Motivation and Personality

by Abraham H. Maslow, Robert Frager (Editor), James Fadiman (Editor)

A statement on self-actualisation and data. Applications are made to the theories and science of personality, psychotherapy, personal growth and general psychology.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Self Help, Science, Personal Development, Management

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

American psychologist Abraham Harold Maslow developed the theory of a hierarchy of needs and contended that satisfying basic physiological needs afterward motivates people to attain affection, then esteem, and finally self-actualization.

The first of seven children to Russian immigrant Jewish parents, he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1930, his Magister Artium in 1931 and his Philosophiae Doctor in 1934 in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Maslow taught full time at Brooklyn college, then at Brandeis, where he was named chair of psychology in 1951. People know humanist-based Maslow, for proposing for an individual to meet to achieve ably. Maslow analyzed and found reality-centered achievers.

Among many books of Maslow, Religion, Values, and Peak-Experiences , not a free-thought treatise, neither limited "peak experiences" to the religious nor necessarily ascribe such phenomena to supernaturalism. In the introduction to the book, Maslow warned that perhaps "not only selfish but also evil" mystics single-mindedly pursue personal salvation, often at the expense of other persons. The American humanist association named Maslow humanist of the year in 1967.

Later in life, questions, such as, "Why don't more people self-actualize if their basic needs are met? How can we humanistically understand the problem of evil?," concerned Maslow.

In the spring of 1961, Maslow and Tony Sutich founded the Journal of Humanistic Psychology with Miles Vich as editor until 1971. The journal printed its first issue in early 1961 and continues to publish academic papers.

Maslow attended the founding meeting of the association for humanistic psychology in 1963 and declined nomination as its president but argued that the new organization develop an intellectual movement without a leader; this development resulted in useful strategy during the early years of the field.

Maslow, an atheist, viewed religion.

While jogging, Maslow suffered a severe heart attack and died on June 8, 1970 at the age of 62 in Menlo Park, California.

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_...

http://www.maslow.com/

http://psychology.about.com/od/profil...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/...

http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslo...

Reviews

[Teri Temme · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow - incredible book. I am once again amazed I missed this book the first time I was introduced to Maslow oh so long ago. Maybe it wasn't time yet. Every chapter had a great insight into society and the ways in which we view each other and ourselves. I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking answers to "Why do people do that?".

Here's a sampling:

The exclusive study of our failures and breakdowns will hardly breed inspiration, hopefulness, and optimistic ambitions in either the layman or the scientist.

It is dangerous to see in the world what we have put into it rather than what is actually there.

And my absolute favorite:

Even if all these needs (physiological, safety, belongingness and love, esteem) are satisfied, we may still often (if not always) expect that a new discontent and restlessness will soon develop, unless the individual is doing what he is fitted for. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization (man's desire for self-fulfillment). This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.

[Jonathan Karmel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs intuitively strikes me as being a useful model of psychological development. Less obvious is what exactly is meant by the top of the pyramid: self-actualization. I didn’t have the patience or focus to read this entire book, which seemed vague and meandering at times to me. But I was very interested in the chapter titled, “Self-Actualizing People: A Study of Psychological Health.”

In the first chapter, “A ‘Psychological’ Approach to Science,” Maslow argues that scientists have human motivations for what they do, and their truth isn’t necessarily more valid than anyone else’s. So the book begins by rejecting the concept of scientific objectivity. In the chapter on “self-actualizing people,” the “cases” are people the author interviewed, as well as historical figures: Lincoln in his last years, Thomas Jefferson, Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Addams, William James, Schweitzer, Aldous Huxley and Spinoza.

The following are the characteristics of self-actualizing people, according to Maslow’s “study” of these “cases.”

They have more efficient perception of reality and more comfortable relations with it. They are cognitively able to perceive objective reality. They understand the real world of nature, not simply believing what they or others want them to believe. They are not threatened by the unknown, they are open-minded to discovery, and they are secure with their own ignorance.

They practice acceptance of themselves, others and nature. They are not guilty, anxious or ashamed; they stoically accept the sins, weaknesses and evils of human nature. They are comfortable with their own animal nature—eating, sleeping, having sex. They are not disgusted (literally) by reality, e.g., snot, feces, vomit, blood. They are not defensive. They don’t play mind games. They do not try to impress others. They accept their own shortcomings. However, they still feel bad about improvable shortcomings, vices, bad habits and that people and the world are not as they should be.

