HOLISTIC-DYNAMIC THEORY  If one need is satisfied, it losses its motivational power

and replaced by another needs

ABRAHAM H. MASLOW  (4) All people everywhere are motivated by the same
basic needs (same across all cultures)

Variously been called:  (5) Needs can be arranged on a hierarchy

 Humanistic theory
 Transpersonal theory HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
 The third force in psychology
 The fourth force in personality  Assumes that lower level needs must be satisfied or at
 Needs theory least relatively satisfied before higher level needs become
 Self-actualization theory motivators

 Maslow referred to it as a holistic-dynamic theory  The 5 needs composing this hierarchy are conative needs,
because it assumes that the whole person is constantly mean ing that they have a striving or motivational
being motivated by one need or another and that people character.
have the potential to grow toward psychological health,
that is, self-actualization  These needs, which Maslow often referred to as basic
needs, can be arranged on a hierarchy
 His graduate-level research with primates was greatly
influenced by the work of John B. Watson  Lower level needs have prepotency over higher level
needs; that is, they must be satisfied or mostly satisfied
BIOGRAPHY before higher level needs become activated
S-
A
 Maslow learned to hate and mistrust religion and to Esteem
become a committed atheist (because of his mother). Love & Belonging
Safety
 As a graduate student, he worked closely with Harry Physiological
Harlow, who was just beginning his research with
Hierarchy of Needs
monkeys
Physiological Needs
MASLOW’S VIEW OF MOTIVATION (5)
 The most prepotent of all

 Maslow’s theory of personality rests on several basic  As long as this need remains unsatisfied, their primary
assumptions regarding motivation: motivation is to obtain something (from this level)

 (1) Holistic approach to motivation  In affluent societies, when people say “hungry” they
 The whole person, not any single part or function, is speak about appetite. A truly hungry person will not be
motivated overly particular about taste, smell or texture of food

 (2) Motivation is usually complex  Physiological needs differ from other needs in at least 2
 A person’s behavior may spring from several separate important respects. 1st: the only needs that can be
motives (Ex: desire for sex may also be motivated by need completely/overly satisfied. 2nd: their recurring nature
for dominance, love, companionship)
Safety Needs
 (3) People are continually motivated by one need or
another
 Include physical security, dependency, protection, and undermine their own success by striving too hard. These
freedom from threatening forces such as war, illness, fear, leave others become suspicious, unfriendly, and
danger, chaos, and natural disasters impenetrable.

 Differ from physiological needs in that they cannot be Esteem Needs

overly satisfied; we can never be completely protected
from fires, floods, or the dangerous acts of others  Include self-respect, confidence, competence, and the
knowledge that others hold them in high esteem
 Other people spend more energy than healthy people
trying to satisfy safety needs, and when they are not 2 levels of esteem needs:
successful in their attempts, they suffer from basic
anxiety.  Reputation—is the perception of the prestige,
recognition, or fame a person has achieved in the eyes of
Love and Belongingness Needs others

 The desire for friendship; the wish for a mate and  Self-Esteem—is based on more than reputation or
children; the need to belong to a family, a club, a prestige; it reflects a “desire for strength, for
neighborhood, or a nation achievement, for adequacy, for mastery and competence,
for confidence in the face of the world, and for
 Also include some aspects of sex and human contact as independence and freedom”
well as the need to both give and receive love
 Once people meet their esteem needs, they stand on the
 1st Group: People who have had this needs adequately threshold of self-actualization
satisfied from early years do not panic when denied love.
They have confidence that they are accepted by those Self-Actualization Needs
who are important to them, so when other people reject
them, they do not feel devastated.  When lower level needs are satisfied, people proceed
more or less automatically to the next level. However,
 2nd Group: People who seldom or never received “acts of once esteem needs are met, they do not always move to
love” (Ex: hugs, cuddles, verbal words) will eventually the level of self-actualization
learn to devalue love and to take its absence for granted.
 Once esteem needs are satisfied, we may or may not
 3rd Group: People who have received love and move on to self-actualization depending whether or not
belongingness only in small doses, receive only a taste of we embrace the B-Values
love and belongingness—the will be strongly motivated to
seek it; have stronger needs for affection and acceptance  Self-actualization needs include self-fulfillment, the
than do people who have received either a healthy realization of all one’s potential, and a desire to become
amount of love or no love at all creative in the full sense of the word

