Maslow’s hierarchy of needs demonstrates the most important psychological human needs. It consists of five levels, where the lowest level represents the primary need and the highest level – the least important need. Thus, these needs are represented in the following way (from bottom to top): physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.
The Yerkes-Dodson law demonstrates the relationship between performance and arousal. It shows that performance can be increased with mental or physiological arousal but to a certain point. When the level of arousal is too high or too low, performance decreases. Thus, in order to achieve the best performance, the level of motivation must be exactly in the middle.
The Yerkes-Dodson Law is similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in a way that in order to achieve maximum performance of workers, their superiors should know what particular level of the hierarchy to influence and to what degree, so that the level of arousal would be in the middle. In real life, for instance, when we feel that our safety is compromised, our performance increases, or if we love someone, we will do something extraordinary to impress that person.
In their research, Cherian and Jacob analyzed the relationship between employee motivation, their performance, and self-efficacy. According to the results of this research, first, the overall self-efficacy has a positive influence on the employees’ performance; and second, the focus on performance and the complexity of tasks can moderate the connection between performance and self-efficacy.