                   9.  MASLOW'S THEORY OF SELF-ACTUALIZATION.
        
             Self-actualization theory was based upon the work of the
        existential philosophers.  It argued that man possesses the
        capability for a meaningful, viable, potential-filling existence,
        and that he has the properties and the nature to implement a
        meaningful existence, but that he has been prevented from
        engaging and behaving in this meaningful, self-actualizing manner
        by the conditions and environments in which he lives.  He is
        forced to behave in some suboptimal manner in which he is not
        able to fulfill himself (or self-actualize) because of the nature
        of the environmental forces that surround him.  Maslow (1954,
        1968) was the founder of the self-actualization movement in
        America.  
        
             It began when Maslow (1970) revised his original text,
        Motivation and Personality because he believed "the irritating
        fact is that this veritable revolution (a new image of man, of
        society, of nature, of science, of ultimate values, of
        philosophy, etc.) is still almost completely overlooked by much
        of the intellectual community, especially that portion of it that
        controls the channels of communication to the educated public and
        to youth.  For this reason, I have taken to calling it the
        Unnoticed Revolution (p. 10).
        
             Many professional community members, he observed, maintain a
        negative outlook on the future.  They:
             1.   Exhibit a profound despair and cynicism which emanates
                  from a belief that there is corrosive malice and
                  cruelty present in the world and there is not much that
                  can be done about it.  
             2.   Doubt the "realness of honesty, of kindness, of
                  generosity, of affection, and go beyond a reasonable
                  skepticism or a withholding of judgment into an active
                  hostility when confronted by people whom they sneer at
                  as fools, innocents, do-gooders, or Pollyannas (Maslow,
                  1970, p. 2).
        
             Given such a world view, Maslow (1970) believed the only
        solution to end the despair was to accept a holistic concept of
        reality.  His hypothesis was that the holistic way of thinking
        and seeing seemed to come quite naturally to healthier, self-
        actualizing people, and seemed to be extraordinarily difficult
        for less evolved, less mature, less healthy people.  Maslow used
        this approach in clinical, social, and experimental ways.  He
        found that it fit well with the personal experience of most
        people.  A structured theory like his made it possible for people
        to make better sense of their personal lives.  He admitted his
        theories lacked experimental verification and support, but in
        time he believed, his theories would be validated by research.
        
             McGregor (1960) applied this holistic theory of motivation
        to the industrial situation and found that it was useful in
        ordering his data and observations.  From the industrial rather
        than the laboratory setting, empirical support developed for
        Maslow's hierarchy of needs theories.  
        
             According to Maslow (1970) human life can never be fully
        understood unless its highest aspirations are considered. 
        Growth, striving toward good health, the quest for identity and
        autonomy, self-actualizing which results in a yearning for
        excellence in whatever the individual does, need to be accepted
        as the most universal human tendencies (p. 3).  He believed:
             ...that if we become fully aware of these human traits, if
             we can give up the dream of permanent and uninterrupted
             happiness, if we can accept the fact that we will be only
             transiently ecstatic and then inevitably discontented and
             grumbling for more, that then we may be able to teach the
             general population what self-actualizing people do
             automatically, i.e., to be able to count their blessings, to
             be grateful for them, and to avoid the traps of making
             either/or choices (p. 17).
        
             In order for the individual to overcome the lows and highs
        in life, he will need to undertake the delicate task of trying to
        uncover his temperament or personality type so that he can grow
        unhampered in his own individual style.  Though Maslow (1970)
        believed that self-actualizing subjects transcended
        nationalities, class, and caste, he accepted, a priori, that
        affluence and social dignity make them more probable.
        
             A priori plans for a child, ambitions for it, prepared
        roles, even hopes that it will become this or that, all these are
        non-Taoistic according to Maslow (1954).  They represent demands
        upon the child that it become what the parent has already decided
        it should become.  Such a baby is born into an invisible
        straitjacket.  In order to overcome this dilemma, the individual
        needs to seek his own identity, his own needs, and his own level
        of self-actualization.  Maslow assumed:
             The actualization of a person's real potentialities is
             conditioned upon the presence of basic-need satisfying
             parents and other people, upon all factors now called
             "ecological," upon the "health" of the culture, or the lack
             of it, upon the world situation, etc.  Growth toward self-
             actualization and full human-ness is made possible by a
             complex hierarchy of "good preconditions."  These physical,
             chemical, biological, interpersonal, cultural conditions
             matter for the individual finally to extent that they do or
             do not supply him with the basic human necessities and
             "rights" which permit him to become strong enough, and
             person enough, to take over his own fate (p. 24).
        
