This hierarchy is the fourth in a series I developed out of my broader population work and my 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers. Please see my introductory post on why I hate Maslow's hierarchy, and why I am using his model with very strong reservations.

My fourth and final hierarchy looks at outcomes. What are the typical outcomes of individuals who are at the apex (for lack of better word) of the other three hierarchies? Or the typical outcomes of individuals who are not motivated learners and/or may be focusing on self-sufficiency (as described in the hierarchy on "Capacity for Engagement")?

Well, roughly this final hierarchy. Those at the top of the other hierarchies tend to be at the top of this one … with higher income, health, and wellbeing. And those at the bottom of the other hierarchies tend to be at the bottom of this one too.

But there are caveats to start, of course. I am making broad generalizations, which is useful, but individuals can always differ. Someone can be at the apex on one of the hierarchies, but at the bottom of another. Or, someone can be at the bottom of all three of the hierarchies I have already shared, but at the apex of this outcomes one by, for example, the good fortune of birth into a very affluent family.

Additionally, as I have said before, this is not a judgment on anyone's individual worth. One can be at the apex of all of these hierarchies, and still be a horrible person; the opposite is true as well. External factors are so numerous, rooted in class and race, societal pressures and structures (for good and ill), and upbringing. It is wrong to make a judgment on a person doing the best they can, within constraints that may be out of their control.

And I believe museums have an obligation to do all they can to remove those constraints so that more people can attain these positive outcomes, increase their capacity to engage, be intrinsically motivated to learn, and enjoy our world.

​OK, now let's get to what the data says. Looking across three major national studies (two broader population samples and my 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers), I see patterns in the data that households with a learning mindset have better outcomes. That is, those who are proactive about learning, whether extrinsically or intrinsically motivated, do better. Most importantly, this holds true when educational attainment is controlled for.

That is, if we are to look at only those who have a college degree, those who do things like volunteer in their community, engage with the broader world, and proactively learn about that world through, for example, museum visitation, are more likely to be employed, have a significantly higher income, and have better long-term health outcomes.

The same is true if we only look at those without a college degree.

It isn't that going to museums creates this outcome. Let's make that clear. Additionally, I'm not, by any means, the first to have these types of findings; other researchers are finding similar patterns, attributing these types of life outcomes to arts engagement and proactive learning (see sources, below).

Instead, it is an affirmation that having a proactive learning mindset matters. It matters for cultural competency. It matters for inter-disciplinary and critical thinking skills. It matters for healthy communities. And it matters for socio-personal relationships. That's likely what makes these individuals more employable (and at a higher wage) as well as giving them more positive health and wellness outcomes.

And we can claim that museums are important tools used by many of those with a proactive learning mindset to get there. That matters.

Our challenge is that we don't have enough evidence to make a compelling case that we contribute more towards these outcomes than, say, Lumosity (which science says isn't a whole lot). If we are going to continue to matter to more individuals in the future, and to make it easier for more people to proactively pursue learning (and improve their life outcomes as well), we need that evidence to back up our assertions. Evidence that can lead to funding to broaden and deepen our impact.

Happily, more of that good work is happening, especially around health and wellness (see below). My work around the value of museums is a starting point for more significant work around learning motivations and the outcomes of a proactive learning mindset. I'll continue that work, and am hopeful others will do so as well since, as researchers, we all bring different skills and our own mindsets to the research table.

You can help as well. By joining my studies and/or those of others (more information below.) Because now more than ever, we need museums to open minds, develop connections, and strengthen communities.


For more on health and wellness outcomes and prosociality from arts engagement (an indicator of a learning mindset), see my reviews of:

Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing
The Arts as a Catalyst for Human Prosociality and Cooperation
The Social Wellbeing of New York City's Neighborhoods: The Contribution of Culture and the Arts

For more on having a learning mindset, see Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol S. Dweck.
*when educational attainment is controlled for



A note about fielding research. I hold dear the idea that research for the field, about the field, should be shared with the field. But that only works when museums work together to make it possible. Since individual museums are needed to field this work, the survey also benefits participating museums on an individual level by providing benchmark data on visitation rates, motivations, attitudes and preferences, and demographic questions … all of which can then be tracked over time in the future. Participating museums are also allowed to add 1 - 2 custom questions specific to their needs. 

Which means if you value this research,  want more of it in the coming years, and want to track your own museum's progress over time, please support this work by enrolling your museum in the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum Goers. The fee for 2018 is only $1,000 per museum. 



The questions for these surveys have been inspired by ongoing conversations within the museum field (who does/does not go to museums, why they do/do not visit, and what that means for communities) and ongoing research in the fields of education and psychology around lifelong learning and intrinsic motivation.

This hierarchy is the third in a series I developed out of my broader population work and my 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers. Please see my introductory post on why I hate Maslow's hierarchy, and why I am using his model with very strong reservations.

