THEORIES OF THE PERSONALITY PEOPLE ARE CONTINUALLY MOTIVATED BY ONE NEED OR

HOLISTIC DYNAMIC ANOTHER- when one need is satisfied, it ordinarily

BY ABRAHAM MASLOW loses its motivational power and is then replaced by
BIOGRAPHY: another need.
★ He has a high IQ (195) but is not motivated enough ● For example: as long as people's hunger needs are
to perform well in school which resulted to frustrated, they will strive for food; but when
academic probation. they do have enough to eat, they move on to other
★ He has low social skills needs such as safety.friendship, and self-worth.
★ His wife is his first cousin, Bertha Goodman. ★ All people everywhere are motivated by the same
★ She hates her religious mother, to the point of not basic needs
attending her funeral. ★ Needs can be arranged on a hierarchy
★ He does not like religion and he has atheistic HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
beliefs, maybe because of his mother.
★ He trained as a psychoanalyst and as a behaviorist
but ended up becoming one of the pillars of
humanistic perspective
OVERVIEW OF HOLISTIC DYNAMIC:
★ Assumes that the whole person is constantly
motivated by one need or another.
★ People have the potential to grow toward
psychological needs which he called "self-
actualization"
★ Humanistic Perspective is considered as the third
force of psychology (1st: Psychodynamic
Perspective, 2nd: Behaviorism) ★ Maslow's hierarchy of needs concept assumes that
BASIC ASSUMPTIONS: lower level needs must be satisfied or at least
HOLISTIC APPROACH TO MOTIVATION- the whole person, relatively satisfied before higher level needs
not any single part or function, is motivated. become motivators.
● Unlike psychoanalysis which assumes that only a CONATIVE NEEDS
part of the personality is motivated (id, ● The five needs composing this hierarchy are
superego,neurosis,etc) conative needs, meaning that they have a striving
MOTIVATION IS USUALLY COMPLEX- meaning that a or motivational character.
person's behavior may spring from several separate PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS
motives. ● The most basic needs of any person are
● For example: the desire for sexual union may be physiological needs, including
motivated not only by a genital need but also by food,water,oxygen,maintenance of the
needs for dominance, companionship,love, and self- body,temperature and so on.
esteem. RECURRING NATURE- after people have eaten, they will
eventually become hungry again; they constantly need
to replenish their food and water supply;and breath of ● People who have received only a little amount of
air must be followed by another. love have stronger needs for affection and
SAFETY NEEDS acceptance than do people who have received either
● When people have partially satisfied their a healthy amount of love or no love at all.
physiological needs, they become motivated by (Anxious Resistant Attachment)
safety needs,including physical security, ESTEEM NEEDS
stability, dependency,protection, and freedom from ★ To the extent that people satisfy their love and
threatening forces such as war, belongingness needs, they are free to pursue esteem
terrorism,illness,fear,anxiety,danger,chaos, and needs, which include self-respect,confidence,
natural disasters. competence, and the knowledge that others hold them
● Safety needs differ from physiological needs in in high esteem.
that they cannot be overly satisfied; people can ★ REPUTATION is the perception of prestige,
never be completely protected from recognition, or fame a person has achieved in the
meteorites,fires,floods,or the dangerous acts of eyes of others, whereas self-esteem is a person's
others. own feelings of worth and confidence.
● Also, some adults also feel relatively unsafe ★ SELF-ESTEEM is based on more than reputation or
because they retain irrational fears from childhood prestige; it reflects a "desire for strength, for
that cause them to act as if they were afraid of achievement, for adequacy, for mastery and
parental punishment. competence, for confidence in the face of the
● They spend far more energy that do healthy people world, and for independence and freedom"
trying to satisfy needs, and when they are not SELF-ACTUALIZATION NEEDS
successful in their attempts, they suffer from what ★ Include self-fulfillment, the realization of all
Maslow called BASIC ANXIETY one's potential, and a desire to become creative in
LOVE AND BELONGINGNESS the full sense of the word.
