Maslow

A COGNITIVE-SYSTEMIC RECONSTRUCTION OFMASLOW'S THEORY OF SELF-ACTUALIZATION

by Francis Heylighen1

PESP, Free University of Brussels, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium

Maslow's need hierarchy and model of the self-actualizing per-sonality are reviewed and criticized. The definition of self-actualiza-tion is found to be confusing, and the gratification of all needs is con-cluded to be insufficient to explain self-actualization. Therefore thetheory is reconstructed on the basis of a second-order, cognitive-sys-temic framework. A hierarchy of basic needs is derived from the ur-gency of perturbations which an autonomous system must compensatein order to maintain its identity. It comprises the needs for homeosta-sis, safety, protection, feedback and exploration. Self-actualization isredefined as the perceived competence to satisfy these basic needs indue time. This competence has three components: material, cognitiveand subjective. Material and/or cognitive incompetence during child-hood create subjective incompetence, which in turn inhibits the furtherdevelopment of cognitive competence, and thus of self-actualization.

KEY WORDS: humanistic psychology, self-actualization, competence, cognition, autonomous systems, humanmotivation, problem-solving.

TYPE OF ARTICLE: nonquantitative theoryDIMENSIONS AND UNITS: none

~INTRODUCTION enced by behaviorism, which tends to re-

duce human behavior to statistical correla-tions between different kinds of stimuli,responses and personality traits. Instead ofmerely modelling normal behavior or ofcuring clear dysfunctions, a humanisticpsychologist tries to help people to developin a better way, thus making them morecompetent, more aware, more happy, in thehope of reaching some state of “optimal”mental health [12].

ONE OF THE MAIN VALUES driving sys-tems research is to provide con-cepts and methods for stimulatinglearning, growth and development,

as well in individual persons as in society,thus enhancing well-being and the overallquality of life. The same positive aim char-acterizes so-called humanistic psychology[9], which defines itself as a "third force",in contrast with clinical psychology, influ-enced by Freudian psycho-analysis, whichstudies mental illness, i.e. the negative sideof human behavior, and traditional aca-demic, experimental psychology, influ-

Probably the best known proponent ofthis approach is Abraham Maslow. Whatdistinguishes his work from that of other"humanists", such as Carl Rogers or ErichFromm [12], is that he proposes a model ofhow a happy, healthy, well-functioning

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Behavioral Science, Volume 37, 1992

40 HEYLIGHEN

person behaves, which is based on concreteobservations of real people, rather than onformulating ideal requirements. MoreoverMaslow proposes a simple, and intuitivelyappealing theory of motivation [8], whichexplains where such a "self-actualizing"personality comes from. In parallel withsystems theory, Maslow reacts against toomuch reductionism in psychological mod-elling, and proposes an alternative holisticapproach of personality research [8].

are here replaced by concepts such as self-organization, autonomy, cognition, self-awareness, conversation, etc., which areclearly related to humanistic conceptssurrounding the central idea of self-actual-ization. However, most "second-order"theories remain very abstract, lacking thesimplicity, concreteness and intuitive ap-peal of Maslow's descriptions.

What I wish to do in this paper is to re-view Maslow's theory and the criticismsraised against it, and try to reconstruct itsmain concepts on the basis of a general"second-order" cognitive-systemic frame-work, in order to make them more general,more precise and more coherent.

However, in academic psychologyMaslow has been criticized for his lack ofscientificity. In recent years, Maslow'sideas have been taken up by the so-called"transpersonal" psychologists [9], whostudy altered, "ego-transcending" states ofconsciousness, inspired by mystical tradi-tions, Eastern philosophies andpsychedelic experiences. Although thetranspersonalists claim to carry out scien-tific investigations, it is in practice oftendifficult to draw a boundary between theirresearch and approaches characterized byirrationality and mysticism

A REVIEW OF MASLOW'S THEORY

Maslow's theory of personality [8, 9] isbased on: 1) a theory of human motivation,characterized by a hierarchy of needs; 2) adescription of a particular type of maxi-mally healthy personality, called "self-ac-tualizing", which is supposed to emergewhen all these needs are satisfied.The general problem is that if holism as

a reaction to reductionism is understood ina too simple-minded way, then any type ofscientific analysis, of precise, formal mod-elling becomes meaningless. The main ad-vantage of the systems approach as a sci-entific method is that it allows the integra-tion holistic and reductionistic principles,leading to models where both "the whole ismore than the sum of the parts" and "youmust understand the behavior of the partsin order to understand the emergence ofthe whole" applies. Hence the conceptualframework of systems science appears par-ticularly well-suited for reformulatingholistic theories, such as Maslow's, in amore precise, more explicit, more scien-tific way.