Their behavior is marked by spontaneity, simplicity and naturalness. They have unconventional thoughts, though not necessarily actions. A light cloak of convention may be cast aside, but they only rebel with a cause. They follow their own non-conventional code of ethics. They are self-aware about and able to control their own subjective desires. They are not simply motivated. They have a meta-motivation to develop themselves. “For them motivation is just character growth.”

They practice problem centering. They are focused on problems outside themselves based on philosophical beliefs in universal values; they are not ego-centered.

The have a quality of detachment and a need for privacy. They can appear aloof, and they enjoy solitude. They are reserved, calm, serene, objective, dignified in the face of misfortune and self-disciplined. They make up their own minds; they are not pawns of propaganda. They exercise their free will more than others.

They exhibit autonomy and maintain independence from culture and the environment. They have the will to be active agents. They are propelled by growth motivation, so they maintain serenity in bad circumstances. They believe the good life is inner-individual, not based on social status. They act independently of the opinion of others, even good opinion, because they only really care about self-development and inner growth.

They have a continued freshness of appreciation. The moment-to-moment basic experience of life can be thrilling, exciting and ecstatic. Their subjective experience is rich, because they enjoy reality. They have frequent feelings of gratitude, thankfulness for their blessings and good fortune.

They have mystic/peak experiences. They have transcendent/religious experiences, in which there is loss of self, including during sexual climax.

They feel “gemeinschaftsgefühl,” a genuine desire to help the human race. They feel a love of humanity, fraternal, brotherly love. But they may act like an older brother to the average human. They may be like an alien to a typical person, because few really understand them.

They have deeper, more profound interpersonal relationships, but only with a few people who are themselves also self-actualized types of people. They are kind, patient and compassionate but hostile to those who deserve it.

They abide by a democratic character structure. They can befriend others regardless of class, education, political belief, race or color. They have the humility to understand that they can benefit from association with any type of person. Their elitism is for people of good character.

They discriminate between means and ends and between good and evil. They are strongly ethical and have definite moral standards. They are religious in the sense of being goodly, or even Godly, though they may be atheists. They experience day-to-day moments as ends, not means.

They have a philosophical, unhostile sense of humor. They have spontaneous humor intrinsic to the situation, and they laugh at the human condition.

They show creativeness. They exhibit originality and inventiveness, not Mozart-like genius; but rather, like the uninhibited naivety of a child, acting and doing things with character and personality, not in a conventional way.

They show a resistance to enculturation and a transcendence of any particular culture. It is ordinarily of no consequence which folkways are used. They follow convention with a shrug of the shoulders but understand that these are not moral issues. They act with directness and honesty. They are not radical; they are intellectual and realistically eschew useless sacrifice and ineffective fighting, but still work to improve the world. They enjoy life and having a good time; they are good-humored. They are not ethnocentric; they are citizens of the world. American self-actualized people exhibit American character but are not nationalistic.

I think many people would have great respect for individuals who had these character traits. I might agree that such a person is virtuous, but I’m not sure that such a person is necessarily more mentally healthy. This seemed more like Maslow’s opinion about the type of person that is most likely to fulfill their teleological human potential than a description of mental health. I am not sure what the basis would be to conclude that a person who lacks these characteristics is somehow neurotic or mentally ill. But going back to what Maslow wrote in the first chapter, I think he is really combining natural and social science with the humanities, especially philosophy, to come up with a theory of what a fully developed person acts like. It may not be scientifically valid, but I personally think it is an attractive theory.

[May Ling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now that is a freakin 5 star book.

Really profound. If published in today's world of social media, he'd be there with Freakanomics or Blink. I get why his thoughts are still referred to even today!!

Dude is controversial, often totally mis-attributed, misunderstood and more, despite that he's referenced a lot. So many people say the hierarchy is untrue without having a clue as to what he was on about. Yet, if you read this, it's like wow... ok.... interesting way to frame stuff....

For examples, haters say he's against science or scientific method - sci meth. Instead, he's just saying... let's be a bit more honest about what we doin'. Step 1... It's not a formula friends. It's curiousity. Word.

