286 Part III Humanistic/Existential Theories
study awe was induced by having participants read a story of going up the Eiffel
Tower and then seeing Paris from hundreds of feet above ground. Each of these
procedures resulted in significant increases in participants’ experience of awe.
As predicted, people who experienced awe expanded their sense of having
time, increased their willingness to donate their time (but had no effect on their
willingness to donate money) for pro-social causes. Finally, the experience of awe
increases (at least temporarily) one’s overall satisfaction with one’s life.
These studies demonstrate the importance of reflecting and reliving the most
positive or “peak” experiences in our lives. Recall from earlier in the chapter that
Abraham Maslow predicted that peak experiences often have a lasting impact on
people’s lives. The recent research in the area of positive psychology reviewed in
this section certainly supports this aspect of Maslow’s theory.Critique of Maslow
Maslow’s search for the self-actualizing person did not end with his empirical stud-
ies. In his later years, he would frequently speculate about self-actualization with
little evidence to support his suppositions. Although this practice opens the door for
criticizing Maslow, he was unconcerned about desacralized, or orthodox, science.
Nevertheless, we use the same criteria to evaluate holistic-dynamic personal-
ity theory as we do with the other theories. First, how does Maslow’s theory rate
on its ability to generate research? On this criterion, we rate Maslow’s theory a
little above average. Self-actualization remains a popular topic with researchers,
and the tests of self-actualization have facilitated efforts to investigate this illusive
concept. However, Maslow’s notions about metamotivation, the hierarchy of needs,
the Jonah complex, and instinctoid needs have received less research interest.
On the criterion of falsifiability, we must rate Maslow’s theory low. Research-
ers remained handicapped in their ability to falsify or confirm Maslow’s means of
identifying self-actualizing people. Maslow said that his self-actualizing people
refused to take any tests that might assess self-actualization. If this is true, then
the various inventories that purport to measure self-actualization may be incapable
of identifying the truly self-actualizing person. However, if researchers wish to
follow Maslow’s lead and use personal interviews, they will have few guidelines
to direct them. Because Maslow failed to provide an operational definition of self-
actualization and a full description of his sampling procedures, researchers cannot
be certain that they are replicating Maslow’s original study or that they are iden-
tifying the same syndrome of self-actualization. Maslow left future researchers with
few clear guidelines to follow when attempting to replicate his studies on self-
actualization. Lacking operational definitions of most of Maslow’s concepts,
researchers are able to neither verify nor falsify much of his basic theory.
Nevertheless, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs framework gives his theory excel-
lent flexibility to organize what is known about human behavior. Maslow’s theory
is also quite consistent with common sense. For example, common sense suggests
that a person must have enough to eat before being motivated by other matters.
Starving people care little about political philosophy. Their primary motivation is
to obtain food, not to sympathize with one political philosophy or another. Simi-
larly, people living under threat to their physical well-being will be motivated