Theories of Personality Maslow: Holistic-Dynamic Theory

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Theories of Personality Maslow Holistic-Dynamic
Theory

• Chapter 10

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Outline

• Overview of Holistic-Dynamic Theory
• Biography of Maslow
• Maslows View of Motivation
• Self-Actualization
• Philosophy of Science
• Measuring Self-Actualization

3
Outline

• The Jonah Complex
• Psychotherapy
• Related Research
• Critique of Maslow
• Concept of Humanity

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Overview of Holistic-Dynamic Theory

• Assumes Whole Person Is Motivated by One Need or
  Another
• People Have Potential to Grow toward
  Psychological Health/Self-Actualization
• Lower Level Needs Must Be Satisfied Before Higher
  Level Needs Can Be Met

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Biography of Maslow

• Born in New York City in 1908
• Oldest of seven children of Russian-Jewish
  immigrants
• Harbors lifelong animosity toward mother
• Received a PhD in 1934 in psychology from
  University of Wisconsin where he worked with
  Harry Harlow

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Biography (contd)

• Returns to New York in 1935 and works with E. L.
  Thorndike at Columbia University
• Met and was influenced by Alfred Adler, Erich
  Fromm, and Karen Horney
• In 1951, became chairperson of the psychology
  department at Brandeis University
• President of American Psychological Association
  1967-1968
• Died in 1970 of a heart attack

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Maslows View of Motivation

• Holistic Approach to Motivation
• Motivation Is Complex
• People Are Continually Motivated by One Need or
  Another
• All People Everywhere Are Motivated by the Same
  Basic Needs
• Needs Can Be Arranged on a Hierarchy

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Hierarchy of Needs

• Conative or Basic Needs
• Physiological
• Safety
• Love and belongingness
• Esteem
• Self-Actualization
• Aesthetic Needs
• The need for order and beauty
• Cognitive Needs
• The need for curiosity and knowledge
• Neurotic Needs
• An unproductive relating to other people

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General Discussion of Needs

• Reversed Order of Needs
• Unmotivated Behavior
• Conditioned reflexes, maturation, drugs
• Expressive Behaviors
• An end in itself, no purpose than to be
• Persons mode of expressions
• Looking stupid, being relaxed
• Coping Behaviors
• Effortful, learned and triggered by external
  environment
• Coping with the environment
• Instinctoid Nature of Needs
• Frustration of instinctoid need causes pathology

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Self-Actualization

• Maslows Quest for the Self-Actualized Person
• Criteria for Self-Actualization
• Free from psychopathology
• Have progressed through hierarchy of needs
• Embracing of the B-values
• Full use of talents, capacities, and
  potentialities
• Values of Self-Actualizers
• Motivated by Eternal Verities or B-Values
• Metamotivation

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Self-Actualization (contd)

• Characteristics of Self-Actualizing People
• More efficient perception of reality
• Acceptance of self, others, and nature
• Spontaneity, simplicity, and naturalness
• Problem-centering
• The need for privacy
• Autonomy
• Continued freshness of appreciation
• The peak experience

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Self-Actualization (contd)

• Characteristics of Self-Actualizing People
  (cont.)
• Gemeinschaftsgefuhl
• social interest, community feeling, sense of
  oneness with all humanity
• Profound interpersonal relations
• The democratic character structure
• Discrimination between means and ends
• Philosophical sense of humor
• Creativeness
• Resistance to enculturation
• Love, Sex, and Self-Actualization

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Philosophy of Science

• Maslow argued for a humanistic, holistic approach
  that is not value free
• Psychological science should stress the
  importance of individual procedures
• Scientists should put values, emotion, and ritual
  back into their work and be creative in their
  pursuit of knowledge

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Measuring Self-Actualization

• Personal Orientation Inventory (POI)
• Comprehensive measure of the values and behaviors
  of self-actualizing people
• Short Index of Self-Actualization
• Brief Index of Self-Actualization
• Four factors
• Core self-actualization
• Autonomy
• Openness to experience
• Comfort with solitude

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The Jonah Complex

• The Jonah complex is an abnormal syndrome defined
  as the fear of being or doing ones best
• Probably all of us have some timidity about
  seeking perfection or greatness
• People allow false humility to stifle creativity,
  and therefore they prevent themselves from
  becoming self-actualizing

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Psychotherapy

• The aim of therapy is for clients to embrace the
  being-values
• Clients must be freed from their dependence on
  others so that their natural impulse to grow can
  become active
• Psychotherapy must not be value free

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Critique of Maslow

• Maslows Theory Is
• Very High on Organizing Knowledge
• High on Guiding Action
• Moderate on Generating Research, Internal
  Consistency, and Parsimony
• Low on Falsifiability

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Concept of Humanity

• Free Choice over Determinism
• Optimism over Pessimism
• Teleology over Causality
• Conscious over Unconscious
• Equal Emphasis on Culture and Biology
• Uniqueness over Similarity