4 - Maslow

Question 1

What are some key features of humanistic theories?

Answer 1

• focus on meaning of life for individual
• desire to help person achieve understanding, wholeness, meaning (integration)
• focus on individual’s unique perception of the world (construal)
• avoid reductionism
  (don’t believe you can understand a person through parts)
• more idiographic than other approaches

Question 2

What are the humanistic principles?

Answer 2

• the primary study of psychology should be the experiencing person (phenomenology - conscious experience - of a person)
• choice, creativity, and self-realization
• only personally and socially significant problems should be studied (not because we don’t have the answers)
• dignity and enhancement of people

Question 3

What is Maslow’s instinctoid motivation?

Answer 3

• “instinctoid” = instinct-like
• animal instincts = uncontrollable patterns of behaviour
• human instincts = not dominating or uncontrollable
• human instincts develop organically, but are not dominating, can be controlled/repressed
  can be modified and changed through cultural expectations and learning

Question 4

What are the three different ways that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are organized?

Answer 4

• biological → psychological = bottom of the pyramid are the foundational needs you need to survive
• phylogenetically old → recent = time in human evolution when needs emerged, we share the upper needs with fewer organisms
• early → late (autogentical development) = development period in our own lives

Question 5

How do needs develop?

Answer 5

• needs emerge incrementally
• when a lower level is only partially met, the other needs won’t appear
• when it starts to be met (around 50% met), then the next one will start to emerge, and so on

Question 6

What does having overdetermined needs mean?

Answer 6

• our behaviours are simultaneously motivated by a number of different needs

Question 7

What are the levels in the hierarchy of needs?

Answer 7

• physiological
• safety
• love and belongingness
• esteem
• self-actualization

Question 8

What are physiological needs?

Answer 8

food, water, oxygen, etc.

Question 9

What are safety needs?

Answer 9

• structure, order, predictability, security
• we get uncomfortable with ambiguity
• eg. free from attack, safe from natural disasters, etc.

Question 10

What are belongingness needs?

Answer 10

• strong instinctoid to be part of a human grouping
• need to feel that we belong
• as we get older, our identification become broader

Question 11

What are love needs?

Answer 11

• need to be loved by others
• need to give love (just as strong and important as receiving love)
• failure to meet this need is the most important source of human pathology, unhappiness

Question 12

What are esteem needs?

Answer 12

• recognition and respect from others

- recognition and respect from ourselves (self-esteem), feeling good about ourselves

Question 13

What are self-actualization needs?

Answer 13

• part of a higher hierarchy
• for most, this is what guides us through our lives (ongoing actualization)
• only 1 - 5% achieve full self-actualization
• if/when self-actualization appears, it brings about a psychological change in how we see and interact with the world
• intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism

Question 14

What are the additional needs?

Answer 14

• cognitive needs
• aesthetic needs
• both are continuously present from a very early age

Question 15

What are cognitive needs?

Answer 15

• to know, to understand, explore, curiosity
• doesn’t develop at any particular time
• can be a powerful motive for some people
• behaviour can still be over-determined

Question 16

What are aesthetic needs?

Answer 16

• beauty, artistic creativity, balance, symmetry

- some are made physically ill by ugliness

Question 17

What are the exceptions to the hierarchy?

Answer 17

• esteem comes before love and belongingness = don’t care if accepted by others, but want to be respected or feared
• long satisfied need may be undervalued =
  when a need is taken away from someone who’s always had their needs met, the pyramid doesn’t collapse; you can go without them for a period of time
• creativity may overwhelm all other drives
• satisfaction of constant lack = higher drives never occur in situations where the lower needs have never been satisfied

Question 18

What are D-motives?

Answer 18

• the bottom part of the pyramid are motives driven by needs (deficiency motives = D-motives)
• two characteristics while engaging in D-perception/D-cognition
• energetic = individual is active and doing
• narrow focus = focus on relevant actions

Question 19

What are B-motives?

Answer 19

• self-actualization is guided by being motives = B-motives (growth-motivated)
• values and desires
• “second naivete”, wise innocence, child-like
• two characteristics while engaging in B-perception/B-cognition
• passive = not striving for things, taking life as it comes, openness
• lack of focus = open to many experiences, taking in what’s around you (mindfulness)

Question 20

What are B-values?

Answer 20

• dichotomy transcendence = realizing that things aren’t black and white
• aliveness
• simplicity = recognizing that it isn’t important, not necessarily about throwing it away
• richness = seeing a lot in a little
• effortlessness = state of mind, doing something effortlessly (not about inactivity)
• playfulness = sense of humour, see the fun in things
• self-sufficiency = best love occurs when having them in your life enriches it
• meaningfulness = purpose, meaning, value (found in helping others)

Question 21

What is Maslow’s eightfold way?

Answer 21

• eight process that help us toward (or prepare us for) self-actualization
• borrowed from Buddhism

Question 22

What are the elements of Maslow’s eightfold way?

Answer 22

• self-awareness = need to know who you are
• self-development = using all of our skills to accomplish our goals,
• growth choices = not taking the safe choice
• trusting judgement = you are the only person who knows what is right for you
• peak experiences = brief intense period of B-cognition, sense of wonder and awe
• honesty = take responsibility for your choices and its consequences
• concentration = ability to get lost in something
• no ego defenses = being aware and open to information about yourself

Question 23

Who are Maslow’s probable self-actualizers?

Answer 23

• Jane Addams
• Albert Einstein
• Aldous Huxley
• Thomas Jefferson
• William James
• Albert Schweitzer
• Baruch Spinoza

Question 24

What are the characteristics of Maslow’s self-actualized individual?

Answer 24

• perceives reality fully, accurately
• accepts self and others
• identifies with humanity
• spontaneous and natural (authentic)
• freshness of appreciation
• detached, needs privacy (guided by a sense within themselves)
• few deep relationships
• independent of environment
• resists enculturation
• periodic peak experiences
• accepts democratic values (dignity of every human)
• strong sense of personal ethics
• well-developed sense of humour
• is creative
• problem rather than self-oriented

Question 25

What are the barriers to self-actualization?

Answer 25

• inability to meet lower needs
• lack/fear of self-knowledge
• social/cultural norms
• failure to make growth choices
• absence of proper environment (freedom of speech and action, freedom of inquiry, proper level of challenge or stimulation)

Question 26

What are the criticisms of Maslow’s theory?

Answer 26

• non-scientific methodology
• personal criteria for self-actualization
• ambiguous, unclear terminology
• creativity when needs not met = under the worst possible circumstances, some still self-actualize
• little attention to development