The Social World of Self-Actualizing People: Reflections by Maslow’s Biographer

Abstract

Maslow’s concept of self-actualization has been a bulwark of humanistic psychology for more than 50 years, and has increasingly gained international appeal beyond its original nexus within the United States. His description of the high achieving characteristics of self-actualizing men and women has influenced theorists and practitioners in such fields as counseling, education, health care, management, and organizational psychology. Through these same decades, Maslow’s formulation has also been criticized as promoting a hyperindividualistic, even narcissistic, orientation to personality growth. Because Maslow by temperament and intellectual style expressed himself in an ever-evolving set of speeches and writings that were seldom explicit about interpersonal relations, his actual outlook on the social world of self-actualizers has remained elusive. The focus of this article, therefore, is how Maslow depicted self-actualizing people with regard to five major interpersonal dimensions of life: friendship, romantic love, marriage and lasting intimacy, parenthood, and communal service. By pulling together Maslow’s comments primarily in his published works, and secondarily in his unpublished works-in-progress, it is possible to explicate his tacit viewpoint. Doing so will not only help dispel the misconception that Maslow depicted self-actualizers as loners or even hermits but also guide future theory and research on personality growth.

Eupsychian Versus Authoritarian Leadership: Existential–Humanistic Underpinnings and Empirical Support

“…Furthermore, to supplement the relatively limited body of explicitly humanistic leadership literature to date (e.g., Beshai, 2012; DuBose, 2020; McWhinney, 1984; Miller et al, 2010; Raskin, 2020; Rego et al, 2008; Saiter, 2009; Schott, 1992), in preparing this article, we intentionally strived to build bridges between existential–humanistic and mainstream psychology by drawing from the latter to provide empirical support for Maslow’s theorizing in the spirit of Bland (2019), Bland and DeRobertis (2020), and Kaufman (2020). In so doing, we have (a) further demonstrated that his ideas on eupsychian leadership “appear to be more realistic than some criticisms regarding their allegedly utopian aims would suggest” (Rego et al, 2008, p. 187) and, therefore, (b) further contributed to an emerging body of literature that serves to clear up misconceptions about Maslow (see also Bland & DeRobertis, 2019, 2020; Compton, 2018; Henry, 2017; Hoffman, 2017) as an antidote to the “recurrent Maslow bashing that one finds in the literature” (Winston et al, 2017, p. 309).…”

Idol Worship: How Does It Influence Fan Consumers’ Brand Loyalty?

“…In addition to the above two theoretical foundations, scholars have explained the mechanism of idolatry from the perspectives of self-actualization and relational needs. Self-actualization refers to an individual’s desire to continuously stimulate his or her own potential and realize personal pursuits ( Hoffman, 2020 ). It is a state of mind that is commonly possessed by human beings.…”

Sociocultural Aspects of Leadership: A Look at Gender Roles

“…Therefore, selfactualisers make up only a small percentage of people (about 1%) (Clark, 2008). Such people do not share personal characteristics with neurotic personalities and immature people (Hoffman, 2017). They are independent and creative, with a philosophical outlook, democratic in relations, high-performance, etc.…”