My third hierarchy steps back to look at the whole person, and what their life circumstances allows. In some ways, this hierarchy is the closest to Maslow. And this hierarchy is directly inspired by work from the Science of Generosity Initiative at the University of Notre Dame, which was released in the book American Generosity. I explored some of these ideas recently, and I strongly encourage you to see my review of that work on The Curated Bookshelf.

In American Generosity, the researchers discussed four levels of capacity to give:

• Level 1: Self-sufficiency - taking care of self and not being a burden to others.
• Level 2: Relational-parental - taking care of immediate family members so as not to be a burden to others; working to provide opportunities to family members to improve family outcomes (such as working multiple jobs to enable a child to go to college).
• Level 3: Community-religious - helping others in your community through giving locally and through houses of worship (e.g., tithing). Rather concrete giving where the giver sees how it benefits the community; feeling like they are part of community of givers.
• Level 4: Self-actualized giving (they called it professional-lifestyle, but I don't think that is totally accurate) - broader giving that goes beyond personal communities, and can be more abstract. They also include giving to maintain professional and social standing.​​

I've flipped these levels upside-down, where they form a logical reflection of Maslow's hierarchy. After all, if you can't take care of yourself at a basic, fundamental level, how are you supposed to take care of others?

In this case, however, I'm looking at engagement, which is broader than generosity. Indeed, I would argue that generosity is an outgrowth of engagement, because we are generous to those we are intellectually and/or emotionally engaged with. And, like in American Generosity, I'm looking through the lens of capacity. We all have different resources at our disposal, including resources of time, energy, and money. And thus, class is inextricably bound up in capacity. Therefore I want to be very, very careful here to not cast judgment on anyone. My default is that everyone is doing the best they can with the resources available to them, whether at the "self" level or the "broader world" level.

• Self: we take care of ourselves and our basic needs. For some, this takes all of their resources, and requires a very inward focus.
• Family (can also include close friends): we also take care of those we care the most about. When I think of this level, I think of parents scrambling to make sure they have childcare and that they get their kids to school on time. I also think of those parents working overtime to pay for college educations, "sandwiched" adults caring for both children and ailing parents, and grandparents caring for grandchildren. And I think of single parents doing the best they can to make ends meet. With those demands, it is difficult to look up and pay attention to what is going on in our communities, much less the broader world. In terms of museums, this is where we are likely to see some extrinsically-motivated parents who visit museums for their children.
• Community: when someone has capacity to look up and pay attention to what is going on in their community. To be fair, those at self and family levels may do this as well when something directly affects them or their family. But generally, this level means noticing the things that are indirect … or the things that could be made better. A feeling of involvement and connection with community and, like self and family, rather concrete in engagement because of its immediacy. In terms of museums, this is where we see deep community engagement, support of museums as "good" for a community, and perhaps a sense that museums contribute to a community's identity.
• Broader world: extending beyond community to paying attention, and being concerned about, things that are not immediate. It may be thinking more globally, contextualizing world events, and caring about things happening to those one doesn't know.  And in terms of museums, this is where we see individuals valuing museums for bringing that broader world to them, and the outcomes of those experiences for themselves and for others.

All of these levels are based in capacity. That doesn't mean that the affluent have a lock on the "broader world" level (they don't). Nor does it mean that someone at the self or family level is poor (I can think of at least one prominent family that seems to be stuck on the family level, despite having hundreds of millions at their disposal). Additionally, positions are not fixed. An individual who would normally be at the "broader world" level may suddenly find themselves at the "family" level if a family crisis arises. It all depends on capacity to pay attention, and capacity means some mix of financial, time, and energy resources.

Capacity can also, however, be rooted in mindset. If someone is raised in a household that engages with their local community, or the broader world, it is more likely that that individual will be an adult that looks up, pays attention, and engages … regardless of financial resources (that family may be devoting time and energy resources to make that happen; libraries and houses of worship seem to help a lot here). And museums seem to contribute to developing individuals with a broader world mindset, since museum-goers tell me that museums help them broaden perspectives, develop greater understanding of others and of other cultures, and develop empathy. Thus, museums may play a critical role in increasing the capacity of children to grow up into engaged, and contributing, adults. And that takes us to our fourth hierarchy, coming next.



A note about fielding research. I hold dear the idea that research for the field, about the field, should be shared with the field. But that only works when museums work together to make it possible. Since individual museums are needed to field this work, the survey also benefits participating museums on an individual level by providing benchmark data on visitation rates, motivations, attitudes and preferences, and demographic questions … all of which can then be tracked over time in the future. Participating museums are also allowed to add 1 - 2 custom questions specific to their needs. 

Which means if you value this research,  want more of it in the coming years, and want to track your own museum's progress over time, please support this work by enrolling your museum in the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum Goers. The fee for 2018 is only $1,000 per museum.


