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Self-actualizing people in the psychology of A. H. Maslow
Želimir Puljić
Abstract
In this ariticle is presented Maslow’s approach to personality. His overriding goal was to learn how much potential we have for full human development and expression. He believed that to investigate psychological health, the only kind of person to study was the extremely healthy one, selfactualizing. What moves the self-actualizing person? In Maslow’s View, all human beings possess an inmate striving or tendency to become self-actualizing. The prerequisite for achieving self-actualization is satisfying the four needs which stand lower in the hierarchy: 1. the physiological needs; 2. the safeity needs; 3. the belonging and love needs; 4. the esteem needs. If we have satisfied all these needs, we are then driven by the highest need: the need for self-actualization.
Beyond the general point of self-actualization as the supreme development and use of all our abilities, the fulfillment of all our qualities and capacities, we have discussed a number of specific characteristics which describe self-actualizers according to Maslow’s theory: 1. An efficient perception of reality. 2. A general acceptance of nature, others and oneself. 3. Spontaneity, simplicity and naturalness. 4. A focus on problems outside themselves. 5. A need for privacy and independence; autonomous functioning. 6. Mystical, or »peak« experiences and continued freshness of appreciation. 7. Social interest and interpersonal relations. 8. A democratic character structure and an un-hostile sense of humor. 9. Discrimination between means and ends, between good and evil. 10. Creativeness and resistence to enculturation. 11. Dediacation to some task »outside themselves«.
Keywords
self-actualization; psychology; A. H. Maslow
Hrčak ID:
90190
URI
Publication date:
15.9.1980.
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