abraham maslow

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Abraham Maslow

Humanistic Approach

+Maslow

• Believed humans are interested in growing rather than simply restoring balance or avoiding frustration.

• Described humans as ‘wanting animals’ who are almost always wanting something.

• Key goal is to reach self-actualisation – to fulfill one’s potential - moving forward towards growth, happiness and satisfaction.

• Distinguished between motivation and metamotivation.

+MOTIVATION

Motivation: reducing tension by satisfying deficit states.

Involves deficiency needs (D-needs) – physiological survival and safety, and motivate the individual to reduce these drives.

Motivation and D-needs = powerful determinants of behaviour

+METAMOTIVATION

Metamotivation: growth tendencies.

Involves being needs (B-needs) – drive to self-actualisation.

Goal is to enhance life by enriching it.

Rather than reduce tension, they frequently heighten it in their quest for ever-increasing stimuli that will bring a life lived to the fullest.

+MOTIVATION VS METAMOTIVATION

Motivation and D-needs take precedence over metamotivation and B-needs because they dominate the organism when both needs are thwarted.

E.g. when an individual is desperate for food, they are unlikely to be concerned with spiritual goals like truth or beauty.

Within the D-needs, physiological needs are stronger than safety needs.

+Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1970)

D-Needs

B-Needs

+Maslow’s Stats

According to Maslow, the average American meets 85% physiological, 70% safety/security, 50% love and belongingness, 40% self-esteem and 10% self-actualisation.

The extent to which our lower needs remain unsatisfied determines how strongly those needs will dominate our behaviour.

Maslow at one point claimed that only two percent of the human population are truly, predominantly self-actualised.

+Knowledge and Understanding

In addition, Maslow suggested the important needs to know and understand – the need to know is more powerful than the need to understand

Understanding

Knowledge

+Aesthetic Needs

Clinical studies also convinced Maslow that in some individuals, aesthetic needs are very important:

“they get sick [in special ways] from ugliness, and are cured by beautiful surroundings; they crave actively, and their cravings can be satisfied only by beauty”

These needs overlap with the hierarchy and are interrelated.

+Exceptions to hierarchy

Maslow recognised that some creative people have pursued the development and expression of their special talents despite serious hardships and social ridicule.

Also, strongly valued and idealistic people willing to die or go on hunger strike.

Maslow speculated some might scramble their hierarchies due to unusual factors in their personal history.

+Criticism

Cross cultural research suggests that the order of needs does not always hold true for other cultures.

E.g. in Greece and Japan, security needs are much stronger than self-actualisation needs in determining motivation (Hofstede, 1980; Hofstede et al. 2002)

In these cultures, job security > job satisfaction.

In Sweden and Norway, quality of life > what a person produces – therefore, social needs > self-actualisation.

+Self-Actualisation

“fulfilling themselves and doing the best that they are capable of doing”

+Why it is rarely achieved

Jonah complex – tendency to doubt and even fear own abilities. Characterised by a fear of success that prevents a person from aspiring to greatness and self-fulfillment.

Social and cultural environments imposing certain norms (e.g. what is masculine and what is not).

Strong negative influence exerted by safety needs. Growth needs courage – most continue specific habits as > fear = > regression towards safety and security

+Peak experiences

According to Maslow, the self-actualised person frequently experiences peak experiences

During a peak experience, the individual experiences not only an expansion of self but also a sense of unity and meaningfulness in life. The world appears to be complete and the person is at one with it.

+Who is among the self-actualised?

Maslow identified: Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, William James, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt.

Not everyone agrees; Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family destroyed by alcoholism, Lincoln suffered from depression.

+Maslow’s Methods

Began by selecting people who appeared to be psychologically healthy and completely satisfied their need for self-actualisation.

Rather than statistical or quantitative, Maslow used holistic analyses – general impressions.