purpose

Where this lands for a small business. Ours, and not management advice.

Four points.

The hierarchy underwrites a familiar sequence. Sort out pay and conditions, then worry about meaning, and a firm short of cash reads that as permission to postpone the second.

On our own arithmetic that postponement is the expensive part, because the levers a firm can afford are disproportionately the ones the hierarchy puts last.

And the reverse error is equally available and equally encouraged. A firm that offers purpose in place of pay is using the same picture upside down, and the arithmetic says nothing about whether that works either.

The defensible position is unglamorous. Cost each lever, estimate each effect, and rank by return, which requires no theory of human nature and produces an ordering specific to your firm.

Diagrams That Argue

The transferable lesson, which is why this article is worth its length. Ours.

Four observations.

Every diagram encodes claims its underlying content may not make, and the pyramid is an unusually clean example because the geometry is exact.

Funnels do the same thing. A sales funnel asserts that volume decreases monotonically through the stages, which is usually true and is asserted by the shape rather than measured.

So do matrices. A two-by-two asserts that two dimensions are the relevant ones and that they are independent, both of which are substantive claims and neither of which the boxes defend.

And concentric circles assert containment, timelines assert causation, and pie charts assert that the categories are exhaustive and non-overlapping. The format is an argument, and it is the part of a slide nobody checks.

Two reasons that part goes unchecked, ours. A shape is chosen before the content is written, usually from a template menu, so its claims are made before anybody knows what the content will be.

And nobody reviews a diagram the way they review a sentence. A reviewer who would challenge "most value is at the top" will look at a triangle asserting exactly that and see only a triangle.

Your Own Slides

The practical version. Ours.

Four points.

Ask what your shape asserts. If you have drawn a pyramid, you have claimed the base is bigger; if a funnel, that it narrows; if a matrix, that two dimensions suffice.

Check whether you believe the assertion, and if you do not, use a shape that does not make it. A list, a wheel or a set of overlapping circles are all available and all carry less.

Be most careful with the shapes you did not choose, meaning the templates. A default layout is an argument somebody else made.

And notice when a diagram is doing the persuading. On the abstract's own account, a theory with little empirical support remained popular because of its picture, which is the strongest available demonstration that this matters.

One last practical note, ours. The test is whether you could state the same claim in a sentence without the shape. If you can, the shape is decoration and is safe.

If you cannot, the shape is carrying part of the argument, and you should be able to say which part and whether you believe it.

Bibliographic Note

The series keeps a count, and this article produced two.

The 2019 paper is dated 2019 by its journal[1], cited as 2018 by one source[3], and cited as 2017 by another[5], which cites a differently titled Academy of Management Proceedings version from that year.

And the 1976 review's second author is given as Bridwell in most reference lists and as "Bridgewell" in one[6], which also renders the first author's initial differently.

Three observations, ours.

The year spread is partly legitimate, since a conference proceedings version genuinely existed in 2017 under another title, and partly not, since 2018 corresponds to nothing we found.

The surname variant would defeat an author search, which is the practical test we apply.

That brings the running count of bibliographic variants across this series to thirty-nine.

One observation on the year spread specifically, ours. A paper existing in a proceedings version under one title and a journal version under another is a genuine trap, and neither citation is wrong, which makes it the hardest kind to resolve from a reference list alone.

The practical response is the one we have used throughout. Chase the DOI rather than the year, since the identifier resolves to one item and the year does not.

What To Do

Stop teaching the pyramid as Maslow's. A peer-reviewed journal states flatly that he never created it, and the shape carries claims the theory does not.

Notice what a five-band triangle asserts. On our own geometry the base is exactly nine times the apex, and a reader supplies what the ratio measures.

Do not sequence your motivation spending. On our own invented figures a firm following the order can be left doing nothing while a cheaper effective option sits unused.

Cost each lever and rank by return. That produces an ordering specific to your firm and requires no theory of human nature.

Treat the extremes as the exception. Genuinely unsafe conditions or wages below subsistence plausibly do dominate, and no framework is needed to see it.

Ask what every diagram on your slides asserts. Funnels claim monotonic decline, matrices claim two dimensions suffice, pies claim exhaustive non-overlapping categories.

Be most suspicious of template shapes, which are arguments somebody else made and you inherited.

And separate a representation from the work it represents. The finding here concerns how a theory is drawn and taught, not what its author argued, and we did not read what its author argued.

