All humans have a need to be respected and to have self-esteem and self respect. Esteem presents the normal human desires to be accepted and valued by others. People need to engage themselves to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution, to feel self valued, be it in a profession or hobby. Imbalances at this level can result in low self-esteem or an inferiority complex. People with low self esteem need respect from others. They may seek fame or glory, which again depends on others. However, that many people with low self-esteem will not be able to improve their view of themselves simply by receiving fame, respect, and glory externally, but must first accept them internally. Psychological imbalances such as depression can also prevent one from obtaining self-esteem on both levels.

 Most people have a need for a stable self-respect and self-esteem. Maslow noted two versions of esteem needs, a lower one and a higher one. The lower one is the need for the respect of others, the need for self-respect the need for status, recognition, fame, prestige, and attention. The higher one is the need for self-respect, the need for strength, competence, mastery, self confidence, independence and freedom. The latter one ranks higher because it rests more on inner competence won through experience. Deprivation of these needs can lead to an inferiority complex, weakness and helplessness.

 Self – actualization

What a man can be, he must be. This forms the basis of the perceived need for self-actualization. This level of need pertains to what a person’s full potential is and realizing that potential. Maslow describes this desire as the desire to become more and more what one is to become everything that one is capable of becoming. This is a broad definition of the need for self actualization, but when applied to individuals the need is specific. For instance, one individual may have the strong desire to become an ideal parent, in another it may be expressed athletically, and in another it may be express in painting, pictures or inventions. As mentioned before, in order to reach a clear understanding of this level of need one must first not only achieve the previous needs, physiological, safety, love and esteem but master these needs.

 Self transcendence 

Viktor Frankl later added self-transcendence to create his own version of Maslow’s hierarchy. Cloninger later incorporated self-transcendence as a spiritual dimension of personality in the temperament and character inventory.    

 The opponent process theory

In this you consider a frightened activity such as parachute jumping. It is claimed that, there is tremendous or great relief and excitement following the sky diving experience that needs a person to repeat the experiment that needs activity to represent the feeling of excitement. According to opponent process theory, the initial emotion gradually weakness with the repletion of the activity. The opposing emotion becomes stronger and eventually provides the motivation for the activity. In this therefore, there is shift from negative state of fear to positive excitement.

 The arousal theory

Arousal is a state of alertness involving mental and physical activation. It states that, we are motivated to maintain an optimal level of arousal, if arousal is less than the optimal level and we do something to stimulate it. If exceeds the optimal level, we seek to reduce the arousal. The biological needs such as needs for water increases our arousal. We also get aroused when we encounter new stimuli or when the strength of the stimuli is greatly increased, as in the cases of loud noise, bright light and bad smell. Therefore, an individual can however at high or low levels of arousal, but she or he is motivated to achieve a comfortable optimal level of arousal by acting in ways that increase or decrease stimulation.