Then he goes off and talks about the formulas and the tools and how that frames out the experiment, etc. I mean huge fan of Sci Meth, but dude is right. Curiosity shouldn't be constrained by lack of tools. You end up thinkin' the world is flat cause you don't have the right tools or your framework is limited. You might thing for instance there is no way to cure a disease or improve a circumstance, etc.

Personally, I think he's taken out of temporal context. Peeps at the time drawin conclusions on whole sets of people, their intelligence, capability.... stuff like, how you figure out urban problems, etc... by use of the tools of the time. I mean the tools of today would disprove loads of the stuff.

Instead, his deal is.... Maybe Mr. Scientist you say to yourself... Self, if I don't have the tool, let's go and build it, create it, figure it out. Just because the tool isn't available now, does not mean stuff's unknowable or that my conclusion's right on the small sliver that I barely proved via my biases of excluding everything that didn't fit. Profound and brave...IMO. I whole-heartedly heart.

And the Hierarchy, subsequently visualized as a pyramid... Thumbs up smiley! I mean take China for instance. First world western peeps are like democratize (which requires a whole lot of self-actualization) and China's like... yo dude... people are starving hungry... gotta sort that out first because starving people don't really self-actualize ... they overthrow order arbitrarily and freak out into chaos. China 1980 ain't like first world peeps where some people holdin out while others live below the poverty line on welfare... there's like a billion people up in here all under the poverty line. I'm not sayin they don't have some messed up stuff. But I kind of feel them on the whole let's feed people first approach. China's diff now and Maslow says nothing about China, but what I'm saying is that IMO Maslow would have been down, man had a point....

Some of this higher order stuff... self esteem, etc... I mean... super practical... super visible even today, super-critical to a creatin' good society. Some crazy dudes will go to lengths. Failing to have self-esteem they will destroy others or do some cold, mean stuff to an entire society.... like .....oh I don't know.... create a war against an entire religion of people and refuse to let refugees seek haven in a safe country, ya know... junk like that...

He's got like 400 citations a lot by comparison to other books. That's how old school people use to do it. They use to read a lot of really thinky stuff. Now some of his citations .... they's his own stuff, but it's all good. But there's still enough other stuff and it lets you know he's been thinking about this for awhile.

My fav is how he uses a story by Orson Wells. Context about bein' normal and well-adjusted. Peeps sayin' how we want our kids and people we love to be well-adjusted, havin' friends, loved by others, but we never ask the question "well-adjusted to what?" I mean he's speakin post WWII where a whole country of well-adjusted people became Nazi's and committed genocide. So like if it's popular to kill non-arians, then should we be down in a "normal society."

Now you know wif a name like Abraham, he gotta be thinking a particular set of thoughts and feelings on the subject. But instead of coming out and just sayin....hey buddy your way of thinking about normal just killed a bunch of my peeps in a super horrible way, he chooses this story from Well's "The Valley of the Blind" and says that in that story, where no one has sight, so the dude that could see was the abnormal one. I mean... that is class right there.... He's writing for the educated, high society which at the time.... call it like it is...was a bunch of male WASPs. Dude is Jewish.

And you think about all the ways he could have communicated it! He doesn't go there though. Takes the high road with a neutral story. Claaaaassssssssy.....IMO.

I dig this book. Props Maslow... Props. We feel your loss in the world ... though your nuggets continue on.

[Ilya Mrz · Rating 4 out of 5]

“What one *can* be, one *must* be!”

“They have become strong
enough to be independent
of the good opinion of
other people, or even
of their affection. The
honors, the status, the
rewards, the popularity,
the prestige, and the love
they can bestow must
have become less important
than self-development and
inner growth.”
~ Abraham Maslow


“Self-actualizing individuals have a genuine desire to help the human race.”
~ Abraham Maslow

