Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIII. Humanistic/Existential
Theories- Maslow: Holistic
Dynamic Theory
© The McGraw−Hill^281
Companies, 2009C
ollege professors and students have long recognized that some intellectually
“average” students are able to make good grades, whereas some intellectually
superior students make only average grades, and some bright students actually flunk
out of school. What factors account for this situation? Motivation is one likely sus-
pect. Personal health, death in the immediate family, and too many jobs are other
possibilities.
Some years ago, a brilliant young college student was struggling through his
third school. Although he performed reasonably well in courses that aroused his in-
terest, his work was so poor in other classes that he was placed on academic proba-
tion. Later, this young man took an IQ test on which he scored 195, a score so high
that it can be achieved by only about one person in several million. Therefore, lack
of intellectual ability was not the reason for this young man’s lackluster college per-
formance.
Like some other young men, this student was deeply in love, a condition that
made it difficult to concentrate on school work. Being hopelessly shy, the young man
could not muster the courage to approach his beloved in any romantic fashion. In-
terestingly, the young woman who was the object of his affections was also his first
cousin. This situation allowed him to visit his cousin on the pretext of calling on his
aunt. He loved his cousin in a distant, bashful sort of way, having never touched her
nor expressed his feelings. Then, suddenly a fortuitous event changed his life. While
visiting his aunt, his cousin’s older sister shoved the young man toward his cousin,
virtually ordering him to kiss her. He did, and to his surprise his cousin did not fight
back. She kissed him, and from that time on his life became meaningful.
The bashful young man in this story was Abraham Maslow, and his cousin was
Bertha Goodman. After the fortuitous first kiss, Abe and Bertha were quickly mar-
ried, and this marriage changed him from a mediocre college student to a brilliant
scholar who eventually shaped the course of humanistic psychology in the United
States. This story should not be seen as a recommendation for marrying one’s first
cousin, but it does illustrate how brilliant people sometimes need only a small shove
to reach their potential.
Overview of Holistic-Dynamic Theory
The personality theory of Abraham Maslow has variously been called humanistic
theory, transpersonal theory, the third force in psychology, the fourth force in per-
sonality, needs theory, and self-actualization theory. However, Maslow (1970) re-
ferred to it as a holistic-dynamic theorybecause it assumes that the whole person
is constantly being motivated by one need or another and that people have the po-
tential to grow toward psychological health, that is, self-actualization.To attain self-
actualization, people must satisfy lower level needs such as hunger, safety, love, and
esteem. Only after they are relatively satisfied in each of these needs can they reach
self-actualization.
The theories of Maslow, Gordon Allport, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, and others
are sometimes thought of as the third forcein psychology. (The first force was
psychoanalysis and its modifications; the second was behaviorism and its
various forms). Like these other theorists, Maslow accepted some of the tenets of
psychoanalysis and behaviorism. As a graduate student, he had studied Freud’s
Chapter 10 Maslow: Holistic-Dynamic Theory 275