Chapter 12 – Web Material
Abraham Maslow and Transpersonal Psychology
Deficiency Psychology and Being Psychology
Maslow made an important distinction between two fundamentally different kinds
of psychology. This distinction underlies his whole approach to personality theory.
Maslow distinguished between two basic kinds of psychology. Most psychology in his day
was what he called deficiency psychology, concerned with human behavior in the realm of
basic need satisfaction. Being psychology, in contrast, examines human behavior and
experience during states of fullness rather than lack, and in pursuit of self-actualization
needs. Peak experiences are generally related to the being realm, and being psychology
tends to be most applicable to self-actualizers.
Deficiency Motivation and Being Motivation.
Maslow pointed out that most psychologies address only deficiency motivation; that is,
they concentrate on behavior whose goal is to fulfill a need that has been unsatisfied or
frustrated. Hunger, pain, and fear are prime examples of deficiency motivations.
However, a close look at human or animal behavior reveals another kind of motivation.
When an organism is not hungry, in pain, or fearful, being motivations emerge, such as
curiosity and playfulness. Under these conditions, activities can be enjoyed as ends in
themselves, not pursued solely as a means to gratify certain needs. Being motivation refers
primarily to enjoyment and satisfaction in the present or to the desire to seek a positively
valued goal (growth motivation or metamotivation). On the other hand, deficiency
motivation involves a need to change the present state of affairs because of a feeling of
dissatisfaction or need frustration.
Deficiency Cognition and Being Cognition.
In deficiency cognition, objects are seen solely as need fulfillers, as means to ends. This
type of cognition occurs most often when needs are strong. According to Maslow (1970),
strong needs tend to channel thinking and perception; therefore, the individual is aware
only of those aspects of the environment related to need satisfaction. A hungry person
tends to see only food, a miser only money.
Being cognition includes a more accurate and effective awareness of the environment.
Individuals whose basic drives have been satisfied are less likely to distort their
perceptions in response to needs or desires. Being cognition is nonjudgmental, without
comparison or evaluation. The fundamental attitude is one of appreciation of what is.
Stimuli are exclusively and fully attended to, and perception seems richer, fuller, and more
complete.
In being cognition, external objects are valued in and of themselves rather than for their
relevance to personal concerns. In fact, the individual tends to remain absorbed in
contemplation or appreciation, and active intervention is seen as irrelevant or
inappropriate. One advantage to deficiency cognition is that the individual may feel
compelled to act, in order to alter existing conditions.
Deficiency Values and Being Values.
Maslow does not explicitly address deficiency values, though he discusses being values in
detail. Being values are intrinsic to every individual. “The highest values [exist] within
human nature itself, to be discovered there. This is in sharp contradiction to the older and
more customary beliefs that the highest values can come only from a supernatural God, or
from some other source outside human nature itself” (1968, p. 170).
Maslow has listed the following as being values: truth, goodness, beauty, wholeness,
dichotomy transcendence, aliveness, uniqueness, perfection, necessity, completion, justice,
order, simplicity, richness, effortlessness, playfulness, and self-sufficiency.
Deficiency Love and Being Love.
Deficiency love is love of others because they fulfill a need. The more one is gratified, the
more this kind of love is reinforced. This kind of love arises out of a need for self-esteem
or sex, out of fear of loneliness, and so forth.
Being love is love for the essence, the “being” of the other. It is nonpossessive and
concerned more with the good of the other than with selfish satisfaction. Maslow often
wrote of being love as demonstrating the Taoist attitude of noninterference or letting
things be, an appreciation of what is without concern for change or improvement. In love
of nature, for example, an individual prompted by being love might express appreciation
for the beauty of flowers by watching them grow and then leaving them in the garden.
Someone acting from deficiency love is more likely to pick the flowers and make an
arrangement of them. Being love is also the ideal, unconditional love of a parent for a
child, which includes loving and valuing the child’s small imperfections.
Maslow argues that being love is richer, more satisfying, and longer lasting than deficiency
love. It stays fresh, whereas deficiency love tends to grow stale with time. Being love can
be a trigger for peak experiences and is often depicted in the same exalted terms used for
describing deeply religious experiences.