=========================
1. Perception of Reality: These individuals tend to have a “superior relationship with reality” and are “generally unthreatened and unfrightened by the unknown.” In fact, “They accept it, are comfortable with it, and, often are even more attracted by it than by the known. They not only tolerate the ambiguous and unstructured—they like it.”
2. Acceptance: “Even the normal member of our culture feels unnecessarily guilty or ashamed about too many things and has anxiety in too many situations. Our healthy individuals find it possible to accept themselves and their own nature without chagrin or complaint or, for that matter, without even thinking about the matter that much.”
3. Spontaneity: The behavior of the self-actualizing individual is “marked by simplicity and naturalness, and by lack of artificiality or straining for effect.”
4. Problem Centering: Self-actualizers customarily have some “mission in life.”
5. Solitude: Self-actualizing individuals “positively like solitude and privacy to a definitely greater degree than the average person.”
6. Autonomy: “They have become strong enough to be independent of the good opinion of other people, or even of their affection. The honors, the status, the rewards, the popularity, the prestige, and the love they can bestow must have become less important than self-development and inner growth.”
7. Fresh Appreciation: “Self-actualizing people have the wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may have become to others.”
8. Peak Experiences: It’s been called “flow” or “being in the zone.” Whatever you want to call it, self-actualizers tend to experience it more often than average.
9. Human Kinship: “Self-actualizing people have a deep feeling of identification, sympathy, and affection for human beings in general. They feel kinship and connection, as if all people were members of a single family.” … “Self-actualizing individuals have a genuine desire to help the human race.”
10. Humility and Respect: All of Maslow’s subjects “may be said to be democratic people in the deepest sense… they can be friendly with anyone of suitable character, regardless of class,education, political belief, race or color. As a matter of fact it often seems as if they are not aware of these differences, which are for the average person so obvious and so important.”
11. Interpersonal Relationships: “Self-actualizing people have these especially deep ties with rather few individuals. Their circle of friends is rather small. The ones that they love profoundly are few in number.”
12. Ethics: “They do right and do not do wrong. Needless to say, their notions of right and wrong and of good and evil are often not the conventional ones.”
13. Means and Ends: “They are fixed on ends rather than on means, and means are quite definitely subordinated to these ends.”
14. Humor: “They do not consider funny what the average person considers to be funny. Thus they do not laugh at hostile humor (making people laugh by hurting someone) or superiority humor (laughing at someone else’s inferiority) or authority-rebellion humor (the unfunny, Oedipal, or smutty joke).”
15. Creativity: “This is a universal characteristic of all the people studied or observed. There is no exception.”
16. Resistance to Enculturation: “Of all of them it may be said that in a certain profound and meaningful sense they resist enculturation and maintain a certain inner detachment from the culture in which they are immersed.”
17. Imperfections: Actualizers “show many of the lesser human failings. They too are equipped with silly, wasteful, or thoughtless habits. They can be boring, stubborn, irritating. They are by no means free from a rather superficial vanity, pride, partiality to their own productions, family, friends, and children. Temper outbursts are not rare.”
18. Values: “A firm foundation for a value system is automatically furnished to self-actualizers by their philosophic acceptance of the nature of self, of human nature, of much of social life, and of nature and physical reality.”
19. Resolution of Dichotomies: “The dichotomy between selfishness and unselfishness disappears altogether in healthy people because in principle every act is both selfish and unselfish.”

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time favorite books. Maslow basically explains in detail the characteristics of an emotionally healthy person. A good benchmark and inspiring.

[Brian Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

How we can be all that we're destined to be.

“What human beings can be, they must be.”

~ Abraham Maslow from Motivation and Personality

Abraham Maslow. The guy’s a rock star.

A 20th century humanistic psychologist to whom we owe thanks for the advent of the modern trend in Positive Psychology, Maslow coined the phrase “the self-actualizing individual” and developed his framework of a “hierarchy of needs” we ascend as we evolve in our hero’s journeys.

I love the guy. In fact, his phrase “What one *can* be, one *must* be!” captures my ethos in life more than any other.

Think about that: What you CAN be, you MUST be. There is, in Maslow’s language, a NEED you have to self-actualize—to live at your highest potential and to express your latent potentialities. If you don’t fulfill this need, it’s like depriving your soul of oxygen. Although you may not gasp as noticeably as you would if your more basic need of physical oxygen were deprived, you WILL experience equally (albeit more subtle) painful symptoms of angst, anxiety, depression and all that (which, of course, are often medicated with pills, TV, alcohol, complaining, asinine conversations, etc. :).

