Humanistic Approach and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Flashcards

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering Abraham Maslow's humanistic theory, biography, and the hierarchy of needs based on lecture notes.

Humanistic Approach

A psychological perspective that emphasizes human strengths, aspirations, conscious free will, and the fulfillment of our potential.

Conscious free will

A key emphasis of the humanistic approach, highlighting the capacity for individual choice and decision-making.

Self-actualization

The process described by humanistic psychology where active, creative beings are concerned with growth and maximum realization of their potential.

Maslow's Critic of Traditional Psychology

He believed studying only abnormal, emotionally disturbed examples of humanity ignores positive qualities like happiness and peace of mind.

Research Subjects for Maslow's Theory

Creative, independent, self-sufficient, and fulfilled adults rather than clinical patients.

Instinctive needs

Needs that each person is born with that enable us to grow, develop, and fulfill our potential.

Instinctoid

Maslow's term for needs that have a hereditary component but can be affected by learning or social expectations.

Lower needs

Stronger, more potent needs that prioritize and are also known as deficiency needs.

Higher needs

Needs that appear later in life and are also known as being needs.

Deficiency needs

Needs that produce a crisis if they are not satisfied.

Being needs

Needs whose satisfaction leads to improved health, longevity, and psychological benefits.

Gratification of higher needs

Requires better external circumstances (social, economic, and political) than lower needs.

Partial Satisfaction Rule

A need does not have to be fully satisfied before the next need in the hierarchy becomes important.

Declining percentage

Maslow's proposal for the level of satisfaction required at each stage of the hierarchy.

Five Hierarchy of Needs

Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, and Self-Actualization.

Physiological Needs

Basic survival drives like food; a starving person is driven by nothing else until this is satisfied.

Safety Needs

Conditions requiring stability, security, and freedom from fear and anxiety.

Neurotic and insecure adults

Individuals whose personalities are still dominated by safety needs, leading to a need for structure and order.

Belongingness and Love Needs

Needs expressed through close relationships with friends, lovers, or groups.

Fundamental cause of emotional maladjustment

The failure to satisfy the need for love.

Esteem Needs

The requirement for respect from ourselves (self-worth) and from other people (status and recognition).

Inferiority and Helplessness

Feelings resulting from a lack of self-esteem and confidence in one's ability to cope.

Self-Actualization Need

The maximum realization and fulfillment of potentials, talents, and abilities.

Constraint freedom

A necessary condition for achieving self-actualization alongside being secure in self-image.

Cognitive Needs

The need to know and the need to understand.

Need to know

A specific cognitive need that Maslow noted is stronger than the need to understand.

B-Motivation

Also called Being or Metamotivation; it involves maximizing personal potential.

D-motivation

Striving for something specific to make up for something that is lacking within us.

Metaneeds

States of growth or being toward which self-actualizers evolve.

Metapathology

A thwarting of self-development related to the failure to satisfy metaneeds.

Clear Perception of Reality

A characteristic of self-actualizers where perception is unbiased by prejudgments or preconceptions.

Acceptance of self, others, and nature

The state of not falsifying self-image and not feeling guilty about feelings.

Spontaneity, simplicity, and naturalness

The quality of rarely hiding feelings or playing social roles except to avoid hurting others.

Dedication to a cause

Finding pleasure and excitement in hard work toward a specific goal.

Independence and need for privacy

The ability to experience isolation without harmful effects and a preference for solitude.

Freshness of appreciation

The ability to perceive the world with wonder, awe, and freshness.

Peak experiences

Moments of intense ecstasy, similar to deep religious experiences, occurring during any activity.

Social interest

Feeling a kinship with other people and a desire to help them.

Deep interpersonal relationships

The tendency of self-actualizers to select friends with personal qualities similar to their own.

Creativeness and originality

The exhibition of inventiveness in work and other facets of life.

Resistance to social pressures

Being autonomous and feeling free to resist cultural pressures to think or behave in certain ways.

