The resurgence of motivation in social psychology has been a welcome addition to the cognitive revolution, though a theory-based approach to motivational content has remained conspicuously absent. Kenrick, Griskevicius, Neuberg, and Schaller (2010, this issue) dust off Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and find this content in the form of evolutionarily inspired, fundamental motives. Their new framework unites functional, developmental, and proximal levels of analysis by showing how these levels complement rather than compete with each other. We highlight what we see as the especially valuable features of this framework and discuss its relevance for research on goal conflict, multigoal priming, and recent studies of goal scaffolding. We also suggest one main tweak to the theoretical foundation presented here that may bear greater empirical fruit. In sum, Kenrick and colleagues have reinvigorated a classic theory by integrating it with a modern understanding of human behavior’s evolutionary roots.
AckermanJ.M.BeckerD.V.MortensenC.R.SasakiT.NeubergS.L.KenrickD.T. (2009). A pox on the mind: Disjunction of attention and memory in processing physical disfigurement. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 478–485.
2.
AckermanJ.M.KenrickD.T. (2008). The costs of benefits: Help-refusals highlight key trade-offs of social life. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12, 118–140.
3.
AckermanJ.M.KenrickD.T.SchallerM. (2007). Is friendship akin to kinship?Evolution & Human Behavior, 28, 365–374.
4.
BarghJ.A. (1990). Auto-motives: Preconscious determinants of social interaction. In HigginsE.T.SorrentinoR.M. (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition (pp. 93–130). 2, New York: Guilford.
5.
BarghJ.A. (2006). What have we been priming all these years? On the development, mechanisms, and ecology of nonconscious social behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36, 147–168.
6.
BarrettH.C.KurzbanR. (2006). Modularity in cognition: Framing the debate. Psychological Review, 113, 628–647.
7.
BugentalD.B. (2000). Acquisition of the algorithms of social life: A domain-based approach. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 187–219.
8.
ClarkH.H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
9.
DeWallC.N.BaumeisterR.F. (2006). Alone but feeling no pain: Effects of social exclusion on physical pain tolerance and pain threshold, affective forecasting, and interpersonal empathy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 1–15.
10.
FiskeA.P. (1992). The four elementary forms of sociality: Framework for a unified theory of social relations. Psychological Review, 99, 689–723.
11.
GollwitzerP.M.BarghJ.A. (1996). (Eds.). The psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior. New York: Guilford.
12.
GrahamW.K.BallounJ. (1973). An empirical test of Maslow’s need hierarchy theory. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 13, 97–108.
13.
KenrickD.T.GriskeviciusV.NeubergS.L.SchallerM. (2010). Renovating the pyramid of needs: Contemporary extensions built upon ancient foundations. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 292–314.
14.
KrebsD.L.Van HesterenF. (1994). The development of altruism: Toward an integrative model. Developmental Review, 14, 1–56.
15.
KruglanskiA.W. (1996). Motivated social cognition: Principles of the interface. In HigginsE.T.KruglanskiA.W. (Eds.), Social psychology: A handbook of basic principles (pp. 493–522). New York: Guilford.
16.
KundaZ. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 480–498.
17.
LevineC. (1979). Stage acquisition and stage use: An appraisal of stage displacement explanations of variation in moral reasoning. Human Development, 22, 145–164.
18.
MaslowA.H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370–396.
19.
NeubergS.L.KenrickD.T.ManerJ.K.SchallerM. (2005). From evolved motives to everyday mentation: Evolution, goals, and cognition. In ForgasJ.P.WilliamsK.D.LahamS.M. (Eds.), Social motivation: Conscious and unconscious processes (pp. 133–152). New York: Cambridge University Press.
20.
RozinP.FallonA.E. (1987). A perspective on disgust. Psychological Review, 94, 23–41.
21.
SchallerM.DuncanL.A. (2007). The behavioral immune system: Its evolution and social psychological implications. In ForgasJ.P.HaseltonM.G.von HippelW. (Eds.), Evolution and the social mind: Evolutionary psychology and social cognition (pp. 293–307). New York: Psychology Press.
22.
SorrentinoR.M.HigginsE.T. (1986). The handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior. New York: Guilford.
23.
StrongL.L.FiebertM.S. (1987). Using paired comparisons to assess Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 64, 492–494.
WilliamsL.E.HuangJ.Y.BarghJ.A. (2009). The scaffolded mind: Higher mental processes are grounded in early experience of the physical world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 1257–1267.
26.
WyerR.S.SrullT.K. (1986). Human cognition in its social context. Psychological Review, 93, 322–359.
27.
ZhongC.B.LiljenquistK. (2006). Washing away your sins: Threatened morality and physical cleansing. Science, 313, 1451–1452.
