Wenkende behoeften uit de toekomst: een kwalitatieve studie naar vervulde behoeften in narratieve toekomstverbeelding in het kader van de behoeftetheorie van Abraham H. Maslow

In the lifestorylab of the University of Twente researchers study the relationship between life stories and psychological wellbeing. A future-letter is a sort life story where people write in up to 400 words a letter from a positive imagined future to the present. In this study using the grounded theory approach the content of 117 letters was determined and then compared with the theory of needs of Abraham H. Maslow. The content of the letters could be categorized in 12 different themes. In addition, two different types of letters could be established which represent the variation of different themes. In comparison with the needs of Maslow's theory it shows that there is some correlation between the themes in future letters and the needs in Maslow’s theory.