PSY 314 - Chapter 10: Abraham Maslow
Accompanying self-actualization are certain special needs:
1) cognitive needs 2) aesthetic needs 3) meta-needs/growth needs (G-needs) 4) b-values
Gestalt theory was largely composed of "laws of organization" that explained how parts are formed into wholes. Among these are:
1) grouping similar objects together to form a whole 2) grouping proximal objects 3) the law of closure, incomplete objects such as a circle with a section out are completed by "the mind's eye"
5 Basic Needs
1) physiological 2) belongingness and love 3) esteem 4) self-actualization 5) deficiency (D-needs)
He placed emphasis on:
1) the existence of universal human needs and values and 2) their biological origin
Drive
A simple tension that demands to be satisfied.
Esteem Needs
Are of 2 kinds: 1) there are personal desires for adequacy, mastery, competence, achievement, confidence, independence, and freedom and 2) there are desires for respect from other people, including attention, recognition, appreciation, status, prestige, fame, dominance, and dignity. Satisfaction of esteem needs results in feelings of worthiness, psychological strength, and a sense of being useful and necessary. Academically, athletically, and interpersonally successful children have high self-esteem. Those who are denied opportunities to succeed do not.
Motivation
Comes from the root word motion and refers to the process by which organisms are propelled towards goals
Limitations
Criticism of Maslow's work are most frequently lodged against self-actualization, followed by the hierarchy of needs and "peak experiences" Maslow has been charged with arbitrariness, dismissal of culture, and failure to consider alternatives. In addition, research relating to his ideas has generated contradictions.
Maslow's Contributions > Emphasis
Emphasis is on his beliefs that human values and needs are inherent and that humans are self-directing. His insightful criticisms of psychological science His speculations about a psychological Utopia And his contributions to diverse fields and disciplines
Physiological Needs
Encompass specific biological requirements for water, oxygen, proteins, vitamins, proper body temperature, sleep, sex, exercise, etc. Safety needs include security, protection, stability, structure, law and order, and freedom from fear and chaos.
To make criteria for the ideal environment more concrete, Maslow speculated about a future:
Eupsychia (a utopian society characterized by psychological health among all its members. Its philosophical base would be anarchistic, meaning there would be no governmental imposition on individual liberty. Basic and meta-needs would be respected, much more than usual. There would be more free choice as well as less control, violence, and contempt.
Insightful Criticism of Psychological Science
Felt as though clinicians relied too heavily on samples of maladjusted people, which then offered a warped view of human nature based on observations of disturbed and miserable lives. Others ignore individual differences by adopting a statistical averaging procedure in which findings from all subjects/clients are thrown into a single hopper. This technique mixes information from healthy and sick people equally, resulting in a concoction that is neither vintage champagne nor cheap wine
Hierarchy of Needs > Supporting Evidence
Graham and Balloun did a study where graduate students rated descriptions of 4 needs. Analysis of the relationship between the first and second measures confirmed the hypothesis that the degree of satisfaction of any given need would be negatively correlated with desire for satisfaction of that need: the less the satisfaction, the more the desire for satisfaction. Williams and Page developed measures relevant to the safety, belonging, and esteem levels of the hierarchy. For each of these levels they assessed: 1) need gratification 2) need importance 3) need salience 4) self-concept Evidence supporting their conclusion of the "students were functioning at the esteem level" included: 1) "importance scores were highest for esteem needs and selfconcept was most in tune with that level 2) the needs at the 2 lower levels were rated as important, but not particularly "on the mind" (salient) 3) and need gratification was high for all levels, but of the 3 under investigation, it was lowest for esteem. One of the other confirmed predictions was that the higher the safety-need gratification, the lower the safety self-concept, because, having met safety needs, the individual would be pursuing needs at higher levels.
Gestalt Psychologists
Held that simple receptions where "wholes" made up of integrated parts.
Who Was He?
Immigrated from Kiev to the U.S. Abusive mother who used religion to torture him
Deficiency Needs (D-needs)
Maslow characterized the first 4 basic needs as D-needs, the satisfaction of which allow the person to avoid physical sickness and psychological maladjustment. Criteria of D-needs are: 1) people yearn to gratify D-needs 2) deprivation sickens or stunts people 3) gratification cures deficiency illnesses 4) steady supplies prevent illnesses and 5) healthy people do not show deficiencies.
Self-Actualization > Supporting Evidence
Maslow credits a follower of Gestalt tradition, Kurt Goldstein with originating the concept "self-actualization" More recently, Kasser and Ryan found an inverse relationship between self-actualization and the need for social prestige: the lower the importance of aspirations for financial success, an appealing appearance, and social recognition, the higher was self-actualization
Self-Actualization
Maslow emphasized this concept above all others
Prepotent
More urgently demanding than higher-order needs
Cognitive Needs
Motivations to know, to understand, to explain, and to satisfy curiousity
Belongingness and Love Needs
Orient the person toward affectionate relations with people, and a sense of place in family and groups
Self-Actualizers
People who fulfill themselves by making complete use of their potentialities, capacities, and talents, who do the best they are capable of doing, and who develop themselves to the most complete stature possible for them.
