1. Any system of persons or things ranked one above the other. 2. In psychology and psychiatry, an organization of habits or concepts in which simpler components are combined to form increasingly complex integrations. [G. hierarchia, rule or power of the high priest]
- dominance h. a social situation in which one organism dominates all below it, the next all below it, and so on down to the organism dominated by all; e.g., the pecking order in apes, seals, barnyard hens, and other species.
- Maslow h. a ranking of needs which humans presumably fills successively in the order of lowest to highest: physiological needs, love and belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization.
- response h. alternative reactions or modes of adjustment to a given situation arranged in the probable order of prior effectiveness; e.g., a mother attempting to discipline an unruly child may first request, cajole, then plead, scold, and finally punish; her behaviors can be ordered along a response h. for further monitoring of effectiveness.
- h. of terms in radiology, the semantic concept of using different terms to describe anatomic or pathologic structures versus the resultant diagnostic images.
Medical dictionary. 2011.