Chapter Outline

SUMMARY OUTLINE

I. Overview of Maslow's Holistic-Dynamic Theory
Abraham Maslow's holistic-dynamic theory holds that people are continually motivated by one or more needs, and that, under the proper circumstances, they can reach a level of psychological health called self-actualization.

II. Biography of Abraham H. Maslow
Abraham H. Maslow was born in New York in 1908, the oldest of seven children of Russian Jewish immigrants. After two or three mediocre years as a college student, his work improved at about the time he was married. He received both a bachelor's degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin where he worked with Harry Harlow conducting animal studies. Most of his professional career was spent at Brooklyn College and at Brandeis University. Poor health forced him to move to California where he died in 1970 at age 62.

III. Maslow's View of Motivation
Maslow's theory rests on five basic assumptions about motivation: (1) the whole organism is motivated at any one time; (2) motivation is complex, and unconscious motives often underlie behavior; (3) people are continually motivated by one need or another; (4) people in different cultures are all motivated by the same basic needs; and (5) needs can be arranged on a hierarchy.
A. Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow held that lower level needs have prepotency over higher level needs; that is, they must be satisfied before higher needs become motivators. Maslow's hierarchy includes (1) physiological needs, such as oxygen, food, water, and so on; (2) safety needs, which include physical security, stability, dependency, protection, and freedom from danger, and which result in basic anxiety if not satisfied; (3) love and belongingness needs, including the desire for friendship, the wish for a mate and children, and the need to belong; (4) esteem needs, which follow from the satisfaction of love needs and which include self-confidence and the recognition that one has a positive reputation; and (5) self-actualization needs, which are satisfied only by the psychologically healthiest people. Unlike other needs that automatically are activated when lower needs are met, self-actualization needs do not inevitably follow the satisfaction of esteem needs. Only by embracing such B-values as truth, beauty, oneness, and justice, can people achieve self-actualization. The five needs on Maslow's hierarchy are conative needs. Other needs include aesthetic needs, cognitive needs, and neurotic needs.
B. Aesthetic Needs
Aesthetic needs include a desire for beauty and order, and some people have much stronger aesthetic needs than do others. When people fail to meet their aesthetic needs, they become sick.
C. Cognitive Needs
Cognitive needs include the desire to know, to understand, and to be curious. Knowledge is a prerequisite for each of the five conative needs. Also, people who are denied knowledge and kept in ignorance become sick, paranoid, and depressed.
D. Neurotic Needs
With each of the above three dimensions of needs, physical or psychological illness results when the needs are not satisfied. Neurotic needs, however,
lead to pathology regardless of whether they are satisfied or not. Neurotic needs include such motives as a desire to dominate, to inflict pain, or to subject oneself to the will of another person. Neurotic needs are nonproductive and do not
foster health.
E. General Discussion of Needs
Maslow believed that most people satisfy lower level needs to a greater extent than they do higher levels needs, and that the greater the satisfaction of one need, the more fully the next highest need is likely to emerge. In certain rare cases, the order of needs might be reversed. For example, a starving mother may be motivated by love needs to give up food in order to feed her starving children. However, if we understood the unconscious motivation behind many apparent reversals, we would see that they are not genuine reversals at all. Thus, Maslow insisted that much of our surface behavior is actually motivated by more basic and often unconscious needs. Maslow also believed that some expressive behaviors are unmotivated, even though all behaviors have a cause. Expressive behavior has no aim or goal but is merely a person's mode of expression. In comparison, coping behaviors (which are motivated) deal with a person's attempt to cope with the environment. The conative needs ordinarily call forth coping behaviors. Deprivation of any of the needs leads to pathology of some sort. For example, people's inability to reach self-actualization results in metapathology, defined as an absence of values, a lack of fulfillment, and a loss of meaning in life. Maslow suggested that instinctoid needs are innately determined even though they can be modified by learning. Maslow also believed that higher level needs (love, esteem, and self-actualization) are later on the evolutionary scale than lower level needs and that they produce more genuine happiness and more peak experiences.

