ABRAHAM MASLOW: HOLISTIC DYNAMIC THEORY

Abraham harold Maslow

 An above average student, yet he did not perform well. He said that flunking his grades is somewhat normal
for him.
 Motivation played a role in human behavior
 He was influenced by Fromm, Horney, Goldstein, Adler, Harlow, Fetchner
 He accepted the tenets of psychoanalysis and behaviorism
 His relationship with his mother is not good. He saw his mom as a religious woman. As a young boy,
whenever he did something wrong, he would always be threatened that he would be punished by God.
 As a young boy he decided to test his Mother’s strength by intentionally misbehaving.
 He fell in love with a girl but the relationship he had with the girl is not permitted. There is a resistance from
Maslow’s family because the girl is his first cousin Bertha. Maslow tried to fight against his feelings for
Bertha but there is one event where Maslow was teased to kiss Bertha and Bertha did not resist. From
there, Maslow became aware that the feelings were mutual.
 Maslow kissing his cousin Bertha has changed him in the next days of his life. He had a motivation and
performed well in school.

Holistic Dynamic Theory

 It proposes that the whole person is constantly being motivated by one need or another.
 We all have the behavioral potentia, but not everyone will move or do specific actions. There must be a
striving and pulling force.

Maslow’s View of Motivation:

1. Holistic approach to motivation
 The whole person, not any single part or function is motivated.
 Ex: When you’re hungry, it is not only your tummy that is motivated but the entirety of you focus on
satisfying that specific need.
2. Motivation is usually complex
 A person’s behavior may be motivated by separate/several motives.
 Ex: Being friends with someone because of a shallow reason e.g. they are good looking but after a
while, you became friends with this person because of a much deeper level e.g they are not toxic
and a good influence.
 The motive of a person is not simply the need for affection, physiological need, etc.
 The motives behind actions could change and it could be separated.
3. People are continually motivated by one need or another.
 As one need is being satisfied, another need will motivates you to do things
 Ex: Gutom ka ngayon, then uhaw ka later, then antok ka naman.
 Needs are never ending
4. All people everywhere have the same sets of needs.
 We all have the same set of needs, but the manner in which we satisfy this need and the manner in
which people in different cultures build shelters, express friendship, obtain resources is VARIED.
 But the fundamental need for safety, food, companionship is COMMON to the entire species.
5. Needs are hierarchical.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
 Hierarchy of Needs or Conative needs = they have a striving or motivational character. It makes you move
 There is an ascending step representing a higher need but one less basic to survival. As it reaches the
higher ladder/step, its less basic to survival
 The lower level needs have prepotency over the higher level needs, meaning the lower needs must be
satisfied before we proceed to a higher level.
 Deficiency Needs (Basic)
 Physiological
 Safety
 Growth Needs (Meta)
 Love/Belonging
 Esteem
 Self-Actualization
 This needs motivates us but on a specific level. Ex: Pinag-compete ang group of mahihirap and mayayaman
and ang prize is bigas. Hindi mamomotivate yung mga mayayaman but the poor people will.

Self-Actualization
 It is the process by which an individual reaches his/her whole potential. Fulfillment of your best
version.
 To be able to reach this level, you need to satisfy the preceding needs
 Self-Actualization aka Self-Fulfillment Needs
 Motivation increases as needs are met in the higher level.
Reversed Order of Needs
 According to Maslow, even though the needs are generally satisfied in the hierarchical order,
occasionally they are reversed.
 There are times where you don't need to oversatisfy the lower needs. But we still need to satisfy
them to activate the higher needs.

Two Types of Behavior: Expressive and Coping Behavior

1. Expressive Behavior
 Is an end in itself and serves no other purpose than to be.
 Some behavior are not maintained by needs, but caused by other factors such as
conditioned reflexes, maturation, or drugs, it has no aims.
 Ex: Slouching, looking stupid, being relaxed, expressing anger or joy.
 This behavior is unmotivated.
2. Coping Behavior
 Is ordinarily conscious, effortful, learned, and determined by environment.
 It has some purpose or goal. Usually conscious but can be unconscious.
 Always motivated by a deficit need.
 Actions we do satisfy what we are feeling

3 Other Categories of Needs

1. Aesthetic Needs
  The need for beauty and aesthetically pleasing experience. Some people are inclined to
make/arrange things pretty.
 Unlike conative needs,this need is not universal
2. Cognitive Needs
 The desire to know, solve mysteries, understand, and to be curious.
 If this need is blocked, all needs on Maslow’s hierarchy are threatened because
knowledge is necessary to satisfy each of the five conative needs.
3. Neurotic Needs
 A non-productive need that leads to pathology and stagnation.
 This need is usually reactive, meaning this serves as a compensation for unsatisfied
basic needs.
 Ex: when a person is not able to satisfy the safety needs, there is a strong desire to
hoard money and property or to hurt other people. This neurotic drive could lead to
pathology.