● After people partially satisfy their physiological ★ When lower-level needs are satisfied, people
and safety needs, they become motivated by love and proceed more or less automatically to the next
belongingness, such as the desire for friendship; level. However, once esteem needs are met, they not
the wish for a mate and children; the need to only always move to the level of self-
belong to a family, a club, a neighborhood, or a actualization.
nation. ★ Self-actualizing people maintain their feelings of
● Love and belongingness also include some aspects of self-esteem even when scorned, rejected, and
sex and human contact as well as the need to both dismissed by other people. In other words, self-
give and receive love. actualizers are not dependent on the satisfaction
● People who have had their love and belongingness of either love or esteem needs; they become
needs adequately satisfied from early years do not independent from the lower level needs that gave
panic when denied love (secured attachment) them birth.
● A second group of people consists of those who have
never experienced love and belongingness, and,
therefore they are incapable of giving love OTHER NEEDS
(Anxious Avoidant Attachment)
★ Needs that are not universal and not included in EXPRESSIVE AND COPING BEHAVIOR- Maslow distinguished
the hierarchy. between expressive behavior (which is often
AESTHETIC NEEDS- not universal, but at least some unmotivated) and coping behavior (which is always
people in every culture seem to be motivated by the motivated and aimed at satisfying a need)
need for beauty and aesthetically pleasing EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOR - often an end in itself and
experiences. serves no other purpose than to be.
COGNITIVE NEEDS- most people have a desire to know, ○ It also includes one's gait,gestures,voice,
to solve mysteries, to understand, and to be curious. and smile (even when alone).
● When cognitive needs are blocked, all needs on COPING BEHAVIOR - ordinarily conscious,
Maslow's hierarchy are threatened; that is, effortful,learned, and determined by the external
knowledge is necessary to satisfy each of the environment.
five cognitive needs. ○ It involves the individual's attempts to cope
● people who have not satisfied their cognitive with the environment; to secure food and
needs, who have been consistently lied to, have shelter; to make friends; and to receive
had their curiosity stifled, or have been acceptance, appreciation, and prestige from
denied information, become pathological, a others.
pathology that takes the form of skepticism, ★ Deprivation of physiological needs results in
disillusionment, and cynicism. malnutrition, fatigue, loss of energy, obsession
NEUROTIC NEEDS- by definition, neurotic needs are with sec and so on.
nonproductive. They perpetuate an unhealthy style of ★ Threats to one;s safety lead to fear, insecurity
life and have no value in the striving for self- and dread. When love needs go unfulfilled, a person
actualization becomes defensive, overly aggressive, or socially
● Neurotic needs are usually reactive; that is, they timid.
serve as compensation for unsatisfied basic needs. ★ Lack of esteem results in the illness of self-
GENERAL DISCUSSION OF NEEDS doubt, self-depreciation, and lack of confidence.
★ Maslow estimated that the hypothetical average ★ Deprivation of self-actualization needs also leads
person has his/her needs satisfied to approximately to pathology, or more accurately, metapathology.
these levels; physiological (85%), safety (70%), METAPATHOLOGY- the absence of values, the lack of
love and belongingness (50%), esteem (40%), and fulfillment, and the loss of meaning in life.
self-actualization (10%). INSTINCTOID NATURE OF NEEDS- Maslow hypothesizes that
REVERSED ORDER OF NEEDS- Reversals,however, are some human needs are innately determined even though
usually more apparent than real, and some seemingly they can be modified by learning.
obvious deviations in the order of needs are not ● Sex, for example: is a basic physiological need,
variations at all. If we understood the unconscious but the manner in which it is expressed depends
motivation underlying the behavior, we would recognize on learning.
that the needs are not reversed. COMPARISON OF HIGHER AND LOWER NEEDS-
UNMOTIVATED BEHAVIOR- some behavior is not caused by ● First, higher level needs are later on the
needs but by other factors such as conditioned phylogenetic or evolutionary scale.
reflexes,maturation or drugs.
