Abstract
Abraham Maslow was a Jewish American born to illiterate Russian immigrants on the 1st of April the year 1908. Maslow had a difficult childhood and thus spent most of his free time seeking consolations in books. His obsession with books was motivated by the fact that Maslow’s Jewish parents were not educated and therefore constantly pushed their children to perform academically.
Maslow formulated the dynamic holistic theory of behavioral psychology. The theory had five basic human needs that were arranged in hierarchical order from the lower to the higher needs of human beings which include physiological, safety, belonging, self-esteem and self-actualization needs. Physiological needs include the basic human necessities to which the body reacts adversely if it denied. Safety needs are psychological in nature and differ from individual to individual and with status in the society. Belonging needs relate to the human urge for love and acceptance whilst self-esteem refers to the feeling one has in relation to their accomplishments and societal perceptions. Finally, self-actualization refers to the discovery of one’s purpose in life.
This thesis is a summary of Maslow’s biography as well as a brief overview of his dynamic holistic theory of behavioral psychology. The scope of the thesis shall also include a critical overview of some of the weaknesses of Maslow’s theory.
Introduction
Abraham Maslow is an American psychologist who was in Brooklyn New York in the year 1908. He was the first born of Jewish immigrants from Russia. Due to the fact that Maslow’s parents were to a large extent uneducated, they therefore pushed their children to succeed and thus Maslow had a very lonely childhood. To deal with his loneliness, Maslow decided to dedicate most of his time to his best friends; books. Maslow first ventured into law before he later developed interest in psychology. In fact, his first college was the City College of New York (CCNY). He enrolled at the CCNY to study but after only three semesters he transferred to Cornel then back to CCNY again. Maslow’s interest in psychology developed when he and his family moved to Wisconsin so that Maslow can study in the local university. It is reported that as a result of his interest in psychology, Maslow’s school work improved tremendously and as result he obtained his BA, MA and PHD in the years 1930, 1931 and 1934 respectively under the mentorship of now renowned psychologist Harry Harlow.
Maslow is renowned world-wide for dedicating a better part of his academic life to study the various motivators of human beings. To this effect, his research spans several aspects of human lives ranging from needs to their sexuality. It is important to mention that his initial research was conducted amongst the monkeys that according to most scientific are genetically similar to human beings. The scope of this thesis shall however be limited to Maslow’s personality and his Holistic Dynamic theory of human needs. As a result of his studies, Maslow came up with now what is commonly known as the hierarchy of needs in human lives not only at the workplace but also in social circles. Basically, the holistic dynamic theory advanced the notion “that the whole person is continually being motivated by one need or another and that people have the potential to grow toward psychological health, that is, self actualization.” Thus, to attain self actualization, individuals must be in a position to meet the lower hierarchy needs such as hunger, safety, love, and esteem.
Abraham Maslow the Psychologist
As earlier mentioned, Abraham Maslow was a Jewish American born to illiterate Russian immigrants on the 1st of April the year 1908. Maslow was the first child of in the family of eight. Maslow had a very lonely childhood life. This is attributed to the fact that his parents being illiterate pushed Maslow and his siblings to do all they can to achieve academic success. In addition to this, Maslow was diagnosed at birth as being mentally unstable and thus the reason why he spent the rest of his childhood from his peers. Difficulties in Maslow’s childhood were further exuberated by the fact that his parents were immigrants and to this effect he was subject to racial, ethnic and anti-Semitic prejudices not only from his teachers but also from his fellow students. Therefore, a better part of Maslow’s childhood was spent either reading books or helping out his father in their small family shop. Maslow worked as both a delivery and a kitchen aide for his father’s business. During this period of his life, Maslow found ample time to develop numerous ideologies about how he was to use science to change the inequalities in the world
Little is known about Maslow’s elementary life. His first interest in college was in law. This was mainly motivated by the fact that Maslow wanted to please his parents and therefore went ahead to join the CCNY. After studying for only three semesters, Maslow transferred to Cornel University. However, his stint at Cornel was short-lived and thus he returned to CCNY where he married his first cousin Bertha Goodman. Maslow married his cousin without the blessing of his parents and the two went ahead to have two daughters. After his marriage, Maslow relocated his family to Wisconsin where he was to further his scholastic ambitions.
