The Hierarchy of Needs and Need- Hierarchy Comparisons The pyramid on the left represents the five-level hierarchy of needs formulated by Maslow. The two block pyramids on the right (a, b) represent two different groups of people-say, the populations of two different countries. Note that the block representing affiliation needs (level 3) is wider in (b) than in (a) conversely, the block representing self-actualization needs (level 5) is wider in (a) than in (b). In other words, even if we rank various needs in the same order (or hierarchy), the people in one country may regard a given higher-order need as more important (wider) than do people another country.