Some of my favorite big ideas from this book include:

1. The Self-Actualizer - Become what thou art!
2. Growth or Safety? - Which way you headed?
3. No One’s Perfect - Not even us. :)
4. Thank You! - Good practice.
5. Your (Extended) Family - Time for a reunion!
6. Counting Our Blessings - One, two, three... infinity!!!
7. Know Thyself! - Ten questions for you.
8. Plunge In! - Now good? Good. :)
9. 19 Characteristics - Of the Self-Actualizer: A Portrait of Psychological Health.

I’ve summarized those Big Ideas in a video review that you can watch here.

I’ve also added Motivation and Personality by Abraham Maslow to my collection of Philosopher’s Notes--distilling the Big Ideas into 6-page PDF and 20-minute MP3s on 600+ of the BEST self-development books ever. You can get access to all of those plus a TON more over at heroic.us.

[Kristo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book! If Maslow's hierarchy of needs sympathized you, then I'm quite sure this book has many ideas and new perspectives to give. A must read for the ones interested in psychology and motivation in my opinion.

[wally · Rating 2 out of 5]

Theory that is relatively easy to understand. Everyone understands "basic needs" right? As I recall, I read this in conjunction w/Karen Horney's Neeurosis and Human Growth, the two somewhat complement each other, and as I recall, Horney goes more so, into the kind of things that happen, say in Measure for Measure...Duke Vincentio...who has presumably settled his "basic needs" as Maslow lays them out--

--this is sketchy, memory, and all...been a few years...but by basic, I recall really basic, tribally basic, shelter, food, etc etc....

meh...like I said, my take is that it is easy to understand the subject matter as Maslow lays it out...and I swing a hammer for a living...moi.

toodles for now, gove.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this incredibly meaningful, and optimistic about humanity and human potential. Also practical in a certain sense, in the way expansive and abstract issues can be managed in the context of mundane, quotidian life.

[Ron Davison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maslow was such a full human being and in this book he reveals a great deal about how to experience life fully. A beautiful man and a beautiful book.

[Public Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant. You have probably heard of "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs" before. This is the book where Maslow outlines what that means. I found the prose easy to follow and not overly academic. Maslow's ideas are exciting and have applications beyond psychology. I really enjoyed getting an up close view of how the hierarchy of needs operates and the implications of studying healthy people to find out what makes them tick.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always been familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but found it to be very abstract and oversimplified, but now appreciate the ideas after reading this book.

Our basic needs need to be met for a sense of security and love. When these two basic needs were not met, Maslow believes it leads to many pathological and neurotic symptoms seen in adults, symptoms that can only be cured through professional psychotherapy. Not sure if he paid enough credit to biological temperament, or if he relied to heavily on causation due to thwarted needs. For example, in pathologically aggressive reactions:

"If a person were actually to live in a jungle in which all other animals were divided into two classes, those who could eat him and those he could eat, aggression would become a sensible and logical thing. People described as authoritarian must frequently tend unconsciously to envisage the world as just such a jungle. On the principle that the best defense is a good attack, these people are apt to lash out".

On the other hand, when these basic needs are met at an early age, higher needs become equally important to healthy adults (such as self esteem and self actualization), and these adults may actually have a higher capacity to forgo these basic needs in return for the strive towards higher needs.

More controversially, Maslow also mentions that certain drives (sex drive, maternal instinct) have long been gone, and what we consider a 'drive' simply stems from "hereditary reflexes, autogenous learning, and cultural learning in the motivated behavior and in the choice of goal objects".

In relation to healthy mental states, Maslow describes both clinical and societal definitions. I thought his reasoning for why we have created a societal definition was interesting, being "an attempt to do what the formal religions have tried to do and failed to do, that is, to offer people an understanding of human nature in relationship to itself, to other people, to society in general, and to the world in general, a frame of reference in which they could understand when they ought to feel guilty and when they ought not to feel guilty".

[Shaun · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have studied Maslow in school or university then there is not that much new information to be gained from this book.

However, chapter 15 on psychotherapy, health and motivation is really insightful and inspiring. In this chapter Maslow talks about the varying ability to heal - how it differs from one person to another and how psychologists who qualified in the 20s and 30s had very little knowledge and experience to do their work compared to today where IQ is a required aspect of qualifying. Maslow also mentions the therapeutic effects of positive relationships and how self actualisation can lead to a better society.

[Aleh Piatrou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Общепринятое обывательское представление о пирамиде ценностей имеет мало общего с настоящими идеями автора.

