CHAPTER 17
MASLOW: HOLISTIC-DYNAMIC THEORY
I. Overview of Maslow’s Holistic-Dynamic
Theory
Maslow’s
holistic-dynamic theory, sometimes called the third force in psychology, holds
that people are continually motivated 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. Maslow harbored great animosity toward his mother,
an attitude that persisted throughout his lifetime. Although he possessed a
brilliant mind, Maslow was only a mediocre student during his early years of
college. However, when he transferred to the University of Wisconsin and began
working with Harry Harlow, his grades greatly improved. He eventually received
a Ph.D. from Wisconsin, spent a short time at Columbia University and more than
a dozen years at Brooklyn College. While in New York, he met and was influenced
by several important Europeans, including Alfred Adler, Erich Fromm, and Karen
Horney. In 1951, Maslow became chairperson of the psychology department at
Brandeis University, where he remained until poor health forced him to take a
low-stress position with the Saga Administrative Corporation in California.
There 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.
1. Physiological
Needs
Before
people can become motivated by any other needs, they must have their
physiological needs relatively well satisfied; that is, they must have oxygen, food,
water, and so forth. Physiological needs have prepotency over all other needs.
2. Safety Needs
The
second level of Maslow’s hierarchy is the safety needs, including physical
security, stability, dependency, protection, and freedom from danger. Children
and neurotic adults often have difficulty satisfying safety needs and thus
suffer from basic anxiety.
3. Love and
Belongingness Needs
Most
people in first world countries are able to satisfy physiological and safety
needs most of the time, but many people are only partially able to satisfy love
and belongingness needs. These needs include the desire for friendship, the
wish for a mate and children, and the need to belong. People who have these
needs only partially satisfied are very strongly motivated by them, whereas
people who have them nearly completely satisfied or who have never had them
satisfied are only weakly motivated by love and belongingness.
4. Esteem Needs
Satisfaction
of love needs fosters self-esteem, self-confidence, and the recognition that
one has a positive reputation. Because people are dependent on others for the
satisfaction of love needs, they must also rely on others for the initial
satisfaction of esteem needs. However, once people have their esteem needs
relatively well satisfied, they no longer rely on others for the continual
satisfaction of these needs, and they can sustain high self-esteem in the
absence of a close interpersonal relationship.
5. Self-Actualization
Needs
The
highest level on Maslow’s hierarchy consists of self-actualization needs.
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 psychologically healthy people who embrace the B-values achieve self-actualization. The five needs comprising the
hierarchy are conative needs, but
other needs exist as well.
B. Aesthetic
Needs
Aesthetic
needs, which are on a different dimension than conative needs, include a desire
for beauty and order. Some people have stronger aesthetic needs than do others,
and when these needs are not met, these people become sick.
C. Cognitive
Needs
A third
dimension includes the cognitive needs, or 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 three dimensions of needs listed above, 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 or to inflict pain. 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 needs, and that the greater the satisfaction of one need, the
more fully the next highest need is likely to emerge.
1. Reversed Order of
Needs
In
certain rare cases, the order of needs might be reversed. For example, a
starving father may be motivated by love needs to give up food in order to feed
his starving children. Maslow believed, however, that if we understood the
unconscious motivation behind many apparent reversals, we would see that they
are not genuine reversals at all.
2. Unmotivated
Behavior
Maslow
believed that not all behaviors are motivated, even though all of them have a
cause. Expressive behaviors, such as one’s handwriting or manner of talking,
are unmotivated, as are drug-induced behaviors and conditioned reflexes.
3. Expressive and
Coping Behavior
Although
expressive behavior is often unmotivated, coping is always motivated.
Expressive behavior has no aim or goal but is merely a person’s mode of
expression. In comparison, coping behavior
is a person’s attempt to cope with the environment. The conative needs ordinarily
call forth coping behaviors.
4. Deprivation of
Needs
Deprivation
of any of the needs leads to pathology of some sort. For example, being
deprived of physiological needs leads to malnutrition, fatigue, loss of energy,
and so forth. On the other end of the scale, people who fail to reach
self-actualization suffer from metapathology,
defined as an absence of values, a lack of fulfillment, and a loss of meaning
in life.
5. Instinctoid
Nature of Needs
Maslow
suggested that some needs are innately determined even though they can be
modified by learning. These instinctoid needs can be identified because their
lack of satisfaction produces pathology. Thus, each of the conative needs is
instinctoid. For example, people deprived of safety suffer basic anxiety and
those deprived of love behave in self-destructive ways in order to secure love
and affection.
6. Comparison of
Higher and Lower Needs
Maslow
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 motivated by such B-values as truth, goodness, beauty, justice, and simplicity. He
called such motivation metamotivation.
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 these characteristics to the same extent.
1. More
Efficient Perception of Reality
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
They
accept themselves and other people for who they are, without any need to
change, convert, or rationalize.
3. Spontaneity, Simplicity,
and Naturalness
In many
ways, self-actualizers are like children or animals in their spontaneity,
simplicity, and naturalness. They have no need to appear complex or
sophisticated.
4. Problem-Centering
Self-actualizing
people are interested in problems outside themselves. They are concerned with
age-old problems, which they view from a solid philosophical position.
5. The Need for
Privacy
They
also have a quality of detachment that allows them to be alone without
being lonely.
