PSYCH 2B03 Lecture Notes - Abraham Maslow, Belongingness, Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder
18 Mar 2013
School
Department
Course
Professor
Humanists 1 : Abraham Maslow
Humanistic Theories
- Focus on meaning of life for individual
o Only one that does not take a nomathetic approach, take idiographic approach interested in individual only
as he or she is
- Desire to help person achieve understanding, wholeness, meaning
o Not interested in the development, biological basis of personality, but about how the individual is functioning
in the world right now
o Interested in increasing the extent to which the individual is optimally functioning, is psychologically healthy, is
subjectively happy/productive/content, has a meaningful life
o focus on meaning of life of each individual: how do you see yourself in the world, what are your hopes/dreams,
individual meaning
o therapeutically: want individual to achieve understanding of self, self-awareness (critical to self-development)
- Focus on individual’s unique perception of the world
o How you see the world around you
o Each of us is living in a different world, at any given moment, we are paying attention to different
things/different aspects of the environment, and that’s the reality in which we life. Reality is our perceived
environment will differ from person to person
o Need to understand how each sees the world
- Avoid reductionism
o Interested in holistic view don’t agree with cognitive/behavior/psycho approach that we should analyze
down to the details out of which personality is built
o Only way to appreciate person is as a whole- much greater than sum of any of its parts, can never know how
person is like by knowing their traits/impulses
o There’s a holistic integration which we need to understand
o Cake: can’t understand what a cake is like by understanding the ingredients itself it is more than that
o Avoid reducing person to set of components, analyzing the pieces will not let you understand the whole
person
- More idiographic than other approaches
- Optimistic view of people: people are good/positive unless they had been interrupted in their development only
time they’re not positive is if they have been denied opportunity to develop as they should. When natural process is
blocked evil/badness
- The most important human motivation is simply to develop our set of potentials- to be all we can be (become what we
are naturally designed to become)
o In Rogers theory: this is the only motive we have- trying to understand our essential nature
Humanistic Principles
- Maslow + others formed the humanistic association, based on a number of principles
1. “The primary study of psychology should be the experiencing person.”
o it’s about the individual/person (idiographic approach)
o focus/see person in the world as he/she is living what do they experience in world around them
2. “Choice, creativity, and self-realization…are the concerns of the humanistic psychologist.”
o self- realization: knowing who you are, becoming as much as you can be, having the experience of full choices
in life
o ability to make choices, necessity to making choices- need/desire to be creative/make something o one self
3. “Only personally and socially significant problems should be studied..”
o there’s a lot of stuff we want to know, but if it doesn’t impact the way society works, if it doesn’t effect
individuals in their life, it should not be the primary focus of investigation
o should ask questions about how individuals function, how society functions well what conditions leads best
to individual development?
o What situations best allows society for function optimally for all its members?
o Just because we can know something, doesn’t mean we have to know it, unless its socially and personally
significant
4. “The major concern of psychology is the dignity and enhancement of people.”
o Making things better for the individuals, improving lives of people
Abraham Maslow’s Background
- Jewish, not well off family, unhappy childhood: troubled relationship with mother, picked on Wisconsin:
encountered work of behaviourist (Watson: people can be made better if you control their environment), switched into
psychology did work under Harlow (who worked with monkeys and contact comfort with mother)- sexual
dominance in hierarchal monkeys Columbia: sexual dominance/hierarchy in humans- at women, first American
paper ever published on human sexuality Brooklyn college: at this time, lot of prominent intellectuals who have left
Europe and come to North America, many gathered in Columbia, NYC- Maslow met a lot of people, turned him around
- Found that many of the black foot tribe were “well adjusted”, and there were common set of personality in those who
were not adjusted became interested in consistencies in human behaviour
- Optimal human development: how are the well-developed people like continued publishing work on optimal
development, personal development (60s)
- Also interested in optimal work places: factory- digital bowl makers workers were organized into teams where
everyone had creative input into the process Maslow on management (published)- ideas picked up by Japanese,
much ignored by Americans in the beginning
- 120 articles, 6-7 books
“Instinctoid” Motivation
- What motivates human beings? Maslow: our sources of motivation are instinctoid (built in to us)
o All human beings have the same motivational drives
o Human motivation is built in, biological based, but Maslow made the distinction between instincts and
instinctoid (“like instincts”) different from instincts because they are biological given but we can modify
times/ways expressed, modified by culture, experience, learning etc. (more malleable than true instincts)
- Human instinctoid vs. animal instinctive
- not dominating, uncontrollable- unlike animal instincts
- Can be controlled, repressed
o animal instincts are uncontrollable, as soon as stimulus is presented, they engage in it and cannot modify their
built in automatic responses. Human motivations are built in, like an instinct. But unlike the
dominating/uncontrollable, we have conscious control over them, can be modified
- Overlain by learning, cultural expectations, etc.
o Can be modified by experience, cultural expectations
o The things that happen to us, determines the way instincts are elaborate, projected, given in to etc.
