The "Third Force" in Psychology

Abraham Maslow, the Humanistic Movement, and Positive Psychology

Why aren’t we happy?

  • choose one: thin or happy?

  • what about money?

  • what about love?

Humanistic Theories

  • The “Third Force” in Psychology

    • what are the first two “forces?”

      • psychoanalysis and behaviorism

        • Determinism links these two

  • humanistic theory places free will over determinism

    • human beings can be purposeful and autonomous

    • human capacity for goodness, creativity and freedom

Humanistic Theories

  • emphasis on growth motivations

  • interest in phenomenology, the “here and now”

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)

  • born in 1908 in NYC, parents were immigrants from Russia

  • father Samuel, barrel maker

  • mother rose

  • unhappy and lonely childhood

  • City College of NY

  • also part-time at Brooklyn Law School

  • transfer to Cornell University

    • first exposure to psychology

  • back to City College of New York

  • married Bertha at age 20, she was 19

    • she was his first cousin!

  • transfer to University of Wisconsin

  • 1930 BA in psych, uni of psych

  • 1934 Ph.D. in psychology, also from Wisconsin

  • first Ph.D. student of Harry Harlow

    • dissertation: dominance hierarchies in troupes of monkeys

    • found that social dominance was more motivating than sexual opportunities

  • back to NYC in 1935 for post-doc job in Thorndike’s laboratory at Teacher’s College of Columbia

    • 1936 NYC “academic refugees” scene

      • Max Wertheimer and Ruth Benedict

    • also hanging out with Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, etc

  • 1937, took faculty job at Brooklyn College

  • 1951, offered chair at newly established Brandeis University

  • 2954 book, Motivation and Personality 

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

  • physiological needs

    • safety needs

      • belonging needs

        • esteem needs

  • what else do we need?

Self-actualization needs

  • “neuroses of the rich”

  • perils of perfectionism

  • going beyond “deficit motives”

    • the “hedonic treadmill”

  • existential angst

The rise and decline of the humanistic school of thought

  • two accounts

    • personalistic 

    • naturalism

Human’s in 60’s Pop Culture

Peak Experiences

  • first described by William James - a mystical state

    • ineffable

    • noetic

    • transient

    • passive


Mihaly Csikszentmijaly

  • flow

    • optimal conscious experience

    • intrinsic motivaiton

    • deep engagement in an activity

    • activity provides immediate feedback

    • highly challenging but within one’s ability level

Martin Seligman (1942 -)

  • Ph.D UPenn 1967

    • advisor: Richard Soloman

Seligman Studies of Learned Helplessness

  • reinforcement behavior

Positive Psychology

  • 1998 APA presidential address

  • 2000 special issue in the American Psychologist

  • is it another humanistic psychology

    • positive psych keeps focus on empirical research

    • origins in behavioral paradigm, but ideologically similar to humanism