Abstract

Maslow's theory(1970) is important to understand the substantial structure of human basic needs. One of the question raised in his theory is, however, whether the theory can be applied to the environmental context. In this study, Maslow's theory is both theoretically and empirically investigated in the context of the housing environment. This study specially seeks to examine the relationship between residents' housing satisfaction and the human needs defined by Maslow. A modified structured interview form was used as the procedure of data gathering in six large-scale multi-family housing developments. Factor analysis was utilized to develop appropriate conceptual indices. Based upon the indices, the hypothesized model of this study was developed, and tested by path analysis. The results of model testing; showed several interesting findings ; 1) all six issues originated from Maslow's theory were strongly related to residents' housing satisfaction, suggesting a high possibility to apply the theory to the environmental context, 2) the needs in the residential environment, however, would not be organized into the independent hierarchy, as suggested by Maslow, but the causally dependent hierarchy, 3) and residential attachment is found to be a possible need to be added to Maslow's basic needs in the residential environment.