- Both Jung and Freud had these theories that basic insticts are modifiable
- Like Jung (less Freud), Maslow argued for a number of instinctoid motivations argued for Heirarchy of needs
(biological psychological based needs, evolutionary ancient evolutionary recent needs, needs that show up early
show up in few years, if at all)
Maslow’s Heirarchy of needs
- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: Maslow's theory rests on the idea that human motivation consists of a hierarchy of needs.
From bottom to top, we move from needs that are evolutionarily old to those that are more recent; from needs
developing early in the individual's life to those developing later; and from needs that are primarily biological or
physiological to those that are primarily psychological.
- What makes it a HEIRARCHY structure
o Organized from biological/physiological needs to psychological needs at the top
Food, water sleep (physiological, basic biological needs) purely psychological (even without them,
your physiology is unaltered, you can function fine)
o In terms of evolutionary age of these need (evolutionary old recent)
Bottom: needs shared by most of the animals/plant kingdom (evolutionary extremely old, back to
first forms of life) – most life needs air, food, oxygen- ancient needs shared by many species
Move up: evolutionary recent needs needs for safety, love (not seen in bacteria, earth worm) –
more limited to mammals. Esteem needs- may be uniquely human
o Age at which these needs appear (developmentally early late)
needs at the bottom appear earlier in life, typically right as you are born (oxygen, food, water, sleep
etc)- fundamental to human life and appear early
move up: needs that don’t develop until a number of years, some may never develop
safety needs; 8-12 months, love: 18-24 months, esteem: 3-4 years
- everything below self actualization are deficiency needs (deficiency motives, de-motives)
o they are things we absolutely need in order to be whole human being, needs that must be met
o physiological, safety, love and belonging needs all are necessary to be complete human being, feel
emptiness if we lack them and feel driven by these needs of which we have not met
o our focus, attention will be on these un-met deficiency needs what we strive for
The Development of Needs (is progressive)
- The progressive development of needs: Each level of needs
emerges only when the needs of the previous level have been
at least partly satisfied. Maslow argued that most of our
behaviors are over-determined, by which he meant that they
are simultaneously motivated by a number of different needs.
- these needs don’t emerge suddenly one after another
gradual process
o if you have a need that’s partly satisfied, then the next
needs will begin to emerge, once these are partly
satisfied, next begin to emerge
o physiological needs met 50% of the time, then 20% of
the safety needs emerge, 5% of love and belonging
needs
o at one time, number of these needs might be present or emerging
- our behavior is over determined
o for any type of behavior, we are trying to meet multiple needs simultaneously
o e.g. go to lunch with friends: meets physiological need (food), structural needs, love and belonging needs,
esteem needs
o try to engage in behavior that simultaneous needs (~Freud’s dream symbols representing 3-4 impulses- Freud
used the term over determination)
Back to hierarchy of needs..
Deficiency hierarchy:
- Physiological needs
o First to emerge, evolutionary oldest
o Biological based: keeping body alive
o Includes: air, oxygen, sleep, some aspects of sex
o Once partly met, next emerges
- Safety needs
o Beyond shelter
o Need for security, predictability, for order and structure in life
o Begins to emerge at a few years of age, remains significant as
drive for as long as we live
o Most people successfully meet both of these set of needs in
N.America
Document Summary
Focus on meaning of life for individual: only one that does not take a nomathetic approach, take idiographic approach interested in individual only as he or she is. Desire to help person achieve understanding, wholeness, meaning: not interested in the development, biological basis of personality, but about how the individual is functioning in the world right now. Reality is our perceived environment will differ from person to person: need to understand how each sees the world. Optimistic view of people: people are good/positive unless they had been interrupted in their development only time they"re not positive is if they have been denied opportunity to develop as they should. The most important human motivation is simply to develop our set of potentials- to be all we can be (become what we are naturally designed to become) In rogers theory: this is the only motive we have- trying to understand our essential nature.