Theory of motivationAccording to Maslow human behavior ismotivated by a set of basic needs. Whichneeds are most active in driving behaviordepends on two principles: (1) a needwhich is satisfied is no longer active: thehigher the satisfaction, the less the activity(the exception to this rule is the need forself-actualization, see further); (2) needscan be ordered in a hierarchy, such thatfrom all the non-satisfied needs, the onewhich is lowest in the hierarchy will be themost active. A lower need is more "urgent"in the sense that it must be satisfied beforea higher need can take over control.

The lowest level of needs may be calledphysiological needs. These are needs of thebody as a physiological system which triesto maintain homeostasis. They consist ofthe need to breath air, hunger, thirst,avoidance of extreme heat and cold, etc.These needs are such that if they are notsatisfied the organism dies. If the threat of

That the time is ripe for integrating hu-manistic and systemic approaches is alsoshown by the recent emergence of a "sec-ond" or "non-classical" systems science,exemplified by the work of "second-order"cyberneticists such as Maturana [10], Paskand de Zeeuw [1]. Mechanistic concepts


A COGNITIVE-SYSTEMIC RECONSTRUCTION: MASLOW’S THEORY 41

dying because of perturbation of the physi-ological equilibrium has vanished, the or-ganism can direct its attention to more in-direct threats, such as the danger of beingcaught by a predator, and try to avoidthem. This corresponds to the second needlevel: the need for safety. Once safety andphysiological needs are met, higher, moretypically "human" needs come to the fore-ground, in the first place the need for loveand belonging. This is the basic social oraffiliation motive, which drives people toseek contact with others and to build satis-fying relations with them. Satisfaction ofbelongingness needs triggers the emer-gence of the esteem need. In this stage ofneed gratification, persons also want to beesteemed, by the people they are in contactwith, as well as by themselves: they wantto know that they are capable of achieve-ment and success.

velopment of remaining potentialities. Ifyou eat food, your desire for it becomesless and less, in accordance with principle(1). However, if you develop your capaci-ties, you want to develop them more andmore.

Definition of self-actualizationSelf-actualization is reached when allneeds are fulfilled, in particular the highestneed. Because of the positive feedback,self-actualization is not a fixed state, but aprocess of development which does notend. The word derives from the idea thateach individual has a lot of hidden poten-tialities: talents or competences he or shecould develop, but which have as yet notcome to the surface. Self-actualizationsignifies that these potentialities of the selfare made actual, are actualized in a con-tinuing process of unfolding.

When all these needs are satisfied, weare left with the last one, the highest need,the need for self-actualization. This need isfundamentally different from the previousones, in the sense that all the previous onescan be conceived as drives towards the re-duction of a deficiency. Such a deficiencymeans that there is a discrepancy betweenthe actual state of the individual, and somefixed optimal or equilibrium state, charac-terized by adequate values of the basicvariables, as well physiological variablessuch as temperature, level of sugar in theblood, etc., as psychological ones such asfeeling of safety, of belongingness, of es-teem. The control which deficiency needsexert over the individual's behavior is im-plemented as a negative feedback loop,which diminishes deviations from the goalstate.

According to Maslow, self-actualizationcorresponds to ultimate psychologicalhealth. Health is more than the absence ofdisease. On the psychological level, dis-eases correspond to neuroses due to thefrustration of one of the basic needs. Forexample, a person whose safety need hasnot been adequately fulfilled may developparanoiac tendencies, and believe that ev-erybody and everything is threatening him.

An interesting case is the situationwhere all the lower level needs have beensatisfied, but the highest need, self-actual-ization, has not. In that case you have aperson who apparently has everything tobe happy: a comfortable and safe environ-ment, a loving family, friendship and re-spect from peers, a sense of personalachievement... Yet the individual will notbe really happy, because he has no longer agoal to live for, he has achieved everythinghe wanted. This will result in feelings ofboredom and meaninglessness, whichmight even lead to suicide, unless the per-son becomes aware that there is more tolife than reducing deficiencies, that is tosay unless he becomes aware of his needfor self-actualization. Though one maycontinue to live in a more or less stable

Self-actualization, on the other hand,may be called a growth need, in the sensethat deviations from the previously reachedequilibrium state are not reduced, but en-hanced, made to grow, in a deviation-am-plifying positive feedback loop. The devi-ations to be amplified are changes whichcan be interpreted as improvements insome way of the overall personality, as de-


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manner, trying to satisfy the deficiencyneeds without developing acute problemsor neuroses, he will not be really healthyunless he succeeds in satisfying his self-ac-tualization need, thus liberating his mostprofound capacities.

the presence of positive signs of psycho-logical health or well-being, the criteria forwhich were derived from previous obser-vations. To Maslow's amazement thesehighly disparate personalities appeared tohave many non-trivial characteristics incommon, which together could be taken todefine a new personality type. We willnow review these basic character traits, notin the somewhat arbitrary seeming order inwhich Maslow lists them, but building upfrom the perception, to the behavior, and tothe social relations, concluding with whatmakes these personalities so unique.

