Theories_of_Personality 7th Ed Feist

Feist−Feist: Theories of

Personality, Seventh

Edition

III. Humanistic/Existential

Theories

10. Maslow: Holistic
    Dynamic Theory

(^312) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
social determinants of personality. In general, the behavior of people motivated
by physiological and safety needs is determined by outside forces,whereas the be-
havior of self-actualizing people is at least partially shaped by free choice.
On the dimension of consciousness versus unconsciousness,Maslow held that
self-actualizing people are ordinarily more aware than others of what they are
doing and why. However, motivation is so complex that people may be driven by
several needs at the same time, and even healthy people are not always fully
aware of all the reasons underlying their behavior.
As for biological versus social influences,Maslow would have insisted that this
dichotomy is a false one. Individuals are shaped by both biology andsociety, and
the two cannot be separated. Inadequate genetic endowment does not condemn a
person to an unfulfilled life, just as a poor social environment does not preclude
growth. When people achieve self-actualization, they experience a wonderful
synergy among the biological, social, and spiritual aspects of their lives. Self-
actualizers receive more physical enjoyment from the sensuous pleasures; they ex-
perience deeper and richer interpersonal relationships; and they receive pleasure
from spiritual qualities such as beauty, truth, goodness, justice, and perfection.
306 Part III Humanistic/Existential Theories
Key Terms and Concepts

• Maslow assumed that motivationaffects the whole person; it is complete,
  often unconscious, continual, and applicable to all people.


• People are motivated by four dimensions of needs: conative(willful
  striving), aesthetic(the need for order and beauty), cognitive(the need for
  curiosity and knowledge), and neurotic(an unproductive pattern of relating
  to other people).


• The conative needs can be arranged on a hierarchy,meaning that one need
  must be relatively satisfied before the next need can become active.


• The five conative needs are physiological, safety, love and belongingness,
  esteem,and self-actualization.


• Occasionally, needs on the hierarchy can be reversed,and they are
  frequently unconscious.


• Coping behavioris motivated and is directed toward the satisfaction of
  basic needs.


• Expressive behaviorhas a cause but is not motivated; it is simply one’s
  way of expressing oneself.


• Conative needs, including self-actualization, are instinctoid;that is, their
  deprivation leads to pathology.


• The frustration of self-actualization needs results in metapathologyand a
  rejection of the B-values.


• Acceptance of the B-values(truth, beauty, humor, etc.) is the criterion that
  separates self-actualizing people from those who are merely healthy but
  mired at the level of esteem.


• The characteristics of self-actualizers include (1) a more efficient
  perception of reality; (2) acceptance of self, others, and nature;