Maslow's hierarchy,moral development,and prosocial behavioral skills within a child psychiatric population

Maslow's assertions concerning conative needs and prosocial/antisocial behavior among disturbed children were examined in a psychiatric population of children 9 to 14 years old. Controlling for age and Piagetian cognitive development, it was found that among the participants in the midrange of moral reasoning (for this age group, as measured by Kohlberg's interview) there was a positive and highly significant relationship between prosocial behavior ratings and conative development. Clarity of the needs for belongingness was predictive of higher prosocial peer ratings, over and above the predictive utility of moral reasoning level. These results also supported Eron's observations about the potential for healthy dependency needs to deter aggressive behavior.We wish to acknowledge the invaluable aid of Scott R. Vezina in the processing of the data reported herein, and we also wish to express our gratitude to Anne Cartelli for her untiring and superb secretarial assistance.Ordering of authors' names was determined by random procedure and is not indicative of disproportionate contributions to the overall research.