This definition of self-actualization de-rives from Maslow's motivation theory.However, Maslow has also undertaken anempirical observation of existing healthypersonalities, more or less independentlyof the theory. Though he has tried to ex-plain his empirical results by means of thetheory, the observations are more detailedthan what the theory can predict, and as wewill see further they sometimes even seemto contradict the theory. Though he usesthe same word, "self-actualizing", to labelthe personality type coming out of his ob-servations, and the one coming out of histheory, it is not obvious that it describes thesame phenomenon. Therefore it is impor-tant to study his observations in detail, andto try to correlate them with theoretical ex-planations.

Perception and experiencePerhaps the most striking feature of self-actualizing persons is their openness to ex-perience (see also [21]): they are eager toundergo new experiences, learn new ideasand skills, try out new things. This alsoapplies if the new observations do no fitinto their existing schemata or contradicttheir previous opinions. The result is thatin general they have what Maslow calls anaccurate perception of reality: in contrastto ordinary people they do not tend todeny, repress or deform perceptions in or-der to make them fit their prejudices, atendency which is well-documented intraditional psychology. There is also nocontradiction between what they experi-ence or feel on a intuitive level, and whatthey think on a conscious, rational level. Ageneral reason for this openness may bethat self-actualizers are attracted towardsthe unknown, rather than afraid of it likemost people.

I find it quite dangerous to summarizethe observations, and I would propose toread the original text [8] (and not [9],which was revised after Maslow's death,and where several remarks—among otherthings about love—were deleted), ratherthan simply take over one of the many ex-isting reviews such as the ones proposed in[3, 11, 12], or in this paper. In my own ex-perience, summaries by other authors donot carry the same intuitive feeling of "thisis it!" as the original, perhaps in part be-cause they lack the many concrete exam-ples and illustrations of self-actualizingbehavior which Maslow proposes. Yet Iwill try to make a selection of the (at leastfor me) most important features.

Together with this openness to newstimuli, there is a tendency to experienceold, well-known stimuli in a new way,what Maslow calls freshness of apprecia-tion. A self-actualizer may walk for thethousandth time through the same street,yet suddenly experience beauty and ex-citement as if he or she saw it for the firsttime. Such sense of beauty, wonder or re-vivification is usually triggered by thesame type of objects or situations; depend-ing upon the individual, these may be: na-

Maslow's study was carried out by ananalysis of the biographies of historicaland public figures (such as Lincoln,Spinoza, Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, etc.)and by observation and interviewing of afew contemporaries, who were rigourouslyselected on the basis of absence of anysigns of neurotic behavior, together with



ture, children, in certain cases sex or mu-sic. Sometimes these spontaneous feelingsof awe and wonder become so intense, thatthey may be called mystical or peak expe-riences.

unbiased perception. They will not tend tocontinuously vacillate or hesitate betweenalternatives, asking the question "Am Imaking the right decision?", because theyare confident about themselves, and theircapacity to solve problems. However, insituations of uncertainty they will postponea decision rather than make a prematureone, without feeling unhappy because ofthe remaining ambiguity.

Attitude towards problemsThe behavior of self-actualizers is gener-ally characterized by spontaneity or natu-ralness. They do not tend to wear masks orplay roles, or feel inhibited or restricted intheir thoughts, feelings and actions. Theyare not afraid that what they are doingmight be wrong or that other people mightthink so. This spontaneity is also expressedby their general creativity, which is not ofthe specialized, "Mozart" type, wheresomeone may create outstanding things inone restricted area (e.g. music), but behavein a quite inhibited and immature way inother areas. Self-actualizing creativityconsists rather of a general playful attitudetowards problem-solving and self-expres-sion which assumes that the conventionalway to do it is not necessarily the best way.This applies as well in the intellectual do-mains of art, science and philosophy, as ineveryday tasks such as decorating thehouse.

In general they will focus on a problemor task outside themselves, rather than con-tinuously question their own motives. Thistask may become a general "mission" towhich they have devoted their life.Accomplishing this task is what they likemost, and they do not tend to separatework from fun or vacation.

