Characteristics Of Abraham Maslow

One of Lewis’ earliest turning points in his life was when his uncle gave him his first bible. Lewis recalls, “Growing up, what I really wanted to be was a preacher. An uncle gave me a bible for Christmas when I was four. (Lewis 26) Even before he received the bible, Lewis had strong religious views and the bible gave him that extra encouragement. Lewis said, “So I preached to my chickens about every night.” (Lewis 27) This showed Lewis’ dedication to his bible and even though the chickens couldn’t quite understand, it was a beginning for him. He stated, “I imagined they (chickens) were my congregation, and me—I was a preacher.” (Lewis 28) Even as a child, Lewis imagined him preaching to a larger crowd beyond the rural chicken farm of Alabama. The bible directed him toward his religious path, and eventually the teachings on nonviolence.

“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” “In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.” “All right then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy,” This significant quote from Brave New World had moved innumerable readers’ heart, so do I. Exaggeration? No. It’s the satire to the false meaning of the universal happiness, and it’s this quote which made me had rethink what do I really want and the way of living I want to choose. Because the deep influence and rumination brought by the book, I would like to say

One of Lewis’ earliest turning points in his life was when his uncle gave him his first bible. Lewis recalls, “Growing up, what I really wanted to be was a

If we look at Maslow Hierarchy needs, he looks at human needs he believed that love and belonging are very important to our self- esteem. If these needs are not met we may not meet self- actualization. (Milliken & Honeycutt)

C.S. Lewis covers many topics in his fourth book contained in Mere Christianity titled BEYOND PERSONALITY: OR FIRST STEPS IN THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. He addresses such topics as theology, what it means to be the Son of God, the three personal God, the relationship of God and time, the cost of being a Christian, how God works to turn us into image of Christ, why Christian growth is both hard and easy, and also what he thinks about our old personalities before becoming Christians. These are all relative topics that apply to us and our daily lives. Learning and understanding this book can help a Christian tremendously in forming a deeper relationship with God.

Humanistic conceptions of personality focus on our own natural progression towards achieving one’s full potential, having a holistic approach. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) believes that growth and behaviour is motivated by a number of needs ranging from basic to psychological needs. He uses a hierarchy, commonly depicted as a five-tier pyramid in which the bottom 4 levels represent our deficit needs, shown in figure 1 below. Once the individual’s physiological needs are met, they may move to the next and so on. After all deficit needs have been met, an individual is capable of achieving self-actualisation. According to Maslow, fulfilling this need means reaching one’s highest potential and truly understanding one’s self.

While growing up, these major turning points reveal who John Lewis really is. Towards the beginning, one of the main points is receiving the Bible, and involving it in his life. In Pike County, Alabama, John grows up on his father’s farm. John states, “Growing up, what I really wanted to be was a preacher. An uncle gave me a Bible for Christmas when I was four,” (Lewis and Aydin 26). So at a very young age, John already had a hold a bible, but it was later in his years when he started to study it. Lewis states, “By the time I was five I could read it myself and one phrase struck me strongly,

Lewis' argument in the third book is most important to the point I want to discuss. He argues through this chapter the Christian behavior. Morality is what he considers to be the basics of good Christian behavior. Lewis states that morality is not simply, "something that prevents you from having a good time", but rather morals are the "directions for running the human machine". Every moral rule is there to prevent wear and tear on the way machine operates. He realizes that is why the rules seem to be constantly getting in the way of are natural behavior. Lewis sees that some people think in terms of moral ideals not rules and obedience. Ideals suggest preference to personal taste. Something that subjective would be meaningless in practice. Idealistic notions are meaningless unless we try to carry them out. Acting on ideals requires rules. Lewis uses the analogy of the ship to show how ideals without rules can go wrong. If the ships keep on having crashes they will not be able to sail. If their steering gears do not work they will not be able to avoid crashes.

John Lewis, even from a very young age wanted to become a preacher. “I’ll never forget my mother reading aloud to me the first words in that book…

The only way for transformation and ultimate character reformation is to go through Hell. On the other side of being tested to your limits, the potential for the man or woman you could be shines through and becomes who you are. John Lewis was a man that went through things everyday people would think are unimaginable in order to transform into who he is. There were no comfort zones for this man, and he came out the other side so much better for it. John Lewis had many influential events throughout his life that made him want to make a change; the ones that stand out the most are listening to Martin Luther King’s speech over the radio, his trip to Buffalo with his uncle, and his first arrest.

"listen to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius" to identify his true passions

Maslow’s Theory is separated into five different categories of needs. These include physiological needs, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. (“Maslow, Abraham”). Maslow categorized these needs into a pyramid structure. At the base of Maslow’s Pyramid are physiological needs which need to be met before a person can go higher up on the pyramid. Once these needs are met, then a person can begin fulfilling other needs such as safety, love and so on. Physiological needs include the basic needs of oxygen, food, water, sleep, proteins and minerals. Another part of these needs include being active, avoiding pain and removing waste from your body. As the physiological needs are meet, safety and security needs begin to dominate behavior (Boeree). Safety and security needs have to do with the natural desire for a predictable, orderly world that is somewhat within our control. This also includes protection, and safe

As stated further by Maslow, there are five levels in the need hierarchy, which are physiological, safety, love and belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization and they are very often of unconscious nature and can be at certain times reserved. Unfortunately, there are not too many who are capable of reaching self-actualization and the ones who will are very creative and acknowledge the world very accurately. An individual however is always aware of the fact that he or she has possesses a choice and therefore he or she has the ability to influence their behavior and personality at anytime (Cloninger, 2008).

Abraham Maslow’s theory, Theory of Hierarchy Needs, is a motivational theory in psychology that has a tier model of the five things a human needs. Maslow stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. The five stages, from bottom to top, include Physiological needs( food, water, warmth, and rest), the second stage: Safety Needs ( security and safety), third stage: Belongingness and love needs ( intimate relationships and friends), the fourth stage: Esteem Needs (prestige and feeling of accomplishment), and finally the last stage: Self-actualization ( achieving one’s full potential, including creative potential). The five stage model can be divided into

Psychologist Abraham H. Maslow is the developer of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The theory covers human behavior in terms of basic requirements for survival and growth (Cengage, 2002). The theory was developed in the early 1960’s. During this time psychology was taken over by two different views. One side was the human behavior and the other one was the behaviorist. Maslow explained that psychoanalysts had not accomplished the task to consider the behavior of healthy humans. He also mentioned that many subjective experiences that related with human behaviors were being ignored by behaviorist. In the beginning Maslow examined motivations and experience of many healthy individuals. He recognized that there are many requirements in this theory that are important for human survival and to help motivate individuals. He conceptualized different human needs as a pyramid with five levels in