 Children need love in order to grow psychologically  Become fully human, satisfying needs that others merely
(Straightforward, direct ways) glimpse or never view at all

 Adults too (But sometimes cleverly disguised)  They are natural in the same sense that animals and
infants are natural; that is, they express their basic human
 These adults often engage in self-defeating behaviors, needs and do not allow them to be suppressed by culture
such as pretending to be aloof or adopting a cynical, cold,
and calloused manner in their interpersonal relationships,  Maintain their feelings of self-esteem even when scorned,
but in reality they have a strong need to be accepted and rejected, and dismissed by other people
loved by other people.
 Others whose love needs remain largely unsatisfied adopt
more obvious ways of trying to satisfy them, but they
 3 other categories of needs
 No value in the striving for self-actualization
 Satisfaction of aesthetic and cognitive needs is consistent  Usually reactive; that is, they serve as compensation for
with psychological health, whereas the deprivation of unsatisfied basic needs
these two needs results in pathology. Neurotic needs,
however, lead to pathology whether or not they are General Discussion of Needs
satisfied.
 The more a lower level need is satisfied, the greater the
Aesthetic Needs emergence of the next level need

 Unlike conative needs, aesthetic needs are not universal  Needs, emerge gradually, and a person may be
simultaneously motivated by needs from two or more
 Some people have produced art for art’s sake levels

 People with strong aesthetic needs desire beautiful and Reversed Order of Needs
orderly surroundings, and when these needs are not met,
they may become sick (physically and spiritually)  Ex: An enthusiastic artist may risk safety and health to
complete an important work
Cognitive Needs
 Reversals, however, are usually more apparent than real.
 Most people have a desire to know, to solve mysteries, to If we understood the unconscious motivation underlying
understand, and to be curious the behavior, we would recognize that the needs are not
reversed (Ex: Pursuit for creativity just to be appreciated
 When cognitive needs are blocked, all needs on Maslow’s by others—not S-A need, but a belonging need)
hierarchy are threatened; that is, knowledge is necessary
to satisfy each of the five conative needs Unmotivated Behavior

 Because… (You know the answer, Ivan) pg. 284 Feist & Feist (7th ed.)  Even though all behaviors have a cause, some behaviors
are not motivated

 Healthy people desire to know (to theorized, etc.) more  Some behavior is not caused by needs but by other
just for the satisfaction of knowing. factors such as conditioned reflexes, maturation, or drugs

 People who have not satisfied their cognitive needs, have  Much of what Maslow called “expressive behavior” is
had their curiosity stifled, or have been denied unmotivated.
information, become pathological, a pathology that takes
the form of skepticism, disillusionment, and cynicism Expressive and Coping Behavior

Neurotic Needs
 Expressive behavior
 Satisfaction of other needs is basic to physical and
psychological health; frustration of them may lead to  Often unmotivated
some level of illness. However, neurotic need lead only to
stagnation and pathology  (which is often unmotivated)

 Gratified or not, neurotic needs are nonproductive (Ex: A  coping behavior

person who has a neurotic need for power may gain so
much power but it doesn’t lessen his need for it) UNFINISHED
 Perpetuate an unhealthy style of life
 Deprivation of Needs Comparison of Higher and Lower Needs

 Deprivation of any of the basic needs leads to some kind  Higher level needs are later on the phylogenetic or
of pathology: evolutionary scale (Ex: only humans—a recent specie—
have self-actualization needs)
 Deprivation of physiological needs results in malnutrition,
fatigue, loss of energy, obsession with sex, and so on  Higher needs appear later during the course of individual
development
 Threats to one’s safety lead to fear, insecurity, and dread
 Higher level needs produce more happiness and more
 Unfulfilled love needs, a person becomes defensive, peak experiences
overly aggressive, or socially timid
 The satisfaction of higher level needs is more subjectively
 Lack of esteem results in self-doubt, self-depreciation, desirable to those people who have experienced both
and lack of confidence higher and lower level needs.