Following the old dictum, we mightsummarize their attitude towards problemsas follows: they have the patience to en-dure the things that cannot be changed, thecourage to change the things that can bechanged, and the wisdom to distinguish theones from the others.

Social interactionsTheir relations with other people, societyand culture are characterized first of all bytheir autonomy. They do not really needother people, and they make their decisionsfor themselves, without having to rely onthe opinions of others, or on the rules, con-ventions and values imposed by society.They like solitude and detachment, andhave a need for privacy and independence.Their world view is generally independentof the particular culture or society in whichthey live, and they pay little attention tothe social conventions, though they willsuperficially respect them if transgressingthe rules would bring about needless con-flicts.

This lack of inhibition or tension maybe understood by their general attitude ofacceptance towards nature, people andthemselves: they do not feel unhappy, anx-ious, ashamed or guilty because of appar-ent constraints or shortcomings they can-not change, such as the weather, physiolog-ical processes (e.g. urination, pregnancy,menstruation, etc.), or old age. They willonly feel bad about discrepancies betweenwhat is, and what might be or ought to be.Their intrinsic stability allows them tomaintain a relative serenity in situations ofdeprivation, failure or disaster.

When confronted with problems, self-actualizers have little difficulty in makingdecisions, because they know how to dis-tinguish between what is good and what isbad, and between means and ends, that isto say they have a well-developed systemof personal values, which is aided by their

On the other hand, self-actualizers havea general feeling of empathy and kinshiptowards humanity as a whole. They tend tobe friendly towards everybody they meet,especially towards children. They arewilling to listen to, and especially learnfrom, people of any class, race, age, reli-


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gion or ideology, without being inhibitedby prejudices (Maslow calls this a demo-cratic character structure).

behavior and values of the majority, wemay expect that self-actualizers, whichform a very small minority (Maslow is notclear about which percentage of the popu-lation they constitute, though we may esti-mate less than 1 in 1000), will not be reallyat home in or adapted to their culture.According to Maslow, "they sometimesfeel like spies or aliens in a foreign landand sometimes behave so". Their detach-ment and unconventionality will often beinterpreted as discourtesy, lack of respector affection, or even as hostility. Their un-emotional and clear-cut decision-makingin the treatment of others, e.g. in cutting offunsatisfactory relations, may seem coldand ruthless. Their philosophical, unhostilesense of humor, makes them look rather se-rious in the eyes of ordinary people. In cer-tain situations their problem concentrationmay be exacerbated into stubbornness, ab-sent-mindedness and shortness of temper.

They are capable of more intense andprofound interpersonal relations than otherpeople, though they are highly selectiveabout which people they relate to, prefer-ring that company which allows them to bespontaneous. The intimate friends andlovers of self-actualizers are in generalclose to self-actualization themselves. Self-actualizing relationships are characterizedby extreme sincerity, self-disclosure andintimacy, by the dropping of all defensemechanisms. Sexuality can be deeply en-joyed, yet it does not take an importantplace in the system of values of a self-ac-tualizer. They are quite uninhibited aboutsex, willing to experiment with differentroles (which may go as far as resemblingsado-masochism), but they are in no wayobsessed by it, and will in general not lookfor sex without affection. Self-actualizinglove is characterized as well by respect forthe other's autonomy as by ego-transcend-ing identification of the partners' needs, aswell by profound concern and care for theother's well-being as by playfulness andlaughter.

A more general difficulty "normalpeople" have with self-actualizers is sim-ply to understand them, since they behaveand think in a quite unusual manner. Inparticular it is difficult to situate themalong one of the many dimensions or po-larities which are used to describe ordinarypersonality types and behaviors, such as:selfish-altruistic, extravert-introvert, ac-tive-passive, intuitive-rational, sensual-spiritual, serious-playful, etc. Self-actual-izers are neither selfish (extravert, active,etc.), nor altruistic (introvert, passive, etc.),nor somewhere in between: their behavioris somehow selfish and altruistic at thesame time, because what they like forthemselves is in general also good forothers.

Imperfections and peculiaritiesThe above description may have created animpression of an almost saintly perfection,but it must be understood that self-actual-izers have their weaknesses and difficultiestoo. From the principle of bounded ratio-nality we may infer that self-actualizersmake errors as well as other persons,though in general they will be faster inadmitting and correcting them. Moreoverreaching self-actualization is not a matterof all-or-none, but a never-ending, gradualprocess of improvement. In spite of thiscontinuity between more and less self-ac-tualizing levels of development, there areclear qualitative differences between self-actualizers and "normal" people.