IV. Self-Actualization
Maslow believed that a very small percentage of people reach an ultimate level of psychological health called self-actualization.
A. Values of Self-Actualizers
Maslow held that self-actualizers are metamotivated by such B-values as truth, goodness, beauty, justice, and simplicity.
B. Criteria for Self-Actualization
Four criteria must be met before a person achieves self-actualization: (1) absence of psychopathology, (2) satisfaction of each of the four lower level needs,
(3) acceptance of the B-values, and (4) full realization of one's potentials
for growth.
C. Characteristics of Self-Actualizing People
Maslow listed 15 qualities that characterize self-actualizing people, although not all self-actualizers possess each of the characteristics to the same extent. These characteristics are (1) more efficient perception of reality, meaning that self-actualizers often have an almost uncanny ability to detect phoniness in others, and they are not fooled by sham; (2) acceptance of self, others, and nature; (3) spontaneity, simplicity, and naturalness, meaning that self-actualizers have no need to appear complex or sophisticated; (4) problem-centered which is the ability to view age-old problems from a solid philosophical position;
(5) the need for privacy, or a detachment that allows self-actualizing people to be alone without being lonely; (6) autonomy, meaning that they no longer are dependent on other people for their self-esteem; (7) continued freshness of appreciation and the ability to view everyday things with a fresh vision and appreciation; (8) frequent reports of peak experiences, or those mystical experiences that give a person a sense of transcendence and feelings of awe, wonder, ecstasy, reverence, and humility; (9) Gemeinschaftsgefühl, that is, social interest or a deep feeling of oneness with all humanity; (10) profound interpersonal relations, but with no desperate need to have a multitude of friends; (11) the democratic character structure, or the ability to disregard superficial differences between people; (12) discrimination between means and ends, meaning that self-actualizing people have a clear sense of right
and wrong, and they experience little conflict about basic values; (13) a philosophical sense of humor that is spontaneous, unplanned, and intrinsic
to the situation; (14) creativeness, with a keen perception of truth, beauty,
and reality; (15) resistance to enculturation, or the ability to set personal standards and to resist the mold set by culture.
D. Love, Sex, and Self-Actualization
Maslow compared D-love (deficiency love) to B-love (love for being or essence of another person). Self-actualizing people are capable of B-love because they can love without expecting something in return. B-love is mutually felt and shared and not based on deficiencies within the lovers.

V. Philosophy of Science
Maslow criticized traditional science as being value free, with a methodology that is sterile and nonemotional. He argued for a Taoistic attitude for psychology in which psychologists are willing to resacralize their science, or to instill it with human values and to view participants with awe, joy, wonder, rapture, and ritual.

VI. Measuring Self-Actualization
Maslow's method for measuring self-actualization were consistent with his philosophy of science. He began his study of self-actualizing people with little evidence that such a classification of people even existed. He looked at healthy people, learned what they had in common, and then established a syndrome for psychological health. Next, he refined the definition of self-actualization, studied other people, and changed the syndrome. He continued this process until he was satisfied that he had a clear definition of self-actualization. Other researchers have developed personality inventories for measuring self actualization. The most widely used of these is Everett Shostrom's Personal Orientation Inventory (POI), a 150-item forced-choice inventory that assesses a variety
of self-actualization facets.

VII. The Jonah Complex
Because humans are born with a natural tendency to move toward psychological health, any failure to reach self-actualization can technically be called abnormal development. One such abnormal syndrome is the Jonah complex, or fear of being or doing one's best, a condition that all of us have to some extent. Maslow believed that many people allow false humility to stifle their creativity, which causes them to fall short of self-actualization.

VIII. Psychotherapy
The hierarchy of needs concept has obvious ramifications for psychotherapy. Most people who seek psychotherapy probably do so because they have not adequately satisfied their love and belongingness needs. This suggests that much of therapy should involve a productive human relationship and that the job of
a therapist is to help clients satisfy love and belongingness needs.

IX. Related Research
Researchers have investigated Maslow's concept of self-actualization in many divergence settings and for a variety of purposes.
A. Self-Actualization and Intimate Interpersonal Relations
Michael Sheffield and his colleagues used the POI as a measure of self-actualization and found that high scores on the POI were inversely related
to interpersonal relations. More specifically, people who approached self-actualization tended to be self-motivated, accepted feelings of aggression, and were able to sustain intimacy.
B. Self-Actualization and Creativity
Mark Runco and his colleagues used the Short Index of Self-Actualization to assess self-actualization and found a positive relationship between self-actualization scores and two measures of creativity. Although the relationships were not strong, they suggest that, as Maslow's hypothesized, creativity is at least partly related to self-actualization.
C. Self-Actualization and Self-Acceptance
Some researchers have tested Maslow's assumption that self-actualizing people accept themselves. One study (Sumerlin & Bundrick, 2000) with African-American businessmen found that those who scored high on self-actualization tended to have increased happiness and self-fulfillment. Another study by William Compton and his colleagues found that self-actualization related to openness to experience and to seeking out new and exciting experiences.

X. Critique of Maslow
Maslow's theory has been popular in psychology and other disciplines, such as management, nursing, and education. The hierarchy of needs concept seems both elementary and logical, which gives Maslow's theory the illusion of simplicity. However, the theory is somewhat complex, with four dimensions of needs and the possibility of unconsciously motivated behavior. As a scientific theory, Maslow's model rates high in generating research but low in falsifiability. On its ability to organize knowledge and guide action, the theory rates quite high; on its simplicity and internal consistency, it rates only average.

XI. Concept of Humanity
Maslow believed that people are structured in such a way that their activated needs are exactly what they want most. Hungry people desire food, frightened people look for safety, and so forth. Although he was generally optimistic and hopeful, Maslow saw that people are capable of great evil and destruction. He believed that as a species, humans are becoming more and more fully human and motivated by higher level needs. In summary, Maslow's view of humanity rates high on free choice, optimism, teleology, and uniqueness and about average on social influences.