Chapter 9 Maslow: Holistic-Dynamic Theory 271definitely self-actualizing would agree to be tested. They seemed to value their
privacy too much to share themselves with the world.
Rather than being discouraged by his inability to find self-actualizing people,
Maslow decided to take a different approach—he began reading biographies of
famous people to see if he could find self-actualizing people among the saints, sages,
national heroes, and artists. While learning about the lives of Thomas Jefferson,
Abraham Lincoln (in his later years), Albert Einstein, William James, Albert Schweit-
zer, Benedict de Spinoza, Jane Addams, and other great people, Maslow suddenly
had an “Aha” experience. Rather than asking “What makes Max Wertheimer and
Ruth Benedict self-actualizing?” he turned the question around and asked, “Why are
we not all self-actualizing?” This new slant on the problem gradually changed
Maslow’s conception of humanity and expanded his list of self-actualizing people.
Once he had learned to ask the right questions, Maslow continued his quest for
the self-actualizing person. To facilitate his search, he identified a syndrome for psy-
chological health. After selecting a sample of potentially healthy individuals, he care-
fully studied those people to build a personality syndrome. Next, he refined his
original definition and then reselected potential self-actualizers, retaining some, elim-
inating others, and adding new ones. Then he repeated the entire procedure with the
second group, making some changes in the definition and the criteria of self-actual-
ization. Maslow (1970) continued this cyclical process to a third or fourth selection
group or until he was satisfied that he had refined a vague, unscientific concept into
a precise and scientific definition of the self-actualizing person.
Criteria for Self-Actualization
What criteria did these and other self-actualizing people possess? First, they were
free from psychopathology. They were neither neurotic nor psychotic nor did they
have a tendency toward psychological disturbances. This point is an important neg-
ative criterion because some neurotic and psychotic individuals have some things in
common with self-actualizing people: namely, such characteristics as a heightened
sense of reality, mystical experiences, creativity, and detachment from other people.
Maslow eliminated from the list of possible self-actualizing people anyone who
showed clear signs of psychopathology—excepting some psychosomatic illnesses.
Second, these self-actualizing people had progressed through the hierarchy
of needs and therefore lived above the subsistence level of existence and had no
ever-present threat to their safety. Also, they experienced love and had a well-
rooted sense of self-worth. Because they had their lower level needs satisfied,
self-actualizing people were better able to tolerate the frustration of these needs,
even in the face of criticism and scorn. They are capable of loving a wide variety
of people but have no obligation to love everyone.
Maslow’s third criterion for self-actualization was the embracing of the B-values.
His self-actualizing people felt comfortable with and even demanded truth, beauty,
justice, simplicity, humor, and each of the other B-values that we discuss later.
The final criterion for reaching self-actualization was “full use and exploita-
tion of talents, capacities, potentialities, etc.” (Maslow, 1970, p. 150). In other
words, his self-actualizing individuals fulfilled their needs to grow, to develop, and
to increasingly become what they were capable of becoming.