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Management Practices and Organisational Behaviour

Notes
Box 8.2: Characteristics of Self-actualized Persons
They are realistically oriented.
They accept themselves, other people, and the natural world for what they are.
They have a great deal of spontaneity.
They are problem-centered rather than self-centered.
They have an air of detachment and a need for privacy.
They are autonomous and independent.
Their appreciation of people and things is fresh rather than stereotyped.
Most of them have had profound mystical or spiritual experiences although not necessarily
religious in character.
They identify with mankind.
Their intimate relationships with a few specially loved people tend to be profound and
deeply emotional rather than superficial.
Their values and attitudes are democratic.
They do not confuse means with ends.
Their sense of humor is philosophical rather than hostile.
They have a great fund of creativeness.
They resist conformity to the culture.
They transcend the environment rather than just coping with it.
Source: A. Maslow (1954), “Motivation and personality”, Harper and Row, New York.
Maslow believed that most psychologists were pessimistic, dwelling too heavily on misery,
conflict, and hostility that kept people from fulfilling their potential. Instead, he took an
optimistic view, stressing people's possibilities and their capacities for love, joy and
artistic expression.
2. Self-theory of Rogers: According to Carl Rogers, human nature is basically good. People
have a natural drive toward self-actualization, which means the achievement of their full
potential. The drive for self-actualization is the basic drive behind the development of
personality. Beginning at an early age, children evaluate themselves and their actions.
They learn that what they do is sometimes good and sometimes bad. They develop a self-
concept, an image of what they really are, and an ideal self, an image of what they would
like to be.
Unfortunately, children (as well as adults) discover that they are objects of "conditional
positive regard". By this term Rogers meant the withholding of love and praise by parents
and other powerful people when children do not conform to family standards or to the
standards of society. For example, a boy who comes to dinner with dirty hands may be
told that he is "disgusting" and be sent away from the table. Because conditions are placed
on positive regard, a process begins in which the child learns to act and deal in ways that
he or she may find more intrinsically satisfying. To maintain positive regard, children
and adults suppress actions and feelings that are unacceptable to important people in their
lives. As a result, what Rogers calls "conditions of worth" are established: extraneous
standards whose attainment ensures positive regard. If conditions of worth are rigid, so
that behaviour can no longer are flexible, emotional problems can arise.

People who are psychologically adjusted, or – in Roger's term – 'fully functioning' are
able to assimilate all their experiences into their self-concept. Such people are open to

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