A Theory of Human Motivation is an article in which Maslow first presented his hierarchy of needs. Like many field-changing thinkers, Maslow was not just a talented researcher, he was also a creative thinker – able to see things from a new perspective and show them in a different light.

His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. Maslow described various needs and used the terms "Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, Self-Actualization and Self-Transcendence" needs to describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through.