This is what Maslow calls transcen-dence of dichotomies. They often do notmake a choice between two apparently op-posite behaviors, but find a way of solvingthe problem which synthesizes the advan-tages of the two alternatives, without thedisadvantages. This capacity for "dialecti-cal synthesis" is perhaps the characteristicwhich most fundamentally distinguishesthem from average people, and which

This may be exemplified by problemsand difficulties which are typical for self-actualizers. Since society is based on the



makes it difficult to situate them in one ofthe conventional psychological classifica-tions of personality types.

being as conceived by Japanese ZenBuddhism, "satori", seems quite similar to"self-actualization", especially in its em-phasis on the openness to experience, thenot deficiency-motivated behavior and thetranscendence of dualities, and this rein-forces my tendency to believe in Maslow'sstatement about the culture independenceof self-actualizing behavior.

CRITICISMS OF MASLOW'S THEORY

Theoretical frameworkMaslow's ideas have been criticized fortheir lack of an integrated conceptualstructure. His writings are heterogeneous(his major book [8] is based on a collectionof papers published in the 1940's and1950's), and consist often of apparentlyunstructured lists of remarks. According toEwen [3, p. 368]: "Maslow's eclecticism[...] seems insufficiently thought out andincludes too many confusions and contra-dictions. His study of self-actualizers hasbeen criticized on methodological grounds,and his theoretical constructs have beencharacterized as overly vague, equivocaland untestable".

Empirical validationThe problem with Maslow's observationsis that they are difficult to reproduce(though there does exist a validated test formeasuring the degree of self-actualizationa person has reached [13]). Maslow israther vague about how he selected hissubjects, and he acknowledges that hiswork could not conform to the conven-tional criteria of psychological experimen-tation because of the complexity of theproblem. Yet I would agree with his de-fense that it is preferable to carry outmethodologically primitive research aboutfundamental problems, such as the condi-tions of human well-being, rather than re-strict oneself to technically sophisticatedobservations about minor issues.

Though the need hierarchy seems rela-tively simple and consistent, the concept ofself-actualization is not clearly defined.There is a difficulty with the concept of"actualization" itself, because it presup-poses that there is somehow a well-definedset of potential talents an individual is ca-pable of developing, but a human system ismuch too complex to allow the discrimina-tion between "potential" developments and"impossible" ones. Moreover the definitionof self-actualization as fulfilment of all thebasic needs does not always correspondwith self-actualization as observed in ex-isting persons: Maslow himself acknowl-edges that sometimes self-actualizationseems to spring from the frustration of acertain need rather than from its gratifica-tion [8].

The hierarchical emergence of needsseems easier to test in an objective way,and some empirical research has effec-tively been done, mostly in the area ofmanagement and work satisfaction, but theresults are mixed at best, sometimesseeming to support the theory, sometimescontradicting it [14, 15]. In particular thespecific order in which needs (e.g. loveand esteem) emerge, seems to be ambigu-ous.

Mook [11] illustrates another problemby means of two case studies, one about anAfrican tribe which has lived in conditionsof misery and insecurity for generations,and one about the behavior of people inNazi death camps. In the first case,Maslow's theory seems to be confirmed:the frustration of the safety and sometimeseven the physiological needs seems to haveerased any behavior aimed at the satisfac-tion of the higher needs: there is no sign of

Another criticism [11] stresses the sub-jectivity and specifically American bias ofMaslow's criteria for psychological health,and suggests that in different societies,such as Japan, an individualistic, au-tonomous personality like Maslow's self-actualizer, would not be considered healthyor well-adapted. To Maslow's defense, Ican remark that the state of ultimate well-


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love, of affiliation, of esteem or achieve-ment among the people of the tribe. In thesecond case, however, in spite of the con-tinuous threat to safety and to life, peoplestill retain some form of dignity and altru-ism.

Maslow's theory has led us to the conclu-sion that in addition to need gratificationwe must introduce a temporal factor, speci-fying when particular needs were gratified,and a cognitive factor. If we want to builda well-structured, transparent model, wewill have to integrate these factors into atheory of the development of intelligent,goal-directed action. Non-classical or sec-ond order cybernetics has recently led toan insight into the relations between au-tonomy (self-steering) and cognition [5, 7].

