ABRAHAM MASLOW

 Coined by a group of personologists in the early 1960’s

under Maslow

 Maslow called it “THIRD FORCE PSYCHOLOGY”

 Born: April 1, 1908

• Was an American
Psychologist. He is noted
for his conceptualization of
a “hierarchy of human
needs", and is considered
the father of humanistic
psychology .

• Was born and raised in

Brooklyn, the eldest of
seven children
• He was slow but tidy, and remembered his
childhood as lonely and rather unhappy.

• Because, as he said, "I was the little Jewish boy in

the non-Jewish neighborhood.”

• In college he was isolated and unhappy. grew up in

libraries and among books, without friends .

 first studied law at the City College of New York.

 His father hoped he would pursue law, but he went

to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin
to study psychology.
 At Wisconsin he pursued an original line of
research, investigating primate dominance
behavior and sexuality

 He wrote extensively on the subject, borrowing ideas from

other psychologists but adding significantly to them,
especially the concepts of a hierarchy of needs, metaneeds,
self-actualizing persons, and peak experiences.

 Maslow saw human beings' needs arranged like a ladder.

 In 1967, the American Humanist Association named him

Humanist of the Year
 Maslow's view of human nature:
(1) Free will - All of us are capable of choosing how best to
satisfy our needs and actualize our potentials.
(2) Interaction of nature and nurture – Needs are innate but
the behaviors in which we satisfy these needs are learned.
(3) Uniqueness and universality – Human needs are universal
but people differ on how they satisfy their needs.
(4) Equilibrium and growth – Given the proper conditions,
we are capable of reaching a high level of functioning.
(5) Optimism and Pessimism – Human nature is basically
good and kind but he did not deny evil.
.
 Human beings have two basic sets of needs that
are rooted in their biology/nature:
 Deficiency or basic needs – these must be
gratified to a large extent before an individual
can progress toward self-actualization.
 Being or growth needs- serve as a component or
a precondition for self-actualization
 Self
Actualization

Self-Esteem Needs

Belongingness and Love Needs

Safety and Security Needs

Physiological Needs
 Characteristics of needs:
 The lower the need in the hierarchy, the stronger it is.
 Higher needs appear later in human life span.
 Because higher needs are less necessary for survival, their
gratification can be postponed.
 Satisfaction of higher needs is productive and beneficial
both biologically and psychologically.
 A need does not have to be satisfied fully before the next
need in the hierarchy becomes more important.
 Gratification of higher needs requires better external
circumstances (social, economic and political) than the
lower needs.
Maslow’s two kinds of ADULT LOVE:
 Deficiency or D-Love- love out of need for something
 Being or B-Love – valuing the person as a person
 “Maslow’s LOVE is not synonymous with sex”
 Self-Esteem Needs

 Two basic types:

 Self Respect
 Desire for competence, confidence and
achievement, independence and freedom

 Respect from Others

 Desire for prestige, recognition, reputation,
status and appreciation and acceptance
 Self
Actualization

 After the other needs are satisfied the need for

self-actualization comes in.

 “ The person’s desire to become everything that

he or she is capable of becoming.”

 Presses toward the full use of his talents,

capabilities and potentialities.
 To self-actualize is to become the kind of person
we are capable of becoming – to reach the peak of
our potential.
 Maslow’s concept of self actualization is exciting
and refreshing because it makes a person look up
to what he or she can be – and thus live life with
zest and purpose
Characteristics of self-actualized
persons:
1. More efficient perception of reality
2. Acceptance of self, other, and nature.
3. Spontaniety, simplicity, and naturalness.
4. Problem-centered
5. Detachment: need for privacy
6. Autonomy: independence of culture and
environment
7. Continued freshness of appreciation
8. Peak or mystic experiences
9. Social interest
10. Profound interpersonal
relations
11. Democratic character
structure
12. Discrimination between
means and ends
13. Philosophical sense of
humor
14. Creativeness
15. Resistance to inculturation
 Meta Needs are the GROWTH MOTIVES

 Distant goals associated with the urge to actualize our

potentials

 In life, concrete and specifiable

 Not in ascending order of priority

 Instinctive or biologically rooted in people

 Wholeness  Beauty
 Perfection  Goodness
 Completion  Uniqueness
 Justice  Effortlessness
 Aliveness  Playfulness
 Richness  Truth, Honesty and Reality
 Simplicity  Self-Sufficiency
PEAK EXPERIENCES:
 Moments of INTENSE self-actualization
 People tend to become so totally immersed in
some activity that their sense of time and place is
transcended.
 Maslow observed that people having peak
experiences often believed that something very
significant or valuable occurred.
 Common Characteristics Maslow found among people
who seemed to be functioning at full capacity, doing
the best that they were doing.
 These people represented the “very best” personalities
humankind has to offer.
 Tentative ideas about what it means to be healthy,
fully, functioning human being as seen by a
humanistic personologist.
 Organismic theory - Maslow's holistic-dynamic theory
holds that people are continually motivated by one or
more needs, and that, under the proper circumstances,
they can reach a level of psychological health called
self-actualization.