 Deprivation of self-actualization needs also leads to SELF-ACTUALIZATION

pathology, or more accurately, metapathology
 Maslow’s ideas on self-actualization began soon after he
received his PhD, when he became puzzled about why
 Metapathology (the absence of values, the lack of
two of his teachers in New York City—anthropologist
fulfillment, and the loss of meaning in life) Ruth Benedict and psychologist Max Wertheimer

Instinctoid Nature of Needs

Maslow’s Quest for the Self-Actualizing Person
 Instinctoid: the 5 conative needs (innately determined
 Page 288-289 of Feist & Feist (7th edition)
but can be modified by learning… Ex: expression of love
varies)
Criteria for Self-Actualization
 Noninstinctoid: Learned and not innately determined
(need to comb one’s hair, speak one’s own dialect)  First, they were free from psychopathology

 Instinctoid in contrast to Noninstinctoid  Neurotic and psychotic individuals have some things in
common with self-actualizing people: namely, such
 First: Level of pathology upon frustration characteristics as a heightened sense of reality, mystical
Ex: physiological, safety, love, etc. may lead to pathology experiences, creativity, and detachment from other
Ex: Need to comb one’s hair doesn’t people

 Second: Satisfaction/Duration  Second, these self-actualizing people had progressed

Instinctoid: Leads to psychological health/Persistent through the hierarchy of needs
Noninstinctoid: Not a prerequisite for health/Temporary
 Third, embracing of the B-values
 Third: Species-Specific (only human has esteem and S-A needs)
 Fourth, full use and exploitation of talents, capacities,
 Fourth: though difficult to change, instinctoid needs can potentialities, etc. In other words, his self-actualizing
be molded, inhibited, or altered by environmental individuals fulfilled their needs to grow, to develop, and to
influences increasingly become what they were capable of becoming
 Values of Self-Actualizers Characteristics of Self-Actualizing People (15)

 Self-actualizing people are motivated by the “eternal More Efficient Perception of Reality
verities,” what he called B-values
 These “Being” values are indicators of psychological  They can discriminate between the genuine and the fake
health and are opposed to deficiency needs
 They are not fooled by facades and can see both positive
 B-values are not needs, they are “Metaneeds” or ultimate and negative underlying traits in others that are not
level of needs readily apparent to most people
 He distinguished between ordinary need motivation and
the motives of self-actualizing people, which he called  Less prejudiced and less likely to see the world as they
metamotivation. wish it to be

 Metamotivation is characterized by expressive rather than  Less afraid and more comfortable with the unknown
coping behavior and is associated with the B-values
Acceptance of Self, Others, and Nature
 Metamotivation was Maslow’s tentative answer to the
problem of why some people have their lower needs  Can accept themselves the way they are, and accept
satisfied, are capable of giving and receiving love, possess others
a great amount of confidence and self-esteem, and yet fail
to pass over the threshold to self-actualization  Not overly critical of their own shortcomings

 The lives of these people are meaningless and lacking in  Tolerate weaknesses in others and are not threatened by
B-values. Only people who live among the B-values are others’ strengths
self-actualizing, and they alone are capable of
metamotivation.  Do not expect perfection either in themselves or in others

 When people’s metaneeds are not met, they experience

Spontaneity, Simplicity, and Naturalness
illness, an existential illness.
 They are unconventional but not compulsively so
 All people have a holistic tendency to move toward
completeness or totality; and when this movement is
 Highly ethical but may appear unethical or nonconforming
thwarted, they suffer feelings of inadequacy,
disintegration, and un-fulfillment.
 The similarity between self-actualizing people and
children and animals is in their spontaneous and natural
 Deprivation of any of the B-values results in
behavior
metapathology, or the lack of a meaningful philosophy of
life
 Unpretentious and not afraid or ashamed to express joy,
awe, elation, sorrow, anger, or other deeply felt emotions
B-Values (14)