[Sidra Hanif · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thus is very good book

[Melian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ogólnie spoko, tylko sposób pisania czasami tak bardzo przeszkadzał, że nie dało się przebrnąć

[Adriana Novac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Piramida necesităților umane stă la vârhul teoriilor elaborate de Maslow.
Unele capitole au stârnit interes, celelalte au fost abstractizate la extrem, reducând libertatea la înțelegere.
În pofida contextului ce nu mai corespunde multor realități, cartea are merite incontestabile.

[Barack Liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

344-Motivation and Personality-Abraham Maslow-Psychology-1954

Barack
2021/07/04

" Motivation and Personality ", first edition in 1954. It mainly discusses psychological topics such as personality, psychotherapy, and personal growth.

Abraham Maslow was born in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, US in 1908 and died in 1970. Studied at University of Wisconsin - Madison. He is known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory. He emphasized the importance of paying attention to the positive qualities of people, rather than treating people as a "bag of symptoms." Representative works: " Motivation and Personality " etc.

Table of Contents
1. A Psychological Approach to Science
2. Problem Centering vs. Means Centering in Science
3. Preface to Motivation Theory
4. A Theory of Human Motivation
5. The Role of Basic Need Gratification in Psychological Theory
6. The Instinctoid Nature of Basic Needs
7. Higher and Lower Needs
8. Psychopathogenesis and the Theory of Threat
9. Is Destructiveness Instinctoid?
10. The Expressive Component of Behavior

" A psychological interpretation of science begins with the acute realization
that science is a human creation, rather than an autonomous, nonhuman,
or per se "thing" with intrinsic rules of its own. Its origins are in human
motives, its goals are human goals, and it is created, renewed, and maintained
by human beings. ”

Natural law is objective, is hidden in nature, it is the humans to explore the definition of it, is given to human science to life, we need to recognize this.

" Scientists are ~ motivated, like all other members of the human species, by
species-wide needs for food, etc.; by needs for safety, protection, and care;
by needs for gregariousness and for affection-and-Iove relations; by needs •
for respect, standing, and status, with consequent self-respect; and by a
need for self-actualization or self-fulfillment of the idiosyncratic and
species-wide potentialities of the individual person. ”

Scientists are also humans, and there are also human needs. Perhaps some people can be more basic needs of aspects, such as basic necessities, it has not been a good case to meet and went to the pursuit of a higher level, such as truth and beliefs, but for most people in terms of, in fact, That's not the case.

" In any case, it is now quite clear that it is obsolete to dichotomize reason
and animality, for reason is quite as animal as eating, at any rate in the
human animal. Impulse is not necessarily in contrast with intelligent
judgment, for intelligence is itself an impulse. ”

The author tends to believe that impulse and rationality are not contradictory, and rationality is also the product of impulse. But I think, in real life, the impulse was easily the man pointing the wrong way, instead of the correct path.

" People seek {or as many different satisfactions in scientific work as they
do in their social lives, in their jobs, or in their marriages. There is something
in science {or all, old and young, bold and timid, duty-bound or
fun-loving. Some seek in it immediately humanistic ends; others delight
precisely in its impersonal, nonhuman qualities. ”

For some people, from their work get in the fun, and no less than they receive from daily life fun. I think that human pleasure should come from two aspects. On the one hand, it is the daily pleasure, and on the other hand, it comes from the business you are engaged in. Most people may only get half of the fun, that is, the fun from daily life, and the work is just a tool to support the family. I think this is not good. Only when you get fun from both, I think it is A complete life.

" Science needs
all kinds of people (I say this rather than, "Science can tolerate all kinds
of people") just as art docs, or philosophy, or politics, since each person
can ask different questions and see different worlds. Even the schizoid ·
phrenic can be peculiarly useful, for his illness sensitizes him in certain
special ways. ”

The world is different in everyone's mind. We emphasize diversity and inclusiveness, it is because no one is complete and comprehensive, we want anybody else to collaborate in order to play a greater role.

" Science is based on human values ​​and is itself a value system. Human
emotional, cognitive, expressive, and aesthetic needs give science its origins
and its goals. The gratification of any such need is a "value." This is true
of the love of safety as it is of the love of truth, or of certainty. ”

Science is to serve people and collate out of, is people's understanding of the natural world, so inevitable, it is also to serve the human's. If we say, we can not do that, then the value of scientific fact has not been fully excavated.