Specific problemsThis last example points to where the basicproblem lies: though it seems intuitivelyevident that somebody who has been fight-ing for survival during his whole life willhave difficulty to develop a higher sense oflove, understanding and creativity, needgratification alone does not seem sufficientto explain in which circumstances self-ac-tualization will or will not emerge. Otherfactors must be involved. The main differ-ence between the African tribesmen andthe Jews in the concentration camps seemsto be that the first ones never experiencedneed gratification in their life, while thesecond ones probably have led a relativelysatisfying life before their persecution bythe Nazis. So one important factor seemsto be the period during which basic needswere or were not satisfied. Maslow partlyacknowledges this when he remarks thatself-actualizers can endure need frustrationmuch better than other people, becausethey have already received so much grati-fication in the past.

An autonomous system can be definedas a system which is able to actively main-tain or reconstruct its basic organization(which defines its identity), by counteract-ing or compensating the perturbations, in-duced by changes in the environment, orby internal processes (e.g. entropy produc-tion). The appearance of autonomous sys-tems can be understood from evolutionthrough natural selection [5, 6]. Typicalexamples are biological organisms, whoseorganization has been analysed as au-topoietic (i.e. self-producing) by Maturanaand Varela [10].

Autonomy presupposes cognition sincein order to effectively compensate pertur-bations, the system must be able: a) to dis-tinguish or recognize specific perturba-tions, b) to know which action will be ade-quate to compensate for the potentially de-structive effects of that specific perturba-tion. The compensation process can beconceived as problem-solving, where theproblem is defined by the discrepancy be-tween the actual "perturbed" state of thesystem, and the desired or goal state wherethe perturbation has been compensated,restoring the stable organization of thesystem. Solving the problem means findingan adequate sequence of actions whichbrings the perturbed state back to the de-sired state.

I want to propose another fundamentalfactor: cognition. It is striking that many, ifnot most, of the characteristics of self-ac-tualizers listed by Maslow are cognitive:accurate perception, creative problem-solving, effective decision-making, highcapacity for learning, etc. Self-actualizersgive an impression of a superior, flexibleintelligence. Though Maslow mentions theexistence of a cognitive motive [8], cogni-tion is absent in his need hierarchyexplaining the emergence of self-actualization. If perturbations are conceived as simple

deviations from an equilibrium, which canbe controlled by negative feedback, thesystem reduces to a cybernetic homeostat.This may provide an adequate model forMaslow's physiological needs, but not for

A SYSTEMIC FRAMEWORK FOR NEED THEORY

Autonomous systemsAn analysis of the shortcomings of



the higher needs. However, the "goal" ofan autonomous system is not a fixed equi-librium, but a dynamic process which con-tinuously reconstructs the system's identity.This leads to the following extensions.

be conceived as a long-term strategy forsurvival. This leads us to distinguish be-tween short-term and long-term processes.

Urgency of perturbations andneeds

Maintenance and growth of iden-tity

A perturbation in this conception is not as-sumed to cause an immediate annihilationof the system if it is not compensated, butto "announce" or "direct the attention to-wards" a possible annihilation in some faror near future. The threat posed by a per-turbation depends on two factors:

The identity or organization to be main-tained is a rather abstract, high-level prop-erty emerging from a continuously chang-ing network of interactions. Though ini-tially corresponding to the "life" or sur-vival of the organism, it may develop intosomething even more abstract, such as aconcept of "self", or as the survival of anidea with which the actor has identified.

a) how probable is the future annihilation,given the present perturbation?b) how far in the future is the expected an-nihilation, i.e. how much time does thereremain for compensating the perturbation?This allows us to explain the motivation

of a martyr who gives his life for his reli-gion or country. Though his biological or-ganism has died, in the eyes of the martyrhe has succeeded to ensure the survival ofhis higher-order identity. The shift of theorganization to be maintained from biolog-ical organism to abstract idea carried insidethe organism is normally a continuous pro-cess, so that we cannot say that at anypoint there was a lack or disappearance ofidentity. A conceivable exception would bea sudden conversion or brain-washing,where the actor is induced to shift hisidentity in a discontinuous way, but this isfrom the point of view of the actor an un-expected process, which she did not "will",and which hence does not need to be ex-plained by a theory of motivation.

Since the system cannot cope with allperturbations at once, there will be a prob-lem of resource allocation: the system mustorder the perturbations according to their"urgency", starting with those where theprobability for destruction is highest, andthe time for compensation shortest. Thisprovides a first model for Maslow's hierar-chy of needs.

In general—though not necessarily inspecific circumstances—direct physiologi-cal perturbations such as hunger or thirstare more urgent than indirect threats, e.g.because of the presence of predators in theenvironment: in the first case the probabil-ity of destruction without compensation ismaximal, and the time horizon relativelyshort, depending upon the type of pertur-bation (hunger is less urgent than thirst, forexample). In the second case the probabil-ity is smaller than 1, and the time horizonis in general longer, though an attack by alion may of course be imminent. This casecorresponds to the safety need.