Totality Beauty Uniqueness Problem-Centering

Truth Goodness Simplicity
Completion Justice Effortlessness  Interest in problems outside themselves (others are self-
Wholeness Autonomy Humor centered, not like them)
Perfection Aliveness
 This interest allows self-actualizers to develop a mission in
The Totality of Truth means Complete, Whole, and Perfect. It says life, a purpose for living that spreads beyond self-
that the Beauty of Justice, Goodness, and Autonomy, is to be aggrandizement
Alive in a Unique, Simple, and Effortless way of Humor.
 Their realistic perception enables them to clearly Gemeinschaftsgefühl
distinguish between the important and the unimportant
issues in life  Sense of oneness with all humanity (same with Adler)

The Need for Privacy  Caring attitude toward other people

 Have a quality of detachment that allows them to be  Genuine interest in helping others
alone without being lonely
Profound Interpersonal Relations
 Have no desperate need to be surrounded by other
people  Related to Gemeinschaftsgefühl is a special quality of
interpersonal relations that involves
 May be seen as aloof or uninterested, but in fact, their  deep and profound feelings for individuals
disinterest is limited to minor matters
 Have a nurturant feeling toward people in general, but
 They are self-movers, resisting society’s attempts to make their close friendships are limited to only a few
them adhere to convention.
 No frantic needs to be friends with everyone, but the few
Autonomy important interpersonal relationships they do have are
quite deep and intense
 Are autonomous and depend on themselves for growth
even though at some time in their past they had to have  Self-actualizers are often misunderstood and sometimes
received love and security from others despised by others. On the other hand, many are greatly
loved and attract a large group of admirers and even
 Once that confidence is attained, a person no longer worshipers
depends on others for self-esteem.
The Democratic Character Structure
Continued Freshness of Appreciation
 They could be friendly and considerate with other people
 Have the wonderful capacity to appreciate again and regardless of class, color, or age
again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with
awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy  Have a desire and an ability to learn from anyone (even
from less healthy ones). They recognize how little they
 See with a fresh vision such everyday phenomena as know in relation to what they could know
flowers, food, and friends
 They are respectful and even humble before these people
 They have an appreciation of their possessions and do not (the less heathy people)
waste time complaining about a boring, uninteresting
existence. Discrimination between Means and Ends

The Peak Experience  Have a clear sense of right and wrong conduct and have
little conflict about basic values
Unfinished  They set their sights on ends rather than means and have
an unusual ability to distinguish between the two

 They enjoy doing something for its own sake and not just
because it is a means to some other end
 Philosophical Sense of Humor capable of B-love—love for the essence or “Being” of the
other
 Philosophical, non-hostile sense of humor  D-lovers love because they expect something in return
 B-lovers love in the name of love
 Healthy people see little humor in put-down jokes
 B-love is mutually felt and shared and not motivated by a
 The humor of a self-actualizing person is intrinsic to the deficiency or incompleteness within the lover
situation rather than contrived; it is spontaneous rather
than planned. PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Creativeness  Maslow’s philosophy of science and his research methods
are integral to an understanding of how he arrived at his
 All self-actualizing people studied by Maslow were concept of self-actualization. Maslow believed that value-
creative in some sense of the word. In fact, Maslow free science does not lead to the proper study of human
suggested that creativity and self-actualization may be personality. Maslow argued for a different philosophy of
one and the same science, a humanistic, holistic approach that is not value
free and that has scientists who care about the people
 Not all are talented but are creative in their own way and topics they investigate.