The Limits Of This Analysis

Several caveats matter. This article discusses research on motivation and on how diagrams carry claims, and is not management or human resources advice; the applications are our own reasoning and untested. Everything is verified to August 2026. We did not obtain the 2019 paper, only its abstract from the publishing association's journal record, so we cannot describe the archival evidence supporting its central claim. We did not obtain Maslow's 1943 paper at all, and therefore make no claim about what he argued, how strongly, or with what qualifications; a reader wanting that should not rely on this article. We did not obtain the 1976 review, which is the standard citation for the empirical difficulty and reaches us as a citation in four reference lists; our account of the evidential position rests on one clause in one abstract and is correspondingly thin. The origin trace, including the 1957 textbook, the 1960 pyramid and the claim that the diagram preceded the theory's popularity, reaches us through a single non-academic article's account of the paper's findings, flagged at every use; we have seen neither the 1957 nor the 1960 item. Four of our six sources are non-academic and are used for citation confirmation and for that trace. Our geometry is exact and assumes a triangle divided into five bands of equal height, which is the standard rendering but not the only one; a diagram with unequal bands would give different ratios, and the general point that the shape asserts a magnitude would stand. All commercial figures are invented, including both costs, both effects and the budget, and they demonstrate that sequencing can be expensive rather than that it is. And we drafted a further section computing how often sequencing costs a firm anything, and withdrew it because the calculation required a distribution nobody has; it appears above as reasoning rather than as a number.

Related Reading

Behavioural Finance Most Of It Was The First Twenty Seconds Another famous finding whose popular form outran what was measured. No. 93 The Interval Nobody Quotes A 2021 reanalysis found 95 percent intervals of 4 to 520 people. The 1992 original carried an interval of 100 to 230 and its author called it... Behavioural Finance A Sentence In A Discussion Section Another number that carries a claim its source never made.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Maslow draw the pyramid?

A 2019 paper in a peer-reviewed management education journal states in its abstract that Maslow never created a pyramid to represent the hierarchy of needs. A non-academic account of that paper attributes the pyramid to a 1960 article by Charles McDermid titled "How money motivates men."

Is the theory empirically supported?

The same abstract states that the theory persists despite gaining little support in empirical studies, offered as accepted background rather than as the paper's finding. The standard citation for that is a 1976 review we did not obtain, so our account of the evidential position is thin.

What does the pyramid shape claim?

On our own geometry, a triangle divided into five equal-height bands gives areas of 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 from apex to base. The base occupies 36 percent of the figure and the apex 4, a ratio of exactly nine to one. A list of five needs asserts nothing about relative size.

Why does the sequence matter commercially?

Because cost and tier often run in opposite directions. Pay and conditions are capital-intensive; recognition and autonomy are mostly free. On our own invented figures a firm with a $20,000 budget following the hierarchy does nothing, while one treating the needs as independent gains three points and keeps $12,000.

Is the hierarchy ever right?

Plausibly at the extremes, which is probably why it feels true. Nobody disputes that a starving person is not thinking about esteem. The difficulty is that it is obviously right at the extremes, unsupported in the middle, and used in the middle, which is where every actual firm operates.

So what should a firm use instead?

On our own reasoning, cost each available lever, estimate its effect, and rank by return per dollar. That produces an ordering specific to your firm rather than a general theory of human nature, and it makes the sequencing question a fact about your list.

What is the general lesson?

That diagrams argue. Funnels assert monotonic decline, two-by-twos assert that two dimensions suffice and are independent, pie charts assert exhaustive non-overlapping categories. On the abstract's own account a theory with little empirical support remained popular because of its picture.