6. Autonomy
Once
people reach self-actualization, they no longer are dependent on other people
for their self-esteem. Neither criticism nor flattery will impinge on their
self-concept.
7. Continued
Freshness of Appreciation
Unlike
other people who take many things for granted, self-actualizers view everyday
things with a fresh vision and appreciation. Life experiences are rich and
rewarding.
8. The Peak
Experience
Although
the peak experience is not limited to self-actualizers, Maslow believed that
believed that self-actualizers are more likely to report peak experiences than
are non-actualizers. Peak experiences are mystical and give a person a sense of
transcendence and a feeling of awe, wonder, ecstasy, reverence, and humility.
9. Gemeinschaftsgefühl
Self-actualizing
people also possess social interest, a deep feeling of oneness with all
humanity. Social interest is part of each of the next two characteristics.
10. Profound
Interpersonal Relations
Self-actualizers
have their love and belongingness needs and their esteem needs satisfied.
Therefore, they do not desperately need to make friends. However, they usually
have a few close, intimate friendships.
11. The Democratic
Character Structure
Self-actualizers
place no importance on superficial differences between people, such as
differences of gender, race, social class, or age.
12. Discrimination
Between Means and Ends
Maslow’s
self-actualizing people have a clear sense of right and wrong, and they
experience little conflict about basic values. They enjoy doing something for
its own sake and not just because it is a means to an end.
13. Philosophical
Sense of Humor
Maslow
found that self-actualizing people have a nonhostile, nonscatological sense of
humor. Their humor is intrinsic to the situation rather than contrived,
spontaneous rather than planned.
14. Creativeness
Self-actualizers
are creative in the broad definition of the word. They have a keen perception
of truth, beauty, and reality—important ingredients in creativity.
15. Resistance to
Enculturation
Although
self-actualizers may have the appearance of ordinary people, they are not
conformists. Their autonomy allows them to set their own standards and to resist
the mold into which their culture might attempt to place them.
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 motivated by a deficiency or incompleteness in either the lover or the
loved.
V. Philosophy of Science
Maslow
criticized traditional science as being value free, with a methodology that is
sterile and nonemotional. He criticized scientists who have desacralized science—those scientists
who have removed the joy and awe from their investigations. Instead, scientists
should resacralize their work and
instill it with wonder, rapture, and ritual. Consistent with this philosophy of
science, Maslow argued for a Taoistic
attitude for psychology, one in which psychologists would be
noninterfering, passive, and receptive.
VI. Measuring Self-Actualization
Maslow’s
ideas have resulted in attempts to measure self-actualization through
self-report. The most widely used of these measures is Everett Shostrom’s
(1974) Personal Orientation Inventory
(POI), a 150-item forced-choice inventory that is difficult to fake. The
POI has 2 major scales and 10 subscales. The first major scale is Time
Competence/Time Incompetence and the second is a Support Scale. The 10
subscales are (1) self-actualization values, (2) flexibility in applying
values, (3) sensitivity to one’s own needs and feelings, (4) spontaneity, (5)
self-regard, (6) self-acceptance, (7) positive view of humanity, (8) ability to
see opposites as being related, (9) acceptance of aggression, and (10) capacity
for intimate contact. Because the POI is fairly lengthy, Alvin Jones and Rick
Crandall (1986) developed the Short Index of Self-Actualization, a much shorter
scale that possesses adequate reliability and validity. In addition, John
Sumerlin and Charles Bundrick (1996, 1998) created the Brief Index of Self-Actualization,
a somewhat longer instrument than the Short Index. However, the reliability,
validity, and usefulness of the Brief Index have not yet been fully determined.
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. Although the
Jonah complex is especially prevalent in neurotic individuals, probably all of
us have some timidity about seeking perfection or greatness. People allow false
humility to stifle their creativity, and therefore they prevent themselves from
becoming self-actualizing.
The
hierarchy of needs concept has obvious ramifications for psychotherapy. People
on the two lowest levels do not need counseling; rather, they need food and
safety. Most people who seek psychotherapy probably do so because they have not
adequately satisfied their love and belongingness needs. For these people, the
task of a therapist is to help them satisfy love and belongingness needs.
Self-actualizing people, as well as those with high self-esteem, probably do
not need psychotherapy.
IX. Related Research
Researchers have investigated Maslow’s
concept of self-actualization in many settings and for a variety of purposes.
A. Self-Actualization
and Intimate Interpersonal Relations
Michael Sheffield and his colleagues
(Sheffield, Carey, Patenaude, & Lambert, 1995) 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 were near the
threshold of 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 (Runco,
Ebersole, & Mraz, 1991) 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 (Compton,
Smith, Cornish, & Qualls, 1996) found that self-actualization related to
openness to experience and to seeking out new and exciting experiences.
X. Critique of Maslow
Maslow’s
theory remains popular in psychology and in 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 somewhat high in generating research but low in
falsifiability. It rates very high on its ability to organize knowledge and
high as a guide to action. In addition, it rates about average on parsimony and
internal consistency.
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, he saw that people are
capable of great evil and destruction. He believed that as a species, humans are
becoming increasingly fully human and motivated by higher level needs. In
summary, his view of humanity rates high on free choice, optimism, teleology,
and uniqueness and about average on social influences.