 1st force: Psychodynamic Theory

 2nd force: Behavioral Theory

 3rd force: Humanistic Theory

 Existentialist and Humanistic
Theorists Both…
 Believe in Free Will
– Humanist do not believe that human being are pushed
and pulled by mechanical forces, either of stimuli and
reinforcements (behaviorism) or of unconscious
instinctual impulses (psychoanalysis).
 Emphasize the uniqueness of each individual
 Believe that humans strive for an upper level of
capabilities.
 Humans seek the frontiers of creativity, the highest
reaches of consciousness and wisdom.
 However…

 On Human Nature…
– Existentialists see it as non-existent or neutral
– Humanists see it as basically good
 Optimism vs. Pessimism
– Humanists optimistic about humanity and the
future
– Existentialists tend to be much more gloomy
Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
Humanistic-Existential Paradigm
Self-actualization Theory
 Biography
 He was born April 1, 1908 in Brooklyn, New York.

 He was the first of seven children born to his parents

 His parents were uneducated Jewish immigrants from Russia.

 Maslow became very lonely as a boy, and found his refuge in books.

 He married Bertha Goodman, his first cousin, against his parents
wishes. Abraham and Bertha went on to have two daughters.

 on June 8 1970, he died of a heart attack after years of ill health.

 To satisfy his parents, he first studied law at the City College
of New York (CCNY). After three semesters, he transferred to
Cornell, and then back to CCNY

 BA in 1930, MA in 1931, and PhD in 1934, all in psychology,

and all from the University of Wisconsin.

 Returned to New York to work with E. L. Thorndike at

Columbia.

 In 1951, served as the chair of the psychology department at

Brandeis for 10 years, where he began work in self-
actualization.
 Work with monkeys early in his career

 Some needs take precedence over others,

e.g. taking care of the thirst over hunger.

 Thirst is a “stronger” need than hunger.

 Abraham Maslow
 Initially sold on behaviorism
 Questioned when he read Freud

 Everything changed after the birth of his first

child, he looked beyond both
 Decided that we spend too much time on the
mentally ill to understand mental health
 Focus on the strong. Want to run fast?
Don’t study cripples.
 More Maslow
 Devised a holistic theory - look at people as
whole, functioning organisms
 Skinner deprived his rats & pigeons, then made
inferences from their behavior to humans
 What if we had everything we needed ?
 A truly human motivation would emerge, a
progression towards fulfillment.
 Maslow’s Assumptions
 Human nature is
basically good, not
evil
 Normal human
development
involves the
actualization of this
inherent goodness
Central Human Motive
Self-Actualization
 Maslow’s Assumptions...
 Psychopathology results from the
frustration of a human being’s
essential nature
 Maslow’s Three Types of Needs
 Basic Needs
 Needs to Know and Understand

 Aesthetic Needs
 The hierarchy
 An organization from the most necessary
needs to those we turn to when the others
are satisfied
 Appealing

 Widely applied

 But little evidence

 Some ignore levels

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
 Self-Actualization
 Esteem

 Love

 Safety

 Physiological
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

MOST NEEDS HAVE TO DO WITH

SURVIVAL PHYSICALLY AND
PSYCHOLOGICALLY

PHYSIOLOGICAL OR SURVIVAL NEEDS

 Physiological Needs
 Needs for food, water, air, etc.

 One function of civilization is to satisfy

these needs so we can focus on the higher
ones

 Behavioral research usually studies at this

level
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
ON THE WHOLE AN INDIVIDUAL
CANNOT SATISFY ANY LEVEL
UNLESS NEEDS BELOW ARE
SATISFIED

SAFETY NEEDS

PHYSIOLOGICAL OR SURVIVAL NEEDS

 Safety Needs
 Needs for safety, order, security, etc.