Resistance to Enculturation  Maslow agreed with Allport that psychological science

should place more emphasis on the study of the individual
 Have a sense of detachment from their surroundings and and less on the study of large groups
are able to transcend a particular culture
 When Maslow attended medical school, he was shocked
 They are neither antisocial nor consciously by the impersonal attitude of surgeons who nonchalantly
nonconforming. Rather, they are autonomous, following tossed recently removed body parts onto a table
their own standards of conduct and not blindly obeying
the rules of others  His observation of such a cold and calloused procedure
led Maslow to originate the concept of desacralization:
 Do not waste energy fighting against insignificant customs that is, the type of science that lacks emotion, joy,
and regulations of society wonder, awe, and rapture

 However, on important matters, they can become  Scientists must be willing to resacralize science or to instill
strongly aroused to seek social change and to resist it with human values, emotion, and ritual
society’s attempts to enculturate them.  Psychologists must not only study human personality;
they must do so with enjoyment, excitement, wonder,
 For this reason, these healthy people are more and affection
individualized and less homogenized than others. They
are not all alike. In fact, the term “self-actualization”  Maslow argued for a Taoistic attitude for psychology, one
means to become everything that one can become, to that would be noninterfering, passive, and receptive. This
actualize or fulfill all of one’s potentials. When people can new psychology would abolish prediction and control as
accomplish this goal, they become more unique, more the major goals of science and replace them with sheer
heterogeneous, and less shaped by a given culture fascination and the desire to release people from controls
so that they can grow and become less predictable
LOVE, SEX, AND SELF-ACTUALIZATION
MEASURING SELF-ACTUALIZATION
 Self-actualizing people are capable of both giving and
receiving love and are no longer motivated by the kind of  Page 297-299 of Feist & Feist (7th edition)
deficiency love (D-love). Self-actualizing people are
 THE JONAH COMPLEX CONCEPT OF HUMANITY
 Page 299-300 of Feist & Feist (7th edition)  All of us can be self-actualizing; our human nature carries
with it a tremendous potential for being a Good Human
PSYCHOTHERAPY Being

 Aim—for clients to embrace the Being-values or B-Values  Hierarchy of basic needs must be regularly satisfied
before we become fully human.
 To accomplish this aim, clients must be free from their
dependency on others so that their natural impulsse  True human nature is seen only in self-actualized people,
toward growth and self-actualization could become active and that “there seems no intrinsic reason why everyone
should not be this way.
 Most people who seek therapy have these two lower level
needs relatively well satisfied but have some difficulty  Every baby has all the possibilities for self-actualization.
achieving love and belongingness needs Therefore, self-actualizing people are not ordinary people
with something added, but rather as ordinary people with
 Psychotherapy is largely an interpersonal process nothing taken away!!!!!!!!!

 Through a warm, loving, interpersonal relationship with  Generally optimistic and hopeful about humans, but
the therapist, the client gains satisfaction of love and recognized that people are capable of evil and destruction
belongingness needs and thereby acquires feelings of —stems from the frustration of basic needs, not from the
confidence and self-worth. essential nature of people

 A healthy interpersonal relationship between client and  Society, as well as individuals, can be improved, but
therapist is therefore the best psychological medicine growth for both is slow and painful

 Nearly identical to that of Rogers’  Truth, love, beauty, and the like are instinctoid and are
just as basic to human nature as are hunger, sex, and
aggression
CRITIQUE OF MASLOW
 Because Maslow held that basic needs are structured the
 (1) Generate research: Little above-average same for all people and that people satisfy these needs at
their own rate, his holistic-dynamic theory of personality
 However, Maslow’s notions about places moderate emphasis on:
metamotivation, the hierarchy of  Both uniqueness and similarities
needs, the Jonah complex, and
instinctoid needs have received  Because people aim toward self-actualization, Maslow’s
less research interest. view can be considered:
 Teleological and purposive
 (2) Falsifiability: Low  Maslow’s view of humanity is difficult to classify on such
dimensions as determinism versus free choice, conscious
 (3) Organize (knowledge) what Excellent versus unconscious, or biological versus social
 is known about human determinants of personality.
 behavior—Hierarchy of needs:  In general, the behavior of people motivated by
physiological and safety needs is determined by outside
 (4) Guide (action) to the practitioner: High forces, whereas the behavior of self-actualizing people is
at least partially shaped by free choice.
 (5) Internally consistent: High  Consciousness vs unconsciousness: Difficult to classify

 (6) Parsimonious: Moderate  Biological vs social influences: Both