It was at the University of Wisconsin where Maslow developed his interest in psychology. This was after the birth of his two daughters. Maslow’s interest in psychology came as God-sent because consequently the academic aspect of his life improved exponentially. He started performing exceptionally well and to this effect acquired his BA, MA and PHD in the field in the years 1930, 1931 and 1934 respectively. Most of his time at Wisconsin university was spent with Harry Harlow, his mentor. They dedicated most of their time to the study of the behavioral patterns of baby rhesus monkeys and therefore Maslow and Harlow established themselves as behavioral psychologists. After graduation, Maslow spent a year in Wisconsin and then relocated back to New York. He went straight to Columbia. At Columbia, Maslow and Thorndike began research on human sexuality. This is was because Maslow believed that the easiest way to help the human race was to unravel the secrets hidden in their sexuality
During the same period, Maslow started teaching on a full-time basis at the Brooklyn College. His tenure at Brooklyn College was motivated by the fact that Maslow genuinely cared about the wellbeing of his students. In fact, he was amongst the few professors attached to the college that were in the profession to be of assistance to their students. To understand the reasons behind Maslow’s stint at the university, it must be mentioned that the Brooklyn College’s student population comprised of immigrant children who were more often than not discriminated against by the American society in those days. Given the rough time, Maslow had during his tenure in school; he decided to make the going easier for his students.
The decision to take a tutoring job at Brooklyn College worked to benefit Maslow in the essence that his career flourished during his tenure at the institution. First and foremost, it was during his tenure at the college that he decided to shift his research from being based on monkeys to being based on human beings. In addition to this, Maslow had to meet the renowned behavioral psychologists of his day and they include Adler, Erich Fromm, Kurt Goldstein, Karen Homey, and Max Wertheimer. He went further to develop both personal and professional relations with the aforementioned behavioral psychologists.
Holistic Dynamic Theory
The Holistic Dynamic Theory advances the idea that at any given time, some of the needs of a human being are of a greater priority than others. The theory was the culmination of the work of observational studies that Abraham Maslow had undertaken. After observing monkeys for a while, Maslow realized that some needs are given priority over others. For instance, if an individual is hungry and thirsty, thirst takes precedence over hunger. Based on these observations, Abraham Maslow came up with the hierarchy of needs which categorized human needs in the ascending order as follows: physiological needs, safety needs, belonging needs, esteem needs and self-actualization. He organized these needs in the form of a pyramid with physiological needs at the base of the pyramid.
The physiological needs include: water, oxygen, calcium, salt, vitamins and other minerals. These are the most basic of all human needs and are to large extent related to the different desires that various individuals have in life. Henceforth, these are the needs the human body needs for sustenance and survival. To this effect if the human body is deprived of these needs it will react in a specific manner that is universal in all people. For instance the reaction of the human body to thirst is the same of all human beings regardless of their age, ethnicity or social status. The physiological needs are part and parcel of human life for as long as an individual is alive. The physiological needs may kick in at different times thus once they have been met, the individual can move on and begin to address more complex needs.
The need to feel safe and secure has to be met throughout an individual’s life. The safety needs differ from one person depending on their status in life ranging from age to social status. For instance, for a child, safety and security needs are met through the provision of a warm and loving family environment. If the home is destabilized for some reason, then the child begins to feel insecure or unsafe. For an adult, safety needs take a different meaning. For example, if an adult has a job, he or she is likely to feel more secure than one who does not have a job. Fear poses a threat to advancement to more advanced needs in Maslow’s pyramid. Thus unlike physiological needs, safety needs are to a large extent psychological.
After safety needs, the next level of Maslow’s pyramid is the belonging needs. Once the physiological and safety needs have been met, the individual may feel the need to belong to belong to a particular social level. He or she may desire to have a romantic partner, get married and have children. The need to belong is made manifest depending on the stage of development of an individual. A young child will seek to connect with the parents through indulging in behavior that elicits their approval or asking a lot of questions. An adolescent will seek to belong to a particular social group therefor whatever is deemed as acceptable by the group is what the adolescent will indulge in. As the youth advance in age, they tend to associate with those who are likely to accept them. The need to belong has a profound effect on the self-esteem of an individual. If an individual is not accepted by a given social group, he or she is likely to become anxious. The anxiety affects other relationships that the individual has.
Self-esteem is the need that needs to be met after physiological, safety and the belonging needs have been met. According to Maslow, self- esteem begins to develop from as early as the age of two. The hierarchy of needs addresses two forms of self-esteem: low and high level. The higher form of self-esteem is self-respect which one earns through their accomplishment. Once an individual’s masters a given task, he or she is confident in their abilities and competence therefore others are likely to follow pursuit. According to Maslow, most people have psychological issues as a result of low self-esteem. He goes to explain that if an individual does not like himself that much or his accomplishment, there is room for negative self-talk to be birthed in the individual. As a result of the negative attitude, psychological problems may rise.