 Focused on after physiological needs met

 Most commonly seen in children

 Seen in some mental disorders (e.g., Obsessive-

Compulsive Disorder, Anxiety Disorders,
Dependent Personality Disorder)
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

LOVE, AFFECTION, AND

BELONGINGNESS NEEDS

SAFETY NEEDS

PHYSIOLOGICAL OR SURVIVAL NEEDS

 Belongingness & Love Needs
 The need for affiliation, for friends,
supportive family, group identification,
intimate relationships
 This level and higher ones often not
satisfied even in affluent countries
 These needs being unfulfilled at the root of
many mental disturbances (depression,
Borderline Personality Disorder)
 Need to receive and to give love
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

ESTEEM NEEDS

LOVE, AFFECTION, AND

BELONGINGNESS NEEDS

SAFETY NEEDS

PHYSIOLOGICAL OR SURVIVAL NEEDS

 Esteem Needs
 Need to be held in high regard by self and
others (not just “self-esteem”)
 comes from mastery, achievement,
adequacy, feelings of competence,
confidence, independence
 Ideally this need met by the deserved
respect of others
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
NEED
FOR
SELF-
ACTUALIZATION

MASLOW EMPHASIZES NEED

FOR SELF
ACTUALIZATION IS
A HEALTHY INDIVIDUAL’S
PRIME
MOTIVATION
 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
NEED
FOR
SELF-
ACTUALIZATION

MASLOW EMPHASIZES NEED FOR SELF

ACTUALIZATION IS
A HEALTHY INDIVIDUAL’S PRIME
MOTIVATION

SELF-ACTUALIZATION MEANS
ACTUALIZING
ONE’S POTENTIAL BECOMING ALL ONE IS
CAPABLE OF BECOMING
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
NEED
SELF-
ACTUALIZATION

ESTEEM NEEDS

LOVE, AFFECTION, AND

BELONGINGNESS NEEDS

SAFETY NEEDS

PHYSIOLOGICAL OR SURVIVAL NEEDS

 Nobody can do
everything,

but we can nearly all

do more than we
think we can
 Self-Actualization Needs
 A person must actualize, that is make real,
what exists inside them as a potential
 Most other theorists wouldn’t see this as a
need
– Freud would predict people would stop at lower
needs
– Even Adler might predict stopping at esteem
needs
 The self-actualized

 Initially,
based upon two of his favorite
instructors
 Achieve qualities that must be
developed
 A path more than a goal

 “What a man can do, he must do.”

 What it takes
 To perceive reality accurately
 To be independent & creative

 To solve problems

 To accept yourself

 To have a sense of humor

 To enjoy life
 Maslow’s Definition of a
Self-actualized Person

 Has no mental illness

 Satisfied in basic needs

 Fully exploited talents

 Motivated by values
 Some Characteristics of
Self-actualizing persons
 Superior perception of reality
 Increased acceptance of self, of others,
and of nature
 Increased spontaneity
 Increased detachment and desire for
privacy
 Greater freshness of appreciation and
richness of emotional reaction
 Some Characteristics of
Self-actualizing persons.....
 Increased autonomy and resistance to
conformity
 Higher frequency of peak experiences

 Increased identification with the

human species
• Improved interpersonal experiences
 More democratic character structure
 High levels of creativity
 who qualifies?
 Eleanor Roosevelt
 Gandhi

 Jefferson

 Lincoln

 So few, changed from a destination to a

path.
 How would you
know?
 Peak experiences – moments when you feel
truly fulfilled, content and at peace
 Your powers and abilities come together in
an intensely enjoyable way
 “Flow experiences”
 Peak Experiences
Ugliness can be present for so
long, you don’t notice it any more

- but so can
beauty
A. Values of Self-Actualizers
 Maslow held that self-actualizing people
are metamotivated by such B-values as
truth, goodness, beauty, justice, and
simplicity.
 The 17 Metaneeds
 Truth
 Goodness