The questions for these surveys have been inspired by ongoing conversations within the museum field (who does/does not go to museums, why they do/do not visit, and what that means for communities) and ongoing research in the fields of education and psychology around lifelong learning and intrinsic motivation.

This hierarchy is the second in a series I developed out of my broader population work and my 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers. Please see my introductory post on why I hate Maslow's hierarchy, and why I am using his model with very strong reservations.

My second hierarchy looks at the motivations for museum visitation. At the bottom, the two broadest swaths of people: those who do not visit museums at all and those who only visit extremely casually (and probably less than once a year). Combined, this is probably about 2/3 of Americans, as both of the broader population samples I am working with validate.

As we move up the hierarchy,  however, we begin to see motivations for visiting museums.

• Social reasons and/or benefit to children. People visit to spend time with people they care about, both friends and family. To help children's development. I put these together because they are fundamentally about other people, not about the individual responding and their relationship with museum content. And that's OK. Fantastic even. They see museums as good places to step outside of everyday life and connect with someone they care about. Or that museums are helpful places for their children (and also a place for family connection). Those are incredibly valuable things that happen in our museums, every day, and are qualities in shorter supply elsewhere. And they are the most common motivation for visitors, regardless of overall learning mindset; it motivates me as well.
• Interest in specific subject. This one is smaller for two reasons: this motivation is now about the specific content at a museum (and one's response to it), and it is a bit hit-or-miss because it is based on specific interests. I'll explain. Imagine someone is interested in … birds. A museum hosts a bird exhibition, and they visit because they are interested in birds. So it is a response to the specific content being presented. But when that exhibit goes down and a new one on, say, origami, goes up, the visitor may not return unless they are interested in origami. That makes it hit-or-miss. I'm giving very narrow examples and, fortunately, people tend to have broader interests. They like history, or art, or science. Where it differs from the social/children reasons is that, theoretically, any museum can be a backdrop for those social/children reasons, while this one is limited by interest in the subject being presented. I've over-simplified it, however. Reality is more complicated, and often these are intertwined to some degree.
• Gain knowledge/become well-rounded/broaden perspectives. While the previous categories tend to be where extrinsically-motivated museum-goers congregate, as they are not visiting for an inherent love of learning in general, this category is, to be honest, a bit messy. That is because I will see in my data individual respondents who respond to my questions as a typical, extrinsically-motivated person might … but when I ask them to reflect on the value of museums in their life, they will talk about how much museums have taught them and how that knowledge has rounded them out, broadened their perspectives. But then, this isn't that surprising. If you go back to when I shared about proactive vs. reactive learners, it fits right in. These individuals are likely both highly extrinsically and intrinsically motivated, but the extrinsic motivations still have an overall edge on the intrinsic ones. With both being strong, their results are messier and make sense. And that is why specific interest in the subject is also no longer as important. Since they have such high intrinsic motivations to learn, they are more open to a wider variety of topics. They are more omnivorous in their museum choices.
• Intrinsic, love of learning. And here is where we have our museum-goers who are predominantly intrinsically motivated. Only a tiny sliver of the population, but our most avid visitors.

As a general model, this hierarchy works. And for museum-goers, one motivation tends to build on the next. That is, those who are intrinsically motivated also feel museums help them gain knowledge/broaden perspectives, will visit museums that have content they are specifically interested in, and enjoy museums for social reasons. Motivations tend to aggregate.

But please be mindful that what I share below isn't necessarily true for every single person. For example, an individual could fit easily in that "intrinsic, love of learning" category, but always visit museums alone. It may not even occur to them to visit with friends or family. Additionally, motivations can shift from one visit to another. I am highly intrinsically motivated in most of my museum visits, but not all; the umpteenth visit to one of my local museums is because my daughter loves it, not because of my intrinsic motivation (which disappeared around visit four, to be honest).

​And finally, as I have said before, one's place on the hierarchy is not an assessment of character or worth. There are many external reasons for why someone may have higher or lower capacity for learning motivations, both intrinsic and extrinsic. I'll explore that a bit more in my third hierarchy.

​
A note about fielding research. I hold dear the idea that research for the field, about the field, should be shared with the field. But that only works when museums work together to make it possible. Since individual museums are needed to field this work, the survey also benefits participating museums on an individual level by providing benchmark data on visitation rates, motivations, attitudes and preferences, and demographic questions … all of which can then be tracked over time in the future. Participating museums are also allowed to add 1 - 2 custom questions specific to their needs. 
​
Which means if you value this research,  want more of it in the coming years, and want to track your own museum's progress over time, please support this work by enrolling your museum in the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum Goers. The fee for 2018 is only $1,000 per museum. 

The questions for these surveys have been inspired by ongoing conversations within the museum field (who does/does not go to museums, why they do/do not visit, and what that means for communities) and ongoing research in the fields of education and psychology around lifelong learning and intrinsic motivation.