Jonah Complex

The tendency to doubt one's own abilities, which can lead to failure in becoming self-actualizing.

Overprotection in childhood

A practice that can inhibit adults, making them unable to express themselves fully in self-actualization.

Prerequisite for Self-Actualization

Sufficient love in childhood is necessary for later self-actualization and early need satisfaction.

Satisfaction in the first $2$ years of life

The period where satisfaction of physiological and safety needs is crucial for future self-actualization.

Case histories of clinical patients

Traditional data sources that Maslow's personality theory does NOT derive from.

Hereditary component of needs

The defining feature of what Maslow calls 'instinctoid' needs.

Failure to satisfy lower needs

The specific condition that produces a crisis in the hierarchy of needs.

Longevity and improved health

The physical benefits resulting from the satisfaction of higher needs.

Lower needs strength

Maslow characterized lower needs as 'stronger' and 'more potent.'

Higher needs timing

These needs appear much later in the lifespan of the individual.

Minimal role of physiological needs

Because they are easily gratified for most, they no longer serve as primary motivators.

Security and freedom from fear

The primary components of the Safety Needs level.

Status and recognition

Forms of esteem required from other people to satisfy esteem needs.

Maximum realization of talents

A definition of the self-actualization need.

Realistic knowledge of strengths

One of the required conditions Maslow identified for reaching self-actualization.

Condition: Secure in our relationship

A requirement for achieving self-actualization, alongside loving and being loved in return.

The need to know

A cognitive need that exists in the environment and involves finding information.

Metamotivations

Another term for B-motivation or Being motivation in the study of self-actualizers.

Developing within

The description of how self-actualizers operate regarding B-motivation.

Striving for lacking items

The core drive behind D-motivation.

Thwarting of self-development

The definition of metapathology resulting from unmet metaneeds.

Unbiased by prejudgments

The quality of 'Clear Perception of Reality' in self-actualizers.

Guilt-free feelings

Self-actualizers do not feel guilty about their feelings or attempt to falsify their self-image.

Avoiding hurting others

The only reason a self-actualizer might hide feelings or play a social role.

Pleasure in hard work

An aspect of 'Dedication to a Cause' where work provides excitement.

Solitude preference

Self-actualizing persons seem to need this more than non-actualizers.

Kinship with people

The fundamental feeling involved in the 'Social Interest' of self-actualizers.

Selection of compatible friends

A characteristic of 'Deep Interpersonal Relationships' in self-actualizers.

Inventiveness and originality

Traits exhibited by self-actualizers in their work and life facets.

Autonomous and self-sufficient

Terms used to describe the independence of self-actualizers from social pressures.

Ability doubts

The defining characteristic of the Jonah Complex.

Inhibitions in adults

Resulting from childhood overprotection and the inability to explore new ideas or skills.

Satisfied need influence

Once a need is gratified, it no longer serves to motivate behavior.

Infants and neurotic adults

Two groups for whom safety needs are particularly important drives.

Emotional maladjustment cause

Failure to satisfy the need for love according to Maslow.

Musician, artist, poet

Examples of people who must pursue their craft to be ultimately at peace.

Growth toward metaneeds

The process of evolution for those who are self-actualizers.

Falsifying self-image

Something self-actualizers do not do as part of their acceptance of self.

Relationship between love and SA

The prerequisite involving love for satisfying physiological and safety needs early in life.

Characteristics of Needs

1. Lower needs are stronger needs, potent, and prioritize

2. Higher needs appear later in life

3. Failure to satisfy lower needs does produce a crisis (Lower needs =

deficiency needs)

4. Satisfaction of higher needs leads to improved health and longevity

(Higher needs = being needs)

5. Satisfaction of higher needs is also beneficial psychologically

6. Gratification of higher needs requires better external circumstances

7. A need does not have to be satisfied fully before the next need in the
hierarchy becomes important (a need must at least be partially satisfied)

8. Maslow proposed a declining percentage for each stage