 Why do some people step over the threshold from esteem to self-actualization and others do not?
It is a matter of whether or not they embrace the B-values:
1. Truth
2. Goodness
3. Beauty
4. Wholeness
5. Spontaneity
6. Uniqueness
7. Perfection
8. Completion
9. Justice and Order
10. Simplicity
11. Richness and Totality
12 Effortlessness
13 Playfulness or Humor
14 Self-sufficiency

Instinctoid Nature of Needs

 Produces pathology
 Instinctoid = there are needs that when not met could lead to pathology

Non Instinctoid Nature of Needs

 Set of needs that did not get satisfied could also leads to normal frustration only

When your needs aren’t satisfied, you are deprived.

Deprivation Needs:
1. Physiological Needs
 Malnutrition, fatigue, loss of energy, etc.
 Worst case scenario is death
2. Safety Needs
 Fear, insecurity, dread, etc.
3. Love and Belongingness
 Introversion, isolation, socially timid, etc.
4. Esteem Needs
 Self doubt, self depreciation, lack of confidence, etc.
5. Self-Actualization
 Absence of value, lack of fulfillment, loss of meaning of life, etc (Metapathology).
Criteria for Self-Actualization:
 Free from psychopathology — they were neither neurotic or psychotic nor did they have the
potential to experience such pathology or disturbances.
 Had progressed through the hierarchy of needs — they were able to satisfy the needs listed on
the conative needs.
 Embracing the B-values
 Full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, and potentialities — individuals fulfilled their need
to grow, develop, and increasingly become what they were capable of becoming.

Love, Sex, and Self-Actualization

 Before a person can self-actualize they must satisfy their love and belongingness needs.
 Self-actualizing people are capable of B love
 Love for the essence of “Being” the other
 B love is mutually felt and shared and not motivated by deficiency or incompleteness within the
lover
 Self-actualizing people do not love because they expect something in return, they simply
love and are loved.
 Deficiency love or D Love (selfish,self-fulfilling love) is motivated by the need to not feel
alone
 Because self-actualizers are capable of a deeper level of love, Maslow believes that sex between
two B-lovers often becomes a kind of mystical experience.

Maslow’s Psychology and Philosophy of Science

 Maslow argued for a different philosophy of science, a humanistic, holistic approach that is not
value free and that has scientists who care about people and topics they investigate should be
like astronomers—because they do not only study the stars but they are also in awe of it.
 Psychologists must possess a taoistic attitude where each one is willing to resacralize science
or to instill it with human values, emotion, and ritual.

The Jonah Complex

 Why can’t we all grow towards self-actualization?
 The fear of being or doing one’s best.
 We have delaying tactics to not do our best. Why is it like this?
 The human body is simply not strong enough to endure the ecstasy of fulfillment for a
longer time. The intense emotions that accompany perfection and fulfillment carries with
it a sensation that is shattering—the feelings “I can't stand it, it's too much”. As a defense
against this grandiosity or simple pride, we lower our performances and aspirations, we
settle for something less.
 Since our body has limitations, we would run away from the realization of powerful
potentials.

Psychotherapy
 To Maslow, the aim of therapy would be for clients to embrace the BEING values, that is, to value
truth, justice, goodness, simplicity, and so forth.
 Most people who seek psychotherapy probably do so because they have not adequately satisfied
their love and belongingness needs. This suggests that much of therapy should involve a
productive human relationship.

What do critiques say about Maslow:

Evaluation
  Research Generation = AVERAGE
 Falsifiability = LOW
 Organization and Explanation of Data = VERY HIGH
 Guidance for Practitioners: HIGH
 Internal Consistency = HIGH
 Parsimony = LOW

Concept of Humanity:
 FREEWILL
 OPTIMISM
 TELEOLOGY
 CONSCIOUS
 BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL
 UNIQUENESS AND SIMILARITIES

“Good psychology should include all the methodological techniques, without having loyalty to one
method, one idea, or one person”
 Abraham Maslow