 ○ For instance: only humans ( a relatively recent CHARACTERISTICS OF SELF-ACTUALIZERS
species) have the need for self- actualization. MORE EFFICIENT PERCEPTION OF REALITY-
● Second, higher level needs produce more happiness ● They can discriminate between the genuine and
and more peak experiences, although satisfaction of the fake not only in people but also in
lower level needs produce a degree of pleasure. literature, art, and music.
● Hedonistic pleasure, however, is usually temporary ACCEPTANCE OF SELF, OTHERS, AND NATURE- self-
and not comparable to the quality of happiness actualizing people can accept themselves the way they
produced by the satisfaction of higher needs. are.
CRITERIA FOR SELF-ACTUALIZATION ● They lack defensiveness,phoniness, and self-
SELF-ACTUALIZATION (WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?) defeating guilt; have good heartly animal
★ First, they were free from psychopathology. appetites for food, sleep, and sex; are not
★ Second, these self-actualizing people had overly critical of their own shortcomings; and
progressed through the hierarchy of needs and are not burdened by undue anxiety or shame.
therefore lived above the subsistence level of SPONTANEITY, SIMPLICITY, AND NATURALNESS-
existence and had no ever-present threat to their ● They are unconventional but not compulsively so;
safety. they are highly ethical but may appear unethical
★ Maslow's third criterion for self-actualization was or nonconforming.
the embracing of the B-values. ● But when the situation warrants it, they can be
★ Fourth, self-actualizers fulfilled their needs to unconventional and uncompromising even at the
grow, to develop, and to increasingly become what price of ostracism and censure.
they were capable of becoming. ● They ordinarily live simple lives in the sense
BEING VALUES that they have no need to erect a complex veneer
★ Maslow termed B-values "metaneeds" to indicate that designed to deceive the world.
they are the ultimate level of needs. ● They are unpretentious and not afraid or ashamed
★ He distinguished between ordinary need motivation to express joy,awe,elation,sorrow,anger,or other
and the motives of self-actualizing people, which deeply felt emotions.
he called metamotivation. PROBLEM CENTERING-
★ Metamotivation is characterized by expressive ● Non self-actualizing people are self-centered
rather than coping behavior and is associated with and tend to see all the world's problems in
the B-values. relation to themselves, whereas self-actualizing
★ The values of self-actualizing people include people are task oriented and concerned with the
truth,goodness,beauty,wholeness or the problem outside themselves.
transcendence of dichotomies, aliveness or ● They are concerned with eternal problems and
spontaneity, uniqueness, perfection, completion, adopt a solid philosophical and ethical basis
justice and order, simplicity, richness or for handling these problems.
totalitty, effortlessness,playfulness or humor, and NEED FOR PRIVACY - self-actualizing people have a
self-sufficiency or autonomy. quality of detachment that allows them to be alone
★ Deprivation or any of the B-values results in without being lonely.
metapathology, or the lack of a meaningful ● They feel relaxed and comfortable when they are
philosophy of life. either with people or alone.
 ● Self-actualizing people may be seen as aloof or PROFOUND INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS- self-actualizers
uninterested, but in fact, their disinterest is have a nurturant feeling toward people in general, but
limited to minor matters. their close friendships are limited to only a few.
AUTONOMY- self-actualizing people are autonomous and DEMOCRATIC CHARACTER STRUCTURE- They could be
depend on themselves for growth even though at some friendly and considerate with other people regardless
time in their past they had to have received love and of class, color,age or gender, and in fact, they
security from others. seemed to be quite unaware of superficial differences
● Self-actualizing people have that confidence and among people.
therefore a large measure of autonomy that DISCRIMINATION BETWEEN MEANS AND ENDS- self-
allows them to be unperturbed by criticism as actualizing people have a clear sense of right and
well as unmoved by flattery. wrong conduct and have little conflict about basic
● This independence also gives them an inner peace values. They set their sights on ends rather than
and serenity not enjoyed by those who live for means and have an unusual ability to distinguish
the approval of others. between the two.