" However, the only way we now know of preventing contamination of our
perception of nature, of society, or of ourselves, by human values, is to be
very conscious of these values ​​at all times, to understand their influence
on perception, and with the aid of such understanding to make the necessary
corrections. "

If we want to understand the value of science, then we need to understand human motivation, it helps us to better understand its meaning and value approach.

" The laws of human psychology and of nonhuman ~ nature are in some
respects the same but are in some respects utterly different. The fact that
humans live in the natural world does not mean that their rules and laws
need to be the same. ”

Everyone has a different concept of life and a different way of looking at things. Sometimes one of the reasons why we cannot understand each other is that our thinking paths are different. His candied fruit, my arsenic.

" The study of the sociology of science and of scientists deserves more attention
than it is now getting n g. If scientists are determined in part by cultural
variables, then so also are the products of these scientists. ”

Culture affects people. Scientists are not born to be scientists. They are people, and they will also be influenced by culture. This influence will eventually be transmitted and reflected in science to a certain extent.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rated: C+

This book is one of his classics. Not a primer for beginners but an advanced work for his colleagues. Good to ready directly about his understanding of the hierarchy of needs and self-actualization. This work was published in the 1950’s and it is amazing to look back and see just how far psychology had come by then as well as how far it has progressed since then.

[Carme · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an awesome book.
I have just read a few pages but every page I read it made perfect sense.
I don't have time now to read it but definitely will come back to read every single page.
I feel like this is one of a kind book where pretty much it explains so much about its subject and other books are just its expanded versions.

[Evan Leybourn · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it reads like an academic treatise, it's a fascinating look at human motivation. This is Maslow's expression of his eponymously named Hierarchy of Needs; which has become more well known than the man himself. Though it has it's share of criticism, it is still a useful (if simple) model of human needs.

Worth a read for anyone interested is psychology and human motivation.

[Ruth]

chapters I read:
4) A Theory of Human Motivation
5) The Role of Basic Need Gratification in Psychological Theory
9) Is Destructiveness Instinctoid?
10) The Expressive Component of Behavior
11) Self-Actualizing People: A Study of Psychological Health
12) Love in Self-Actualizing People

[Troy Farley]

Will you take a step FORWARD or BACKWARD today?

Why do you think people crack open a beer (Guilty), turn on the tv (Guilty), yell at the spouse and kids (Guilty), and generally act like a weenie (Big Time Guilty) at the end of the day? TOO MANY STEPS IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.

[Yinxue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading Maslow was a strange experience, with it being a free flow at time yet oddly incomprehensible at others. I have no doubt of the fineness of his mind, but the writing style can be effort-demanding for me.

[Roman Tsegelskyi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome book. Especially liked the chapters about self actualization and love

[Michael Kraitsberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

tl;dr Good news - healthy people are good and benevolent by nature, bad news - almost everybody around is sick.
Got to read more about self-actualization.

[Agnė Vaitkevičiūtė · Rating 4 out of 5]

Klasika, kurią turėtu perskaityti kiekvienas. Skaitysiu ir antrą kart

[Craig boob · Rating 3 out of 5]

p.130: "Since for healthy people, the unknown is not frightening, they do not have to spend any lime laying the ghost, whistling past the cemetery, or otherwise protecting themselves against imagined dangers. They do not neglect the unknown, or deny it, or run away from it, or try to make believe it is really known, nor do they organize, dichotomize, or rubricize it prematurely. They can be, when the total objective situation calls for it, comfortably disorderly, sloppily, anarchic, chaotic, vague, doubtful, uncertain, indefinite, approximate, inexact, or inaccurate (all, at certain moments in science, art, or life in general, quite desirable)."

p.131: "The first and most obvious level of acceptance is at the so called animal level. Those self-actualizing people tend to be good animals, heart\ in their appetites and enjoying themselves without regret or shame or apology. They seem to have a uniformly good appetite for food; thev seem to sleep well; they seem to enjoy their sexual lives without unnecessary inhibition and so on for all the relatively physiological impulses. They are able to accept themselves not only on these low levels, but at .ill levels as well; e.g., love, safety, belongingness, honor, self-respect. All of these are accepted without question as worth while, simply because these people arc inclined to accept the work of nature rather than to argue' with her for not having constructed things to a different pattern. This shows itself in a relative lack of the disgusts and aversions seen in average people and especially in neurotics, e.g., food annoyances, disgust with body products, body odors, and body functions. "

