self-actualization

Examples of self-actualization in the following topics:

• Maslow's Humanistic Theory of Personality

  • Maslow's humanistic theory of personality states that people achieve their full potential by moving from basic needs to self-actualization.
  • These needs range from the most basic physiological needs for survival to higher-level self-actualization and transcendence needs.
  • The highest need for self-actualization represents the achievement of our fullest potential, and those individuals who finally achieved self-actualization were said to represent optimal psychological health and functioning.
  • Maslow viewed self-actualizers as the supreme achievers in the human race.
  • Most self-actualizers had a great sense of awareness, maintaining a near-constant enjoyment and awe of life.

• Humanistic Psychology

  • Humanistic psychology adopts a holistic view of human existence through explorations of meaning, human potential, and self-actualization.
  • The humanistic perspective is a holistic psychological perspective that attributes human characteristics and actions to free will and an innate drive for self-actualization.
  • He believed that every person has a strong desire to realize his or her full potential—or to reach what he called "self-actualization."
  • Self-actualized people, he believed, have more of these peak experiences throughout a given day than others.
  • The top of the pyramid is self-actualization, in which a person is believed to have reached a state of harmony and understanding.

• Positive Psychology

  • Once these four levels of needs are met, Maslow believed people turn toward what he called self-actualization.
  • Self-actualizing individuals, he argued, value deep personal relationships with others, but also value solitude; they have a sense of humor, but not one used against others; they accept themselves as well as others; they are spontaneous, humble, creative, and ethical.
  • Maslow felt that true self-actualization is rare, but his research led to advancements in humanistic psychology and the later field of positive psychology.
  • According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, self-actualization is the highest state a person can reach after all lower needs are met.
  • Maslow's research on self-actualization was a central component of both humanistic and positive psychology.

• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

  • Maslow organized human needs into a pyramid that includes (from lowest-level to highest-level) physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization needs.
  • At the highest level of the hierarchy, attention shifts to the need for self-actualization, which is a need that essentially equates to achieving one’s full potential.
  • According to Maslow and other humanistic theorists, self-actualization reflects the humanistic emphasis on positive aspects of human nature.
  • Maslow suggested that this is an ongoing, life-long process and that only a small percentage of people actually achieve a self-actualized state.

• Humanistic Therapy

  • Humanistic therapy helps individuals access and understand their feelings, gain a sense of meaning in life, and reach self-actualization.
  • It encourages viewing ourselves as a "whole person" greater than the sum of our parts and encourages self exploration rather than the study of behavior in other people.
  • Humanistic theory aims to help the client reach what Rogers and Maslow referred to as self-actualization—the final level of psychological development that can be achieved when all basic and mental needs are essentially fulfilled and the "actualization" of the full personal potential takes place.
  • With its roots running from Socrates through the Renaissance, this approach emphasizes individuals' inherent drive towards self-actualization, the process of realizing and expressing one's own capabilities, and creativity.
  • The term "actualizing tendency" was also coined by Rogers and was a concept that eventually led Maslow to study self-actualization as one of the needs of humans.

• Rogers' Humanistic Theory of Personality

  • Carl Rogers' humanistic personality theory emphasizes the importance of the self-actualizing tendency in forming a self-concept.
  • Rogers believed that all behavior is motivated by self-actualizing tendencies, which drive a person to achieve at their highest level.
  • Rogers further divided the self into two categories: the ideal self and the real self.
  • The ideal self is the person that you would like to be; the real self is the person you actually are.
  • Their ideal self is thereby determined by others based on these conditions, and they are forced to develop outside of their own true actualizing tendency; this contributes to incongruence and a greater gap between the real self and the ideal self.

• Evaluating the Humanistic Perspective on Personality

  • The humanistic perspective of personality theory is a holistic psychological perspective that attributes human characteristics and actions to free will and an innate drive for self-actualization .
  • Human self-actualization becomes the most meaningful drive a life can acquire.
  • Some argue that focusing on the self to such an extent leads to a lack of social functioning.

• Maintaining Motivation

  • Threat evaluation focuses on the actual threat or the stressor, rather than on the impact of that stressor.
  • This demonstrates how the motivational energy is diverted away from management and onto the actual stressor that is threatening the individual.
  • Self-efficacy, the final factor in PMT, is the belief in one's ability to carry out the recommended course of action successfully.
  • Positive self-talk, smiling, or a daily ten-minute exercise routine are all things that can help reduce stress.
  • Once these needs have been reasonably satisfied, one may be able to reach the highest level, called self-actualization.

• Cluster B: Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, and Narcissistic Personality Disorders

  • Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self;
  • The person consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to self;
  • The person considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are.
  • People with NPD are characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance.
  • Valued by parents as a means to regulate their own self-esteem.

• Memory Distortions and Biases

  • The common use of schemas suggests that memories are not identical reproductions of experience, but a combination of actual events and already-existing schemas.
  • Intrusion errors occur when information that is related to the theme of a certain memory, but was not actually a part of the original episode, become associated with the event. 
  • In the self-reference effect, memories that are encoded with relation to the self are better recalled than similar memories encoded otherwise.
  • This is known as the self-serving bias.
  • Source confusion, in contrast, is not remembering the source of a memory correctly, such as personally witnessing an event versus actually only having been told about it.