266 Part III Humanistic/Existential Theories
section titled Self-Actualization). People who highly respect such values as truth,
beauty, justice, and the other B-values become self-actualizing after their esteem needs
are met, whereas people who do not embrace these values are frustrated in their self-
actualization needs even though they have satisfied each of their other basic needs.
Self-actualization needs include self-fulfillment, the realization of all one’s
potential, and a desire to become creative in the full sense of the word (Maslow,
1970). People who have reached the level of self-actualization become fully human,
satisfying needs that others merely glimpse or never view at all. They are natural
in the same sense that animals and infants are natural; that is, they express their
basic human needs and do not allow them to be suppressed by culture.
Self-actualizing people maintain their feelings of self-esteem even when
scorned, rejected, and dismissed by other people. In other words, self-actualizers
are not dependent on the satisfaction of either love or esteem needs; they become
independent from the lower level needs that gave them birth. (We present a more
complete sketch of self-actualizing people in the section titled Self-Actualization.)
In addition to these five conative needs, Maslow identified three other cat-
egories of needs—aesthetic, cognitive, and neurotic. The satisfaction of aesthetic
and cognitive needs is consistent with psychological health, whereas the depriva-
tion of these two needs results in pathology. Neurotic needs, however, lead to
pathology whether or not they are satisfied.Aesthetic Needs
Unlike conative needs, aesthetic needs are not universal, but at least some people
in every culture seem to be motivated by the need for beauty and aesthetically
pleasing experiences (Maslow, 1967). From the days of the cave dwellers down to
the present time, some people have produced art for art’s sake.
People with strong aesthetic needs desire beautiful and orderly surroundings,
and when these needs are not met, they become sick in the same way that they become
sick when their conative needs are frustrated. People prefer beauty to ugliness, and
they may even become physically and spiritually ill when forced to live in squalid,
disorderly environments (Maslow, 1970).Cognitive Needs
Most people have a desire to know, to solve mysteries, to understand, and to be
curious. Maslow (1970) called these desires cognitive needs. When cognitive
needs are blocked, all needs on Maslow’s hierarchy are threatened; that is, knowl-
edge is necessary to satisfy each of the five conative needs. People can gratify
their physiological needs by knowing how to secure food, safety needs by knowing
how to build a shelter, love needs by knowing how to relate to people, esteem
needs by knowing how to acquire some level of self-confidence, and self-actualization
by fully using their cognitive potential.
Maslow (1968b, 1970) believed that healthy people desire to know more, to
theorize, to test hypotheses, to uncover mysteries, or to find out how something
works just for the satisfaction of knowing. However, people who have not satisfied
their cognitive needs, who have been consistently lied to, have had their curiosity