 Beauty

 Wholeness

 Dichotomy-transcendence

 Aliveness

 Uniqueness

 Perfection

 Necessity
 The 17 Metaneeds.....
 Completion
 Justice

 Order

 Simplicity

 Richness

 Effortlessness

 Playfulness

 Self-sufficiency
 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; that is, they have the
ability to love without expecting something
in return. B-love is mutually felt and shared
and not based on deficiencies within the
lovers.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
 Aesthetic Needs
 Aesthetic needs include a desire for beauty
and order, and some people have much
stronger aesthetic needs than do others.
When people fail to meet their aesthetic
needs, they become sick.
 Cognitive Needs
 Cognitive needs include 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.
 Neurotic Needs
 Neurotic needs include a desire to dominate,
to inflict pain, or to subject oneself to the
will of another person. With conative,
aesthetic, and cognitive needs, some type of
illness results when they are not satisfied.
Neurotic needs, however, lead to pathology
whether or not they are satisfied.
 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
 Cont.…
 Maslow insisted that much of our surface
behaviors are actually motivated by more
basic and often unconscious needs. Maslow
also believed that some expressive
behaviors are unmotivated, even though all
behaviors have a cause. Expressive
behaviors have no aim or goal but are
merely a person's mode of expression.
 Cont.…
 In comparison, coping behaviors deal with a
person's attempt to cope with the
environment. The conative needs ordinarily
call forth coping behaviors.
 Deprivation of any of the needs leads to
pathology of some sort. For example,
people's inability to reach self-actualization
results in metapathology; defined as an
absence of values, a lack of fulfillment, and
a loss of meaning in life. Maslow suggested
that instinctoid needs are innately
determined even though they can be
modified by learning.
 Maslow also 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.
 Philosophy of Science
 Maslow criticized traditional science as
being value-free, with a methodology that is
sterile and nonemotional. He argued for a
Taoistic attitude for psychology in which
psychologists are willing to resacralize
their science, that is, to instill it with human
values and to view participants with awe,
joy, wonder, rapture, and ritual.
 The Jonah Complex
 Because humans are born with a natural
tendency to move toward psychological
health, any failure to reach self-
actualization can be technically called
abnormal development. One such abnormal
syndrome is the Jonah complex, or fear of
being or doing one's best, a condition that
all of us have to some extent. Maslow
believed that many people allow false
humility to stifle their creativity and to fall
short of self-actualization
 A Short Scale Measuring Self-actualization
 I do not feel ashamed of any of my emotions.
 I feel I must do what others expect me to do. (N)
 I feel that people are essentially good and can be
trusted.
 I feel free to be angry to those I love.
 It is always necessary that others approve of
what i do. (N)
 I don’t accept my own weaknesses. (N)
 I can like people without having to approve of
them.
 I fear failure. (N)
A Short Scale Measuring Self-actualization....

 I avoid attempts to analyze and simplify complex

domains. (N)
 It is better to be yourself than to be popular.
 I have no mission in life to which I feel especially
dedicated. (N)
 I can express my feelings even when they may result
in undesirable consequences.
 I do not feel responsible to help anybody. (N)
 I am bothered by feelings of being inadequate. (N)
 I am loved because I give love.
Eight ways to self-actualize
 Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw
yourself into the experience; concentrate on it fully; let
it totally absorb you.
 Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety
(out of fear ) and risk (for the sake of growth: make
the growth choice a dozen times a day.
 Let the self emerge. Try to shut out external clues as
to what you should think, feel, say and let your
experience enable you to say what you truly feel.
 Eight ways to self-actualize....
 When in doubt, be honest. If you look into yourself
and are honest, you will also take responsibility;
taking responsibility is self-actualizing.
 Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be
unpopular.
 Use your intelligence. Work to do well the things
you want to do, whether that means finger exercises
at a keyboard, memorizing every bone, muscle and
hormone in the human body, or learning to finish
wood so it looks and feels like silk.
Eight ways to self-actualize....
 Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of
illusions and false notions; learn what you are
good at and what your potentialities are not.
 Find out who you are, what you like and don’t
like, what is good and what is bad for you,
where you are going, what your mission is.
Opening yourself up in this way means
identifying defenses - and then finding the
courage to give them up.
 Psychotherapy
 The hierarchy of needs concept has obvious
ramifications for psychotherapy. Most
people who seek psychotherapy probably do
so because they have not adequately
satisfied their love and belongingness
needs. This suggests that much of therapy
should involve a productive human
relationship and that he job of a therapist is
to help clients satisfy love and
belongingness needs.
 Rogers’ & Maslow’s
Healthy Personalities
Rogers Maslow
 More fully open to  Reality and problem-centered.
experience. Unafraid Accepting of self. Unexpected
of own feelings. ruthlessness.
 More existential  Spontaneity and simplicity.
living. Freshness of appreciation.
Nondetermined, Discrimination between means and
independent. ends. Need for privacy.
 Increased trust in  Acceptance of others. resistance to
own organism. More acculturation. Creative. Unhostile
creative, sense of humor. More intimate
nonconformist. personal relations. Social interest.