             In the search for what motivates the individual, methods,
        techniques, and logic often get in the way.  This does not
        minimize the need for some orderly procedures in attempting to
        understand what is clearly in the affective domain of the human
        being.  However, many scholars write big monographs on little
        subjects.  Some call this effort "original research."  What
        matters to them most is that they find facts that were not known
        before, not that the facts are worth knowing.  Their
        justification for their work is that some other specialist might
        sooner or later make use of them.  The specialists, like mound
        builders, write for one another, for mysterious ends (Van Doren,
        1936).  The need to seek new explanations for old behaviors and
        beliefs is necessary for the advancement of the human body of
        knowledge.  Tradition in science and sociology can be a dangerous
        blessing.  Loyalty is an unqualified peril.    
        
             Anshen (1934) believed humans "tend to do things that we
        know how to do, instead of trying to do things that we ought to
        do (p. 446).  Motivation is a part of this "ought" in human life. 
        Humans take few risks because they are unwilling to fail and
        thereby diminish their own self-esteem.  MacLeish (1954)
        maintained "It is the questions that we do not know" that prompt
        research regarding motivation and change.  Hence, we must
        continue to ask, what motivates people?  
        
             Maslow's (1954) theory incorporated sixteen propositions
        that he believed must be considered when making any sound
        explanation of what motivates human beings.  He maintained that
        some of them were so true that they sounded like platitudes. 
        Others he found to be less acceptable and more debatable.
        
             1.   The Individual as an Integrated Whole.
        
             The first proposition stated that "the individual is an
        integrated, organized whole."  In Maslow's framework, this means
        many specific things.  The whole individual is motivated rather
        than just part of him.  There is no such thing as just the need
        of the stomach, or mouth, or a genital need.  There is only the
        need of the individual.  Bert Nemcik wants food, not just Bert
        Nemcik's stomach.  Satisfaction comes to the whole individual and
        not just to part of him.  Food satisfies Bert Nemcik's hunger and
        not his stomach's hunger.  When an individual is hungry, not only
        is his stomach growling, but other areas of him are affected. 
        His perceptions change (he will perceive food more readily than
        he will at other times); his memory changes (he is apt to
        remember a good meal at this time more than at others); his
        emotions change (he is more tense and nervous than at other
        times); the content of his thinking changes (he is more apt to
        thing about getting food than solving math problems).  When Bert
        Nemcik is hungry, he is hungry all over and not just in his
        stomach (p. 20).   
        
             2.   Hunger as Paradigm.
        
             The common assumption is that all drives follow the example
        set by physiological drives.  Most drives cannot be isolated from
        one another.  The typical human desire is a need of the whole
        person.  It is important for the individual to accept the
        interrelatedness of the separate but not unique drives present
        within the self.  The hunger drive which seems so simple when
        compared to the drive for love is actually not so simple in the
        end (Goldstein, 1939).  The motivation researcher faced with the
        choice of dealing with either (1) experimentally simple problems
        that are trivial or invalid, or (2) experimental problems that
        are fearfully difficult but important, the choice needs to be the
        latter (p. 21). 
        
             3.   Means and Ends.
        
             In examining daily living, desires are usually a means to an
        end rather than an end in themselves.  Earning money is necessary
        for an individual who wants to purchase a car.  Money is the
        means to the end.  Studying symptoms is not so important as
        placing them in some overall context.  A deeper analysis into
        what goals or needs are behind what drives the individual leads
        to a greater understanding of what motivates people.  Conscious
        motivational behaviors cannot explain unconscious ones. 
        Psychoanalysis demonstrates that ultimate unconscious aims need
        not be direct at all.  Sound motivation theory must consider the
        unconscious life as well in order to connect the inner and
        external means that produce a desired end (p. 21).    
             
             4.   Desire and Culture.
        
             Anthropological evidence indicates that fundamental desires
        of all human beings do not differ nearly as much as do their
        conscious everyday desires.  Two different cultures may provide
        completely different means to satisfy a particular desire. 
        Maslow (1954) described how self-esteem in one society might be
        fulfilled by becoming a good hunter, while in another, the
        individual would become a great warrior.  The dynamics are the
        same.  Ends are more universal than the roads taken to achieve
        them.  
        
             5.   Multiple Motivations.
        
             Psychopathology research indicates that a conscious desire
        or motivated behavior is allied with another and serves as a
        channel through which other purposes may express themselves.  For
        example, sexual behavior and conscious sexual desires may be
        tremendously different in their underlying, unconscious purposes. 
        The sexual desire may have the same content in individuals, but
        we know this to be inaccurate.  This holds true for both
        preparatory and consummatory sexual behavior.  Maslow (1954)
        emphasized that it is unusual that an act or conscious wish have
        but one motivation (p. 23).  
        