The last level of Maslow’s hierarchy needs is self-actualization. Maslow used several terms to refer to these needs including being needs (B-needs) or growth motivation needs. To this effect, Maslow defines self-actualization as “the single component of being within the hierarchy model. Being, in this sense, means not being a part of the deficit needs as they appear within the lower chain of the hierarchy.” This implies that self-actualization needs can only be attained after all the other needs have been met. Therefore self-actualizers refer to those aspects of life that really matter to individuals. More than ever, self-actualization plays the purpose of defining who the individual is and unlike other previous needs have nothing to do with pleasing others. This is the case because self-actualization has more to do with giving back to the society, spirituality and fulfillment.
Basically self- actualization can be summed up as the process of acquiring self-respect which involves establishing and upholding standards of ethics and morality. To this effect, this is the only level of human motivation whereby deficit does not result to need. In fact, deficit and need are separated from one another in the essence that an individual has reached a stage in life where as they focus on bettering their lives, they accept all that they discover about their characters whether good or evil. If an individual successfully goes through the self-actualization process, they gain self-respect and no one can ever take this gained respect of self away from them. This asserts the fact that the journey of self-actualization leads to self-acceptance regardless of external needs or factors. Implying that self-actualization leads to one discovering their full potential. Self-actualization involves “a yearning to explore and to actualize our individual talents and gifts, to be expressive, creative, dynamic selves with the freedom to master our fate or perhaps to experience that overwhelming and mystical sense of being in perfect harmony and at one with the universe.”
Critique of the Dynamic Holistic Theory
The biggest weakness of Maslow’s dynamic holistic theory is the methodology used in reaching the conclusions. This is the case because of the small numbers of people that Maslow hand-picked, interviewed and decided based in his own indicators that they were the standard of self-actualized individuals. Most of the people who Maslow thought were self-actualized were former presidents, dignitaries, discoverers, and great inventors. This type of research is completely devoid of scientific methodologies. Based on this premise, it must be mentioned that Maslow himself was man enough to mention that his discoveries were not a work of perfection. In fact, he asserted that he was only leading the way and therefor it was up to his successors to refine and better on his theories including the methodologies of conducting research. In addition, Maslow is widely renowned as the American father of humanism. As a result, during the course of his research, Maslow detested the role science played in behavioral psychology.
It is also clear that Maslow went through a lot of trouble to restrict the activities one is supposed to engage in to achieve self-actualization. In fact the whole concept of self-actualization sparks a lot of controversy as far as Maslow’s Dynamic holistic theory is concerned. This is because; according to Maslow only two percent of the human population is in a position to achieve the self-actualization status. Other behavioral psychologists are of the contrary opinion; in fact Kurt Goldstein and Carl Rogers assert that it is the biological destiny of every creature in the universe to attain self-actualization. Another area of contention is the fact that Maslow asserts that the young individuals are the least likely to acquire self-actualization while Rogers is of the opinion that children are better placed to attain self-actualization compared to adults.
Maslow also strictly adheres to the fact that human needs are to the hierarchical structure of human needs. Implying that the lower needs of the pyramid such physiological needs must be met before the higher more complex needs are met. Thus, self-actualization cannot be achieved before security or self-esteem needs are met. However in the present world, numerous examples exist of people who have attained levels of self-actualization at every hierarchical level of their needs. For instance most artist have attained higher levels of self-actualization despite their poor upbringing, depressive tendencies absentee parenting amongst other factors. In addition, there also numerous people in history who lost their creativity after meeting all their lower level needs.
Finally, Maslow made it known that his hierarchical ranking of human needs can best be termed as being the psychological growth experienced in most individuals. This notion is contentious given that whenever any aspect of human development is concerned, regression is the norm. An individual can choose to value certain needs that do necessarily reflect their psychological growth. Therefore the sequential nature of Maslow’s Dynamic Holistic theory does not necessarily translate to any period or stage of human development whether physical, social, or economic. It must also be mentioned that an individual’s fixation over certain needs is based on their cultural leanings. To this effect some culture in the world prefers belonging to safety and the list continues.
Conclusions
Maslow was the pioneer of behavioral psychology. Despite the fact that he had a difficult childhood, Maslow turned it around to come up with the dynamic holistic theory that has been applied in several fields of life several decades after his death. To sum it up, his theory comprised of five key human needs; physiological, safety, self-esteem, belonging and self-actualization needs.
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