References

1. Publishing association's journal record for Bridgman, T., Cummings, S., & Ballard, J. (2019), Who Built Maslow's Pyramid? A History of the Creation of Management Studies' Most Famous Symbol and Its Implications for Management Education, Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18(1), 81–98, DOI 10.5465/amle.2017.0351, reproducing the abstract: that Abraham Maslow's theory of motivation, the idea that human needs exist in a hierarchy that people strive to satisfy progressively, is regarded as a fundamental approach to understanding and motivating people at work; that it is one of the first and most remembered models encountered by students of management; that despite gaining little support in empirical studies and being criticised for promoting an elitist, individualistic view of management, the theory remains popular, underpinned by its widely recognised pyramid form; that however Maslow never created a pyramid to represent the hierarchy of needs; that the authors investigated how it came to be and call for a rethink of how Maslow is represented in management studies; and that they challenge management educators to reflect critically on what are taken to be the historical foundations of management studies. The record carries the paper's reference list, confirming Wahba, M. A., and Bridwell, L. G. (1976), Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 15, 212–240, and Vroom, V. (1967), a review of Maslow's own management book in Contemporary Psychology. Note: the publishing association's own journal record, and our only academic source for any finding here. We obtained the abstract and not the paper, so we cannot describe the archival evidence behind its central claim. journals.aom.org
2. Non-academic article describing the 2019 paper's investigation, recording that the earliest illustrated example of Maslow's work the authors could find was in a 1957 management textbook, Human Relations in Business by Keith Davis, showing a series of steps leading to the top rather than a pyramid; that the pyramid itself is the work of Charles McDermid, used in a 1960 article in Business Horizons; and expressing the view that it was not until Maslow's model was turned into a pyramid that it became popular. It cites Wahba and Bridwell (1976), Bridgman, Cummings and Ballard (2019), and McDermid, C. D. (1960), How money motivates men, Business Horizons, 3(4), 93–100. Note: a non-academic article, flagged at every use. Our only source for the origin trace, which therefore reaches us at two removes; we have seen neither the 1957 nor the 1960 item. linkedin.com
3. Non-academic magazine article proposing an alternative metaphor to the pyramid, whose reference list confirms Bridgman, T., Cummings, S., and Ballard, J., Who Built Maslow's Pyramid?, Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18(1), 81–98; Wahba, M. A., and Bridwell, L. G. (1976), Maslow reconsidered: A review of research on the need hierarchy theory, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 15(2), 212–240; and Kaufman, S. B. (2020), Transcend: The new science of self-actualization. Note: a non-academic magazine article, flagged; citations only. Recorded also as a bibliographic variant: it dates the Bridgman paper 2018 where the journal gives 2019. We obtained none of the works named. psychologytoday.com
4. Peer-reviewed article proposing a typology of thirteen fundamental needs for human-centred design, whose reference list independently confirms Bridgman, T., Cummings, S., and Ballard, J. (2019), Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18, 81–98; McDermid, C. D., How money motivates men, Business Horizons, 1960, 3, 93–100; and Wahba, M. A., and Bridwell, L. G., Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 1976, 15, 212–240. Note: a peer-reviewed article's reference list; citations only, used to confirm the McDermid citation independently of our non-academic source. We obtained none of the works named, nor this paper's own contents. mdpi.com
5. Non-academic practice website's account of the theory, recording that on the authors' analysis Maslow never intended his theory to be presented as a pyramid and was not the author of the diagram, and that the visualisation originates from McDermid's 1960 work; and cautioning that the representation has been taken out of its original context and adapted for a different use. It cites both Bridgman, Cummings and Ballard (2017), Triangulating Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: The Construction of Management Studies' Famous Pyramid, Academy of Management Proceedings, 2017(1), 14177, and the 2019 journal article. Note: a non-academic website, flagged. Recorded principally as a bibliographic variant: it dates the work 2017, citing a differently titled conference proceedings version, which is a legitimate earlier item under another name. archpsych.co.uk
6. Non-academic blog post on diagrams in education, recording that the 2019 paper won its journal's best paper award for 2019, and carrying a reference list confirming McDermid, C. D. (1960), Business Horizons, 3(4), 93–100; Kenrick, D. T., Neuberg, S. L., Griskevicius, V., Becker, D. V., and Schaller, M. (2010), Goal-Driven Cognition and Functional Behavior: The Fundamental-Motives Framework, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(1), 63–67; and Tay, L., and Diener, E. (2011), Needs and subjective well-being around the world, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(2), 354. Note: a non-academic blog, flagged. The award claim is not independently verified by us. Recorded also as a bibliographic variant: it renders the 1976 review's second author as "Bridgewell" and gives the first author's initial as A rather than M A. donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com

This article discusses research on motivation and on how diagrams carry claims, and is not management or human resources advice. The 2019 paper was not obtained, only its abstract; Maslow's 1943 paper was not obtained at all, and no claim is made here about what he argued. The 1976 review was not obtained. Four of the six sources are non-academic and are flagged at every use. The geometry is exact; every commercial figure is invented. One further calculation was drafted and withdrawn.