             6.   Motivating States.
        
             Static psychology would be satisfied to analyze what a
        person is feeling, say, depressed, and put a period to this
        assessment.  Dynamic psychology would attempt to imply that many
        things are involved in this feeling of depression.  This feeling
        causes repercussions in all parts of the organism.  There may be
        tension, strain, and unhappiness as a result.  The feeling may
        prompt many behavioral responses.  The feeling of depression is a
        self motivating state.  Maslow (1970) believed motivational
        theory should assume that it is a constant, never ending,
        fluctuating, and complex organismic state of being (p. 24).
        
             7.   Relationships and Motivations.
        
             According to Maslow (1979) human beings are a "wanting
        animal" and rarely reach a state of complete satisfaction except
        for a short period time.  Once one desire is satisfied another
        arises to take its place.  Throughout life, humans are always
        desiring something.  The appearance of the drive or desire and
        the actions that it arouses and the satisfaction that comes from
        attaining the goal, all taken together, give the individual only
        an isolated instance taken out of the total complex of the human
        motivational unit.  Thus, motivation depends on the state of
        satisfaction or dissatisfaction present within the human being. 
        Wanting something else, according to Maslow, implies that there
        is an already existing satisfaction of other wants.  The starving
        artist will not paint much when his stomach is growling.  Many
        motivational theorists pay little attention to the fact that the
        human being is never satisfied except in a one-step-along-the-
        path fashion and wants seem to arrange themselves in some sort of
        hierarchy of need.
        
             8.   List of Drives.
        
             Lists of drives and needs are unsound motivational theory. 
        They imply an equality of the various drives that are listed.
        Secondly, they imply each is isolated from the other.  Thirdly,
        these lists are usually based purely on behavior neglecting
        completely all that is known about the nature of drives.  There
        is no arithmetic progression from one to another.  Rather, they
        arrange themselves in a hierarchy of needs, with the lowest
        progressing toward the highest which is self actualization. 
        There is no mutual exclusiveness between drives, Maslow (1970)
        wrote, but an overlapping which blurs any simple recognition of
        one being different from another.  When referring to
        physiological needs, it is easy to separate instigation from the
        goal object.  But it is not easy to distinguish the drive and
        goal object from the drive when dealing with the desire of love. 
        The drive and the desire, the goal object, seem to be the same
        thing but are distinctly different (p. 26).
        
             9.   Classification of Motivational Life.
        
             Maslow (1970) believed that the only basis on which any
        classification of motivational life can be constructed is that of
        the fundamental goals or needs rather than on any listing of
        drives.  Only the fundamental goals remain constant through all
        the flux that a dynamic approach forces upon psychology
        theorizing.  Motivating behavior is not a sound basis for
        classification because there are too many variables which affect
        such activity.  An individual going through the whole process of
        sexual desire, courting behavior, and consummatory love making
        may actually be seeking self-esteem rather than sexual
        gratification.  Only by a process of logical exclusion are we
        able to isolate goals or needs as the foundation for
        classification in motivation theory (Murray, 1938).   
        
             10.  Motivation and Animal Data.
        
             Researchers have relied largely on animal experimentation in
        developing theories of motivation.  White rats are not human
        beings and therefore, some of the research that theories have
        been based on are not accurate for humans.  As we go up the
        phyletic scale, instincts begin to disappear and appetites become
        more important and hungers less.  As instincts begin to drop
        away, there is more emphasis and dependence on culture as an
        adaptive tool.  In order to use any animal data, we must realize
        that we are much more like primates (monkeys) than white rats
        (Harlow, 1953; Harlow, 1960; Harlow, 1962; Harlow, 1964; Harlow &
        Harlow, 1965; Harlow & Harlow, 1966; Howells & Vine, 1940).
        
             11.  Environment.
        
             Human motivation rarely actualizes itself in behavior except
        in relation to the situation and to other people.  Any theory of
        motivation must take into consideration environment, the
        organism, and the role of cultural determination.  Maslow (1970)
        cautioned the theorizer from going to extremes.  The individual
        partly creates the barrier which impedes him from achieving his
        need, want, or goal.  For instance, the child who struggles to
        attain a certain object of value to him and is restrained by some
        barrier, determines not only that the object is of value, but
        also that the barrier is a barrier.  Psychologically, there is no
        such thing as a barrier; there is only a barrier for a particular
        person who is trying to get something that he wants.  Sound
        motivation theory, according to Maslow, must take into account
        the situation, but must never become pure situational theory. 
        Unless we are willing to give up a search for an understanding of
        the nature of the constancy of the organism in favor of
        understanding the world it lives in, we will not achieve any
        fully functional theory of motivation (p. 29).
        