CONTINUED FRESHNESS AND APPRECIATION- PHILOSOPHICAL SENSE OF HUMOR- healthy people see
● Maslow wrote that "self-actualizing people have little humor in put-down jokes. They may poke fun at
the wonderful capacity to appreciate again and themselves, but not masochistically so. They make
again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of fewer tries at humor than others, but their attempts
life, with awe, pleasure,wonder,and even serve a purpose beyond making people laugh.
ecstasy" CREATIVENESS- not all self-actualizer are talented or
● They have an appreciation of their possessions creative in the arts, but all are creative in their
and do not waste time complaining about a own way. They have a keen perception of truth,beauty,
boring,uninteresting existence. In short, they and reality- ingredients that form the foundation of
"retain their constant sense of good fortune and true creativity.
gratitude for it" RESISTANCE TO ENCULTURATION-self-actualizing people
PEAK EXPERIENCE- the peak experience is unmotivated, have a sense of detachment from their surroundings and
non striving, and non wishing, and during such an are able to transcend a particular culture.
experience, a person experiences no needs, wants, or ● They are autonomous, following their own
deficiencies. standards of conduct and not blindly obeying the
GEMEINSCHAFTSGEFÜHL- Same with Adler's Social rules of others.
Interest. ● Self-actualizing people do not waste energy
○ Self-actualizer may become angry,impatient, or fighting against insignificant customs and
disgusted with others; but they retain a feeling regulations of society. Such folkways as dress,
of affection for human beings in general. More hair style, and traffic laws are relatively
specifically, Maslow stated that self- arbitrary and self actualizing people do not
actualizing people are "often saddedned. make a conspicuous show of defying these
exasperated and even enraged by the shortcoming conventions.
of the average person" JONAH COMPLEX
★ According to Maslow (1970), everyone is born with a ★ The goals of psychology follow from the client's
will toward health, a tendency to grow toward self- position on the hierarchy of needs. Because
actualization, but few people reach it.What physiological and safety needs are prepotent,
prevents people from achieving this high level of people operating on these levels will not
health? ordinarily be motivated to seek psychotherapy.
★ Another obstacle that often blocks people's growth Instead, they will strive to obtain nourishment
toward self-actualization is the Jonah Complex, or and protection.
the fear of being one's best. CRITIQUE OF MASLOW
★ The Jonah Complex is characterized by attempts to ➢ GENERAL RESEARCH- Slightly above average.
run away from one's destiny just as the biblical ➢ FALSIFICATION- Low; as it builds on some
Jonah tried to escape from his fate. concepts of psychoanalysis
★ The Jonah complex, which is found in nearly (needs,motivation,drives)
everyone,represents a fear of success, a fear of ➢ ORGANIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE-High
being one's best, and a feeling of awesomeness in ➢ APPLICATION- Yes, especially in organizations.
the presence of beauty and perfection. ➢ INTERNAL CONSISTENCY- Low (self-actualization is
○ Maslow's IQ and academic performance is somehow arcane)
parallel to Jonah's story. ➢ PARSIMONY-Okay
○ Most people, he reasoned, have private CONCEPT OF HUMANITY
ambition to be great, to write a great novel, ➢ Free Choice over Determinism
to be a movie star, to become a world-famous ➢ Optimistic
scientist, and so on. However, when they ➢ Teleological
compare themselves with those who have ➢ Uniqueness and similarity
accomplished greatness, they are applied by ➢ Conscious
their own arrogance. "Who am I to think I ➢ Social Influences vs Biology is a false
could do as well as this great person?" dichotomy since according to Maslow, people are
○ People allow false humility to stifle both influenced by both.
creativity, and thus they prevent themselves
from becoming self-actualizing.
○ Almost same with excuses of Adler
(Safeguarding Tendencies)
PSYCHOTHERAPY
★ To Maslow, the aim of therapy would be for
clients to embrace the Being-Values, that is, to
value truth,justice,goodness,simplicity,and so
forth.
★ To accomplish this aim, clients must be free
from their dependency on others so that their
natural impulse toward growth and self-
actualization could become active.