Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIII. Humanistic/Existential
Theories- Maslow: Holistic
Dynamic Theory
(^294) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
of higher level needs is more subjectively desirable to those people who have expe-
rienced both higher and lower level needs. In other words, a person who has reached
the level of self-actualization would have no motivation to return to a lower stage of
development (Maslow, 1970).
Self-Actualization
Maslow’s ideas on self-actualization began soon after he received his PhD, when he
became puzzled about why two of his teachers in New York City—anthropologist
Ruth Benedict and psychologist Max Wertheimer—were so different from average
people. To Maslow, these two people represented the highest level of human devel-
opment, and he called this level “self-actualization.”
Maslow’s Quest for the Self-Actualizing Person
What traits made Wertheimer and Benedict so special? To answer this question,
Maslow began to take notes on these two people; and he hoped to find others whom
he could call a “Good Human Being.” However, he had trouble finding them. The
young students in his classes were willing volunteers, but none of them seemed to
match Wertheimer and Benedict as Good Human Beings, causing Maslow to
wonder if 20-year-old college students could be Good Human Beings (Hoffman,
1988).
Maslow found a number of older people who seemed to have some of the char-
acteristics for which he was searching, but when he interviewed these people to learn
what made them special, he was almost always disappointed. Typically, he found
them to be “well-adjusted... but they have no flame, spark, excitement, good ded-
ication, feeling of responsibility” (Lowry, 1973, p. 87). Maslow was forced to con-
clude that emotional security and good adjustment were not dependable predictors
of a Good Human Being.
Maslow faced additional handicaps in his quest for whom he now called the
“self-actualizing person.” First, he was trying to find a personality syndrome that
had never been clearly identified. Second, many of the people he believed to be self-
actualizing refused to participate in his search. They weren’t much interested in
what Professor Maslow was trying to do. Maslow (1968a) later commented that
not one single person he identified as definitely 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 fa-
mous 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
Schweitzer, Benedict de Spinoza, Jane Addams, and other great people, Maslow sud-
denly 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.
288 Part III Humanistic/Existential Theories