THEORIES OF PERSONALITY MASLOW HOLISTIC-DYNAMIC THEORY

hierarchy of needs

concept assumes that lower level

needs must be satisfied or at least relatively satisfied before higher

level needs become motivators.

conative needs

The five needs composing this

hierarchy. meaning that they have a striving or

motivational character.

Physiological Needs

The most basic needs of any person including food, water, oxygen, maintenance of body temperature, and

so on. the most prepotent of all.

Safety Needs

their physiological needs, they

become motivated by safety needs, including physical security,

stability, dependency, protection, and freedom from threatening forces

such as war, terrorism, illness, fear, anxiety, danger, chaos, and

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natural disasters.

basic anxiety

They spend far more energy than do healthy people trying to satisfy

safety needs, and when they are not successful in their attempts, they

suffer from what Maslow (1970) called

Love and Belongingness Needs

such as the

desire for friendship; the wish for a mate and children; and the need to

belong to a family, a club, a neighborhood, or a nation.

Esteem Needs

which include self-respect,

confidence, competence, and the knowledge that others hold them in

high esteem.

Reputation

the perception of the

prestige, recognition, or fame a person has achieved in the eyes of

others

self-esteem

a person’s own feelings of worth and

confidence.

Self-Actualization Needs

When lower level needs are satisfied, people proceed more or less

automatically to the next level. include self-fulfillment, the realization of

all one’s potential, and a desire to become creative in the full sense of

the word

Aesthetic Needs

are not universal, but at least

some people in every culture seem to be motivated by the need for

beauty and aesthetically pleasing experiences

Cognitive Needs

a desire to know, to solve mysteries, to

understand, and to be curious.

Neurotic Needs

The satisfaction of conative, aesthetic, and cognitive needs is basic to

one’s physical and psychological health, and their frustration leads to

some level of illness. are nonproductive. They perpetuate

an unhealthy style of life and have no value in the striving for self-

actualization.

Reversed Order of Needs

For some

people, the drive for creativity (a self-actualization need) may take

precedence over safety and physiological needs.

Unmotivated Behavior

some

behaviors are not motivated. In other words, not all determinants are

motives. Some behavior is not caused by needs but by other factors

such as conditioned reflexes, maturation, or drugs.

Expressive behavior

(which is

often unmotivated) an end in itself and serves no other

purpose than to be. It is frequently unconscious and usually takes

place naturally and with little effort. one’s gait, gestures, voice, and

smile (even when alone).

coping behavior

(which is always motivatedordinarily conscious,

effortful, learned, and determined by the external environment.

and aimed at satisfying a need).

Deprivation of Needs

Lack of satisfaction of any of the basic needs leads to some kind of

pathology. results in malnutrition,

fatigue, loss of energy, obsession with sex, and so on.

metapathology.

as the absence of values, the lack of fulfillment, and

the loss of meaning in life. Deprivation of any of the B-values

results in metapathology, or the lack of a meaningful philosophy of life.

instinctoid needs.

Maslow (1970) hypothesizes that some human needs are innately

determined even though they can be modified by learning.

Hedonistic pleasure

is

usually temporary and not comparable to the quality of happiness

produced by the satisfaction of higher needs.

Self-Actualization

highest level of human

development,

B-values

indicators of psychological health and are opposed to deficiency

needs, which motivate non-self-actualizers. Maslow (1971) held that self-actualizing people are motivated by the

“eternal verities,” what he called

metamotivation.

He distinguished between ordinary need motivation and

the motives of self-actualizing people, which he called

metaneeds

Maslow

termed B-values. to indicate that they are the ultimate

level of needs.

More Efficient Perception of Reality

Self-actualizing people can more easily detect phoniness in others.

They can discriminate between the genuine and the fake not only in

people but also in literature, art, and music.

Acceptance of Self, Others, and Nature

Self-actualizing people can accept themselves the way they are. They

lack defensiveness, phoniness, and self-defeating guilt; have good

hearty animal appetites for food, sleep, and sex; are not overly critical

of their own shortcomings; and are not burdened by undue anxiety or

shame.

Spontaneity, Simplicity, and Naturalness

Self-actualizing people are spontaneous, simple, and natural. They are

unconventional but not compulsively so; they are highly ethical but may

appear unethical or nonconforming.

Problem-Centering

A fourth characteristic of self-actualizing people is their interest in

problems outside themselves.

The Need for Privacy

Self-actualizing people have a quality of detachment that allows them

to be alone without being lonely.

Autonomy

Self-actualizing people are autonomous and depend on themselves for

growth even though at some time in their past they had to have

received love and security from others.

Continued Freshness of Appreciation

Maslow (1970) wrote that “self-actualizing people have the wonderful

capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic

goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy”

peak experiences

people had had experiences

that were mystical in nature and that somehow gave them a feeling of

transcendence.

Gemeinschaftsgefühl

Self-actualizing people possess Adler’s term

for social interest, community feeling, or a sense of oneness with all

humanity. care for others

Profound Interpersonal Relations

Related to Gemeinschaftsgefühl is a special quality of interpersonal

relations that involves deep and profound feelings for individuals.

The Democratic Character Structure

Maslow found that all his self-actualizers possessed democratic

values. They could be friendly and considerate with other people

regardless of class, color, age, or gender, and in fact, they seemed to

be quite unaware of superficial differences among people.

Discrimination Between Means and Ends

Self-actualizing people have a clear sense of right and wrong

conducts and have little conflict about basic values.

Philosophical Sense of Humor

Another distinguishing characteristic of self-actualizing people is their

philosophical, nonhostile sense of humor.

Creativeness

All self-actualizing people studied by Maslow were creative in some

sense of the word.

Resistance to Enculturation

Self- actualizing people have a sense of detachment

from their surroundings and are able to transcend a particular culture.

They are neither antisocial nor consciously nonconforming.

(D-love)

self-actualizing

people are capable of both giving and receiving love and are no longer

motivated by the kind of deficiency love

B-love

love for

the essence or “Being” of the other. is mutually felt and shared

and not motivated by a deficiency or incompleteness within the lover.

In fact, it is unmotivated, expressive behavior.

desacralization

the type of science that lacks emotion, joy,

wonder, awe, and rapture

resacralize

to instill it

with human values, emotion, and ritual.

The Jonah Complex

fear of being one’s best. represents a fear of success, a fear of being one’s best, and a feeling

of awesomeness in the presence of beauty and perfection.

metamotivation

tentative answer to the problem of why

some people have their lower needs satisfied, are capable of giving

and receiving love, possess a great amount of confidence and self-

esteem, and yet fail to pass over the threshold to self-actualization.