A good way to ensure the long-termsurvival of a particular type of organizationconsists in maximally reproducing this or-ganization: the more copies of the initialorganization there are, the smaller thechance that all of them would be de-stroyed. Hence the biological need for re-production (and thus sexuality) may alsobe understood as a special case of the gen-eral need for identity reconstruction. Moregenerally, the "growth" or "development"of a particular organization, in the sense ofmaking the organization larger, more nu-merous, more adaptive, stronger, etc., can

In order to explain the higher needs, wemust look at cases where the probabilitybecomes even lower, and the time horizoneven larger. These are situations where wecannot not really speak about a "perturba-tion", but rather about a "potential pertur-bation". For example, as I am sitting be-hind my desk now, I do not experience any


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actual threat to my health, yet I know thatstatistically there is a non-negligible prob-ability that I would die from a heart attacksometime in the years to come. If I want tocompensate for this potential perturbation,there is no obvious equilibrium to be re-stored or danger to be fled. The only thingI can do is trying to understand as well aspossible all the possible factors increasingthe probability of a heart attack, and to finda protective environment and life-stylewhere these factors are minimally present.

you have some expectancies, but no cer-tainties, you would like to get some reac-tion, which either confirms your expectan-cies (this is of course the best case), or dis-confirms them. However, you would feelquite unsatisfied if you did not get any re-action, feedback, or reinforcement at all,positive or negative. It is because of thefeedback you get, that you can strengthenyour confidence or improve your knowl-edge about which results can be expectedin which circumstances. This feedbackmotive may explain Maslow's esteemneed, because receiving acknowledgmentfrom others, and experiencing personalachievement is clearly a basic form offeedback or reinforcement. It also explainspart of the love motive, because interper-sonal relations do not only provide protec-tion, they also provide interaction and con-versation, i.e. a continuing process of mu-tual feedback.

There are two aspects here: the need forexternal care or protection, and the needfor individual knowledge. I might find thefirst one by having a loving family whichcares for me if I am ill, and a good doctorand hospital, which can discover the symp-toms of a threatening heart attack and pro-tect me against it by adapted medicine. Theneed for protection is a prolongation of theneed for safety. It explains part ofMaslow's "love and belonging" need, be-cause we will find external help and pro-tection in the first place by our belongingto a group and by our interpersonal rela-tionships.

Getting knowledge by feedback is stillquite limited, however, because it presup-poses that there is already a sensitivity orrecognition for certain variables betweenwhich an association could exist. It is notsufficient if you want to learn completelynew variables and associations. What youneed to do then is exploration, i.e. tryingout things without any a priori expectationswhich can be confirmed or disconfirmed.This defines a next motive, the curiosity orexploration need, which may explain partof Maslow's self-actualization need. Thedifference between self-actualization as adrive to maximally develop one's compe-tences, and simple exploration, is that thefirst one integrates everything which hasbeen achieved before by satisfaction of thelower needs: the confidence about the sit-uation of the actor developed from the sat-isfaction of the safety and protectionneeds, and the confidence the actor hasabout his own competence for problem-solving and capacity for learning achievedby the satisfaction of the feedback need.This is the highest level of needs, becauseexploration has the least direct effect onshort-term perturbations, but has the most

If the external protection is goodenough, there is no need for personalknowledge: if I do not know how to avoida heart disease, the doctor will know it forme. However, the doctor's knowledge willbe restricted to general, statistical proper-ties of heart diseases, and cannot includeall the individual peculiarities of my ownlife-style and sensitivity to diseases. This isa general principle: no existing knowledgewill be perfectly adapted to all the specificsituations an autonomous system will en-counter. The only way to compensate forthat is to equip the autonomous actor witha capacity for individual learning.

A basic paradigm for learning is thestrengthening or weakening of associationsby positive or negative reinforcement, asexemplified by operant conditioning. Thislearning mechanism explains the emer-gence of a motive or need for reinforce-ment or feedback: if you are trying to solvea problem or doing something about which



potentiality for securing and developingthe identity in the long term.

anorexia, the subject does not experienceany need to eat food (i.e. hunger), thoughphysiologically the intake of food may beurgently required for survival.