Peak Experiences > Supporting Evidence
Ravizza did a interview of 20 athletes that included views of themselves.
Aesthetic Needs
Related to beauty, structure, and symmetry
Some proposed changes to the hierarchy
Rowan suggested that deficiency motivation could occur at any level of the hierarchy, even at the self-actualization level. Further, the opposite of deficiency motivation, abundance motivation, could occur at any level, even at the physiological level.
Characteristics of Self-Actualizers
See picture
Meta-Needs/Growth Needs (G-needs)
Terms used to "describe the motivations of self-actualizing people" All of these meta-needs are closely enmeshed with the overriding need for self-actualization and are not, in the strictest sense, "motivated" by meta or beyond motivation
Need for Self-Actualization
The quintessential longing. "The desire for selffulfillment" "the tendency for one to become actualized in what one is potentially" What a person can be, that person feels compelled to become. It is in the manifestations of self-actualization that people differ the most. Because each person is different than other people, that which each person feels the need to become is unique.
A number of psychologists have failed to support Maslow's hierarchy of needs:
To address some of these outcomes, Wicker, Brown, Wiehe, Hagan, and Reed examined failures to support the hierarchy and found that nonsupporting research often measured "importance" of need satisfaction. These studies frequently found that lower-order needs were not less important than higher-order needs being currently addressed, an apparent contradiction of hierarchy assumptions. Another study by Wicker, Wiehe, Hagan, and Brown found more support for the hierarchy using "intention" and another measure rather than "importance"
B-values
Ultimate/end goals of meta-need fulfillment, are more likely to be posses by self-actualizers than by others. They include truth, goodness, beauty, unity, wholeness, transcendence, aliveness, uniqueness, justice, order, simplicity, richness, effortlessness, playfulness, self-sufficiency, and meaningfulness.
Schooling
Went to City College of New York, and then went to law school, and ultimately transferred to Cornell for one semester before transferring out.
Complete fulfillment of the lower needs is not
a prerequisite for addressing higher needs
When Maslow supported self-actualization by observing "superpersonalities", he used:
a small arbitrarily-selected sample that was neither objectively observed nor systematically assessed. "self actualizers" were selected by Maslow himself based on reviews of a variety of materials never made public. Selectees reflected obvious bias toward Western culture.
Maslow also indicated that existentialism brings to mind a provocative contention:
as one ascends toward self-actualization, he transcends his culture and becomes "a little more a member of his species and a little less member of his local group"
Maslow also believed that self-actualizers are more likely than others to:
have peak experiences (intense, mystical experiences associated with simultaneous feelings of limitless horizons, powerfulness, and helplessness, a lost sense of time and place, and great ecstasy, wonder, and awe.
For Maslow, human nature is:
inborn, not made. It has an essential, built-in structure comprised of potentialities and values that are intrinsic to all members of the species.
While it is a psychological tradition and seems easily understood, Maslow considered drive to be:
inherently ambiguous.
While Rogers felt self-actualization was within grasp of most people, Maslow felt:
it was reserved for a special few
Although self-actualization emergence awaits the prior satisfaction of lower-order needs,
meeting these needs only sets the stage for self-actualization. Self-actualizing people enjoy sufficient gratification of their basic needs, and they show freedom from illness. More importantly, they show positive use of their capacities and display motivations linked to personal values
Goal-seeking can be cast as:
needs for certain satisfactions that are sought by all humans, regardless of their culture, environment, or generation
Maslow's hierarchy has been especially useful to:
people concerned with personnel management, marketing, and organizational operations In organizational settings, relations among employees within and between management levels will not be smooth and efficient unless each employee recognizes the need satisfactions being sought by other employees.
Needs lower in the hierarchy are:
prepotent
More than any other criticism of Maslow's central concept, the most damning was:
the charge that his conception of "self-actualization" is neither universal nor the "best" rendition of "human fulfillment"
According to Maslow, while the needs a person experiences are universal,
the methods used to satisfy them may be specific to the individual's culture.
Maslow firmly believed that self-actualization could be promoted by:
the presence of good people who would be part of a good environment. It would 1) offer the individual all necessary raw materials needed for creative and spiritual endeavors, as well as basic need fulfillment 2) allow the individual to pursue his/her own wishes, demands, and choices 3) accept delays and abandonment of choices 4) respect the wishes, demands, and choices of individuals and 5) "get out of the way" whenever appropriate.
Motivational factors:
underlie personality
He indicated that the existentialistic focus on the future is:
vitally important, as self-actualization is meaningless without reference to the future.
Maslow insisted that needs are as much a part of the human constitution as:
voice boxes and symbolic thought.
