Abraham Maslow Flashcards
other names of the holistic-dynamic theory
humanistic theory, transpersonal theory, the third force in psychology, the fourth force in personality, needs theory, and self-actualization theory
first basic assumption
holistic approach to motivation: the whole person is motivated
second basic assumption
motivation is usually complex: behavior may spring from several separate motives
third basic assumption
people are continually motivated by one need or another: when one need is satisfied, it ordinarily loses its motivational power and is then replaced by another need
fourth basic assumption
all people everywhere are motivated by the same basic needs: the manner this is pursued varies widely across cultures
final basic assumption
needs can be arranged on hierarchy
hierarchy of needs
lower level needs must be satisfied or at least relatively satisfied before higher-level needs become motivators
conative needs
have a striving or motivational character
prepotency
lower level needs to be satisfied before higher level needs become activated
physiological needs
- includes food, water, oxygen, maintenance of body temp., and so on
- they are the only needs that can be completely satisfied or even overly satisfied
- they have a recurring nature
safety needs
- physical security, stability, dependency, protection, and freedom from threatening forces
- children are more often motivated by this because they live with such threats
- adults feel relatively unsafe because they retain irrational fears from childhood
- basic anxiety: spend more energy than healthy people trying to satisfy safety needs
love and belongingness needs
- desire for friendship; the wish for family, the need to belong in a family, club, a neighborhood
categories of people under love and belongingness needs
- people who have these needs satisfied from early years do not panic when denied love; they have confidence that they are accepted by those who are important to them
- people who have never experienced this need, and, therefore, are incapable of giving love; they learn to devalue love and to take its absence for granted
- people who have received these needs only in small doses; have stronger need and motivation for it
esteem needs
- include self-respect, confidence, competence, and the knowledge that others hold them in high esteem
- desire for strength, for achievement, for adequacy, for mastery and competence
- based on real competence and not merely on others’ opinions
reputation vs. self-esteem
- reputation: the perception of the prestige, recognition, or fame a person has achieved in the eyes of others
- self-esteem: is a person’s own feelings of worth and confidence
self-actualization needs
- people who highly respect such values, and other B-values become self-actualization after their esteem needs are met, whereas people who do not embrace these values are frustrated
*include self-fulfillment, the realization of all one’s potential, and a desire to become creative in the full sense of the world
- become independent from the lower-level needs
aesthetic needs
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
- when blocked, all needs on maslow’s hierarchy are threatened; knowledge is necessary to satisfy each of the five conative needs
neurotic needs
- leads to stagnation and pathology
- non-productive and perpetuates an unhealthy style of life and has no value in the striving for self-actualization
- is reactive: serves as compensation for unsatisfied basic needs
reversed order of needs
hierarchal order of needs are occasionally reversed
unmotivated behavior
some behaviors are unmotivated and are caused by conditioned reflexes, maturation, or drugs
expressive behavior
- is often an end in itself and serves no other purpose than to be
- unconscious and has no goals or aim but is merely the person’s mode of expression
- determined by forces within the person
coping behavior
- is ordinarily conscious, effortful, learned, and determined by the external environment
- individual’s attempts to cope with the environment
- serves some aim or goal and is always motivated by some deficit need
deprivation of needs
- lack of satisfaction with any of the basic needs leads to some pathology
- deprivation of self-actualization needs also leads to pathology or metapathology: absence of values, the lack of fulfillment, and the loss of meaning in life
instinctoid nature of needs
- hypothesizes that some human needs are innately determined even though they can be modified by learning
- one criterion for separating instinctoid needs from noninstinctoid needs is the level of pathology upon frustration
comparison of higher and lower needs
- higher needs are similar to lower ones in that they are instinctoid
- maslow insisted that love, esteem, and self-actualization are just as biological as thirst, sex, and hunger
- higher level needs are later on the phylogenetic or evolutionary scale
- higher level needs produce more happiness and more peak experiences
criteria for self-actualization
- they were free from psychopathology
- self-actualizing people had progressed through the hierarchy of needs
- embracing of the B-values
- “full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, potentialities, etc.
- fulfilled their needs to grow, to develop, and increasingly become what they were capable of becoming
B-values
- self-actualizing people are motivated by the “eternal verities”
- “Being” values are indicators of psychological health
- maslow termed b-values “metaneeds” to indicate that they are the ultimate level of needs
metamotivation
distinguished between ordinary need motivation and the motives of self-actualizing people
B-love
- self-actualizing people are capable of this, that is, love for the essence or “Being”
- mutually felt and shared and not motivated by a deficiency or incompleteness within the lover
jonah complex
the fear of being one’s best