[Ghala Anas · Rating 5 out of 5]

مقدمتي لترجمة هذا الكتاب:

هناك العديد من أنواع الكتب التي يمكن أن تقع يد القارئ عليها، فثمة كتب تحاكي نفسه وتداريها، وثمة من تُبين له حقائق الأمور وتعينه على فهمها، وثمة من ترفع من مستوى فكره ونضجه وتمنحه مفاهيماً جديدة يفكر من خلالها، فيرى نفسه بعد الانتهاء منها وقد تخطى مسافة طويلة لم يشعر بها إلا بعد تنهديته الأخيرة، عند آخر فقرة من الكتاب، أما الكتاب بين أيدينا فهو جامع لهذه الأنواع الثلاثة من الكتب.
يناقش أبراهام ماسلو في كتابه أطروحة يمكن تلخيصها، دون وجه حق بالطبع، بعبارة واحدة: يمكن للبشر أن يكتشفوا مكامن الخير فيهم وينطلقوا لتحقيق ذواتهم بطريقة علمية وتجريبية ومدروسة جيداً، الأمر الذي لا زال جديداً على المجتمع العالمي، رغم مرور أكثر من خمسين سنة على الطبعة الثانية لهذا الكتاب.
ولدعم وجهة نظره، تناول ماسلو الكثير من جوانب المسألة، مثل أنواع الحاجات وطبائع البشر ومفهوم الغريزة ومصادر القيم ومفاهيم التحقيق والكمال الذاتي، مبيناً سوء التصرف الذي ألمّ بها نتيجة الخلط بين النظرة الشمولية للعالم والنظرة الجزيئية له، ومشيراً للاختلاف التام بين النظرتين وضرورة الفصل بين مجالات كلٍ منهما.
لن يجد القارئ نفسه بعد انتهائه من الكتاب إلا كمن صُفع بالحقيقة صفعاً ليستيقظ على واقع حاله ويعي دوره ومسؤوليته عن ذاته، فإذا كان عليَّ أن أذكر أهم الأمور التي تعلمتها من هذا الكتاب، فسأقول أن الإنسان مسؤول عن سعادته وعن تعاسته على حد سواء، وأنه حينما يجيب على أسئلة نفسه المستمرة بـ"لا أعرف"، فعليه أن يبدأ بالقلق على نفسه وطلب المساعدة.
أما وصيتي للقارئ وقد بدأ تصفح الكتاب، فهي بذل أكبر جهد للفهم والاستيعاب، وتقليب الأفكار في عقله مراراً ووضع يده على مكامن قوتها للاستفادة منها في حياته، فإذا لم يغيِّر هذا الكتاب حياة قارئه، فأيُّ كتاب سيفعل؟
غلاء سمير أنس _ 17\3\2021

[Hélène Lamboley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un livre très stimulant qui pose une multitude de questions essentielles pour tout être humain.
Je ne suis pas forcément d’accord avec la vision très positive de la nature humaine de l’auteur qui n’explique la tendance au mal que par la souffrance et la névrose mais le principal de la théorie de la motivation m’a semblé très convaincant.
L’extension de la théorie à l’organisation sociale, aux expériences mystiques, etc. m’a semblé parfois discutable mais courageuse à entreprendre, l’auteur ne prétendant d’ailleurs pas à plus qu’à suggérer des pistes et des hypothèses. Les affirmations assez catégoriques sur les valeurs également est pour moi problématique : l’assertion selon laquelle l’être humain accompli serait probablement un démocrate tolérant m’a notamment fait sourire. Globalement cependant, malgré le désaccord sur certains détails, la volonté de tirer au plus loin les conséquences de la théorie m’a impressionnée dans son ambition.
La construction de l’essai m’a également beaucoup plu : le propos est limpide (je n’avais aucune formation préalable en psychologie et n’ai eu aucune difficulté de compréhension) et, à chaque question que je me posais au cours de la lecture, le livre répondait peu après, preuve que chaque objection a été prévue et que l’auteur a su nous entraîner dans sa pensée