[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
who is thwarted in any of his basic needs may fairly be envisaged simply as a sick man.
This is a fair parallel to our designation as 'sick' of the man who lacks vitamins or
minerals. Who is to say that a lack of love is less important than a lack of vitamins? Since
we know the pathogenic effects of love starvation, who is to say that we are invoking
value-questions in an unscientific or illegitimate way, any more than the physician does
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A THEORY OF HUMAN MOTIVATION
18
who diagnoses and treats pellagra or scurvy? If I were permitted this usage, I should then
say simply that a healthy man is primarily motivated by his needs to develop and
actualize his fullest potentialities and capacities. If a man has any other basic needs in any
active, chronic sense, then he is simply an unhealthy man. He is as surely sick as if he
had suddenly developed a strong salt-hunger or calcium hunger.[13]
If this statement seems unusual or paradoxical the reader may be assured that this is only
one among many such paradoxes that will appear as we revise our ways of looking at
man's deeper motivations. When we ask what man wants of life, we deal with his very
essence.
IV. SUMMARY
(1) There are at least five sets of goals, which we may call basic needs. These are briefly
physiological, safety, love, 'esteem, and self-actualization. In addition, we are motivated
by the desire to achieve or maintain the various conditions upon which these basic
satisfactions rest and by certain more intellectual desires.
(2) These basic goals are related to each other, being arranged in a hierarchy of
prepotency. This means that the most prepotent goal will monopolize consciousness and
will tend of itself to organize the recruitment of the various capacities of the organism.
The less prepotent needs are [p. 395] minimized, even forgotten or denied. But when a
need is fairly well satisfied, the next prepotent ('higher') need emerges, in turn to
dominate the conscious life and to serve as the center of organization of behavior, since
gratified needs are not active motivators.
Thus man is a perpetually wanting animal. Ordinarily the satisfaction of these wants is
not altogether mutually exclusive, but only tends to be. The average member of our
society is most often partially satisfied and partially unsatisfied in all of his wants. The
hierarchy principle is usually empirically observed in terms of increasing percentages of
non-satisfaction as we go up the hierarchy. Reversals of the average order of the
hierarchy are sometimes observed. Also it has been observed that an individual may
permanently lose the higher wants in the hierarchy under special conditions. There are
not only ordinarily multiple motivations for usual behavior, but in addition many
determinants other than motives.
(3) Any thwarting or possibility of thwarting of these basic human goals, or danger to the
defenses which protect them, or to the conditions upon which they rest, is considered to
be a psychological threat. With a few exceptions, all psychopathology may be partially
traced to such threats. A basically thwarted man may actually be defined as a 'sick' man,
if we wish.
(4) It is such basic threats which bring about the general emergency reactions.
(5) Certain other basic problems have not been dealt with because of limitations of space.
Among these are (a) the problem of values in any definitive motivation theory, (b) the
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A THEORY OF HUMAN MOTIVATION
19
relation between appetites, desires, needs and what is 'good' for the organism, (c) the
etiology of the basic needs and their possible derivation in early childhood, (d)
redefinition of motivational concepts, i. e., drive, desire, wish, need, goal, (e) implication
of our theory for hedonistic theory, (f) the nature of the uncompleted act, of success and
failure, and of aspiration-level, (g) the role of association, habit and conditioning, (h)
relation to the [p. 396] theory of inter-personal relations, (i) implications for
psychotherapy, (j) implication for theory of society, (k) the theory of selfishness, (l) the
relation between needs and cultural patterns, (m) the relation between this theory and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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who is thwarted in any of his basic needs may fairly be envisaged simply as a sick man.
This is a fair parallel to our designation as 'sick' of the man who lacks vitamins or
minerals. Who is to say that a lack of love is less important than a lack of vitamins? Since
we know the pathogenic effects of love starvation, who is to say that we are invoking
value-questions in an unscientific or illegitimate way, any more than the physician does
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
A THEORY OF HUMAN MOTIVATION
18
who diagnoses and treats pellagra or scurvy? If I were permitted this usage, I should then
say simply that a healthy man is primarily motivated by his needs to develop and
actualize his fullest potentialities and capacities. If a man has any other basic needs in any
active, chronic sense, then he is simply an unhealthy man. He is as surely sick as if he
had suddenly developed a strong salt-hunger or calcium hunger.[13]
If this statement seems unusual or paradoxical the reader may be assured that this is only
one among many such paradoxes that will appear as we revise our ways of looking at
man's deeper motivations. When we ask what man wants of life, we deal with his very
essence.
IV. SUMMARY
(1) There are at least five sets of goals, which we may call basic needs. These are briefly
physiological, safety, love, 'esteem, and self-actualization. In addition, we are motivated
by the desire to achieve or maintain the various conditions upon which these basic
satisfactions rest and by certain more intellectual desires.
(2) These basic goals are related to each other, being arranged in a hierarchy of
prepotency. This means that the most prepotent goal will monopolize consciousness and
will tend of itself to organize the recruitment of the various capacities of the organism.
The less prepotent needs are [p. 395] minimized, even forgotten or denied. But when a
need is fairly well satisfied, the next prepotent ('higher') need emerges, in turn to
dominate the conscious life and to serve as the center of organization of behavior, since
gratified needs are not active motivators.
Thus man is a perpetually wanting animal. Ordinarily the satisfaction of these wants is
not altogether mutually exclusive, but only tends to be. The average member of our
society is most often partially satisfied and partially unsatisfied in all of his wants. The
hierarchy principle is usually empirically observed in terms of increasing percentages of
non-satisfaction as we go up the hierarchy. Reversals of the average order of the
hierarchy are sometimes observed. Also it has been observed that an individual may
permanently lose the higher wants in the hierarchy under special conditions. There are
not only ordinarily multiple motivations for usual behavior, but in addition many
determinants other than motives.
(3) Any thwarting or possibility of thwarting of these basic human goals, or danger to the
defenses which protect them, or to the conditions upon which they rest, is considered to
be a psychological threat. With a few exceptions, all psychopathology may be partially
traced to such threats. A basically thwarted man may actually be defined as a 'sick' man,
if we wish.
(4) It is such basic threats which bring about the general emergency reactions.
(5) Certain other basic problems have not been dealt with because of limitations of space.
Among these are (a) the problem of values in any definitive motivation theory, (b) the
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
A THEORY OF HUMAN MOTIVATION
19
relation between appetites, desires, needs and what is 'good' for the organism, (c) the
etiology of the basic needs and their possible derivation in early childhood, (d)
redefinition of motivational concepts, i. e., drive, desire, wish, need, goal, (e) implication
of our theory for hedonistic theory, (f) the nature of the uncompleted act, of success and
failure, and of aspiration-level, (g) the role of association, habit and conditioning, (h)
relation to the [p. 396] theory of inter-personal relations, (i) implications for
psychotherapy, (j) implication for theory of society, (k) the theory of selfishness, (l) the
relation between needs and cultural patterns, (m) the relation between this theory and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]