             12.  Integration.
        
             Motivation theory must take into account that the organism
        behaves ordinarily as an integrated whole and sometimes it does
        not.  The organism seems to be most unified when it is
        successfully facing either a great joy or creative moment, or
        when it is facing a major problem or threat or emergency
        situation.  Due to our lack of ignorance or our ability to
        understand the whole person, we sometimes are incapable of
        deciding which part of the individual is controlling the whole. 
        It is becoming clear now, that such functioning is not
        necessarily to be regarded as evidence of weak, bad, or
        pathological motivations.  Rather, it is to be regarded as
        evidence of one of the most important capacities of the organism:
        the ability to deal with problems in a partial, specific, or
        segmental fashion so that the main capacities of the organism are
        still left free for the more important and more challenging
        problems it will face (Goldstein, 1939).
        
             13.  Non-motivated Behavior.
        
             Not all behaviors or reactions are motivated by some seeking
        for what is lacked or needed.  The phenomenon of maturation, of
        expression, and of growth or self-actualization are all instances
        of exceptions to this rule of universal motivation.  Maier (1939)
        proposed that most neurotic symptoms or trends amount to basic
        need-gratification-bent impulses that have somehow been stymied
        or misdirected or confused with other needs or fixated on the
        wrong means.  They have no goal but to prevent further hurt,
        threat, or frustration.  Maier (1949) believed the difference is
        like that between the fighter who still hopes to win and the one
        who has no hope of winning, but tries only to lose as painfully
        as possible.  Klee (1951) wrote that since giving up and
        hopelessness are definitely of considerable relevance to
        prognosis in therapy, to expectations of learning, even to
        longevity, all these facets of human behavior must be considered
        in any definitive motivation theory.  
        
             14.  Possibility of Attainment.
        
             Dewey (1939) and Thorndike (1940) stressed one important
        aspect of motivation that was completely neglected by most
        psychologists, namely, possibility.  Humans yearn for that which
        might conceivably be attained.  We are much more realistic about
        wishing than the psychoanalysts might allow, absorbed as they are
        with unconscious wishes.  Attention to this factor of possibility
        of attainment is crucial for understanding the differences in
        motivations between various classes within our own population and
        between it and other poorer countries and cultures.
        
             15.  Influence of Reality.
        
             For Freud (1933) an id impulse is a discrete entity having
        no intrinsic relatedness to anything else in the world, not even
        to other id impulses:
             We can come nearer to the id with images, and call it a
             chaos, a cauldron of seething excitement....These instincts
             fill it with energy, but it has no organization and no
             unified will, only an impulsion to obtain satisfaction for
             the instinctual needs, in accordance with the pleasure
             principle.  The law of logic--above all, the law of
             contradiction--do not hold for processes in the id. 
             Contradictory impulses exist side by side without
             neutralizing each other or drawing apart; at most they
             combine in compromise formations under the empowering
             economic pressure towards discharging their energy.  There
             is nothing in the id which can be compared to negation, and
             we are astonished to find it in an exception to the
             philosopher's assertion that space and time are necessary
             formations of our mental acts....Naturally, the id knows no
             values, no good and evil, no morality.  The economic or
             quantitative factor which is so closely bound up with the
             pleasure-principle, dominates all its processes. 
             Instinctual catharsis seeking discharge is all that the id
             contains (pp. 103-105)
        
             Dewey (1940) contended that all impulses, at least in the
        adult, are integrated with and affected by reality.  He
        maintained that there are no id impulses, and if there are, they
        are intrinsically pathological rather than intrinsically healthy. 
        
        
             Maslow (1970) noted the contradiction between the two
        authors and asked, at what point in the life history does the
        infantile fantasy begin to be modified by a perception of
        reality?  Is it the same for all, neurotic and healthy alike? 
        Can the efficiently functioning human being maintain completely
        free of such influence any hidden corner of his impulse life?  Or
        if it does turn out that such impulses do exist in all of us,
        when do they appear, under what conditions, and must they be in
        opposition to reality? (p. 33).
        
             16.  Knowledge of Healthy Motivation.
        
             The motivational life of neurotic sufferers should be
        rejected as a paradigm for healthy motivation.  Any theory of
        motivation that is worthy of attention must begin with the
        highest capacities of the healthiest, strongest human beings as
        well as the defensive maneuvers of crippled spirits (Maslow,
        1970, p. 33).
        
             Maslow's work involved an attempt to answer many of the
        questions raised above in these 16 points.  He wanted to evaluate
        the nature of human motivation from all perspectives.  His
        enquiries set the stage for the development of the first
        inclusive theory which contained holistic concepts that enhanced
        the image of mankind in the context of the human condition of
        life.