We may summarize the analysis untilnow as follows: all different needs can beunderstood from the basic need of mainte-nance and reconstruction of the organiza-tion, defining the identity, of an au-tonomous system. They can be ordered ac-cording to their degree of "urgency" whichcorresponds to the probability of, and ex-pected shortness of time before, destruc-tion, associated with a specific perturba-tion. Though this ordering of needs is con-tinuous, it is possible to distinguish ap-proximately separate classes of needs:homeostasis, safety, protection, feedback,and exploration. Maslow's basic needs arejust special cases of these more generalneed classes. We must not forget that theurgency ordering is not absolute, since itconsists of (at least) two dimensions, prob-ability and duration, and since the estima-tion of the value of these dimensions is ingeneral context-dependent, and not veryreliable. The strict ordering of the needsproposed by Maslow must hence be con-sidered as merely a rough approximation.

In particular the relative urgency of dif-ferent needs is subjective, and this may ac-count for empirical findings in whichMaslow's postulated order for emergenceof the needs seems violated. For example,someone may think that getting esteem ismore urgent than building up a love rela-tionship. We have defined urgency interms of probability and expected duration,but it is clear that no model is capable ofexactly calculating these variables for real-istically complex situations. The approxi-mate perception of urgency will depend onthe cognitive system with which the sub-ject interprets the world. The only guaran-tee for some sort of objectivity is that if thedifference between perceived and actualurgency is too large, the autonomous sys-tem will be eliminated by natural selection.This means that in practice the postulated"objective" ordering of needs according tourgency will only be valid in a rough ap-proximation, with many exceptions.

What seems essential for SA, however,is not the (subjective or objective) actualgratification of needs, but the fact that thesubject feels competent to find gratifica-tion. For example, it is not because a self-actualizer feels thirsty (frustration of hisphysiological need), or is alone (frustrationof his belongingness need), that suddenlyhe is not longer a self-actualizer. Such aneed frustration will not change the per-sonality structure, world view or self-im-age of the subject, as long as the subjectknows that he is able to get gratification indue time (i.e. in a short term for urgent,lower needs, in a longer term for higherneeds). The subject is aware that he cansolve the problem easily, e.g. by drinking aglass of water in case of thirst (in ten min-utes), by going to see a friend in case ofsolitude or lack of feedback (next week),or by getting enroled for a university pro-gram in case of frustration of the need forlearning (next year).

SELF-ACTUALIZATION AND COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT

Self-actualizationas perceived competence

Now that we have reconstructed Maslow'sneed hierarchy, we can look again at hisexplanation for self-actualization (SA).According to him SA is the result of thegratification of all the lower needs, makingthe energy available for the continuousgratification of the highest need, the needfor SA.

However, we must remark that the grat-ification of a need [i.e. the compensation ofa (potential) perturbation] is not objec-tively given, but depends on how the sub-ject perceives his needs and his externalsituation. The subjectivity of this percep-tion is obvious for higher needs, such asesteem, but it can be illustrated for lowerneeds as well. For example in the case of


50 HEYLIGHEN

Having redefined the origin of SA asthe perceived competence to satisfy basicneeds in due time, we must proceed toanalyse the components of this compe-tence. First, in order to be competent, youmust obviously dispose of the needed re-sources for solving the problem: you can-not satisfy your thirst, if you are in a desertwithout water; you cannot go and see afriend if you are marooned on an uninhab-ited island; you cannot enrol in a universitycourse if you are in jail. This may be calledmaterial competence. Second, it is not suf-ficient that the needed resources are there,you must also be able to recognize them,find them and apply them effectively.Except in trivial cases, problem-solvingdemands cognitive competence, i.e. knowl-edge, intelligence and creativity. Finally,the third component of perceived compe-tence is the subjective awareness of com-petence. It is not sufficient that the re-sources are there, and that you are capableto find them: if you are convinced that youcannot solve the problem, you will not bemotivated to do the necessary search forthe resources, even if they are very easy tofind. This component may be called sub-jective competence.

personal problems, while he is not.

Cognitive competence anddistinction systems

We will not analyse material competence,since this falls outside the scope of person-ality theory, but proceed directly with cog-nitive competence. We must remark firstthat cognitive competence is not someform of "expertise", i.e. specialized knowl-edge which can be applied to a particularclass of problems. It is not even "intelli-gence", in the sense of what is measuredby IQ-tests. Though a certain type of ex-pertise, or a high IQ, may obviously helpto reach competence, they are not suffi-cient. Like Maslow notes [8], many peoplewith a high IQ limit their activities tounimaginative "puzzle-solving". This cor-responds to the solving of well-definedproblems, e.g. mathematical or chess prob-lems.

Satisfying one's basic needs is not awell-defined problem, however: it is not apriori clear what the needs or goals are, orwhich means can be used. Attaining grati-fication on all need levels requires not onlyintelligence, but also a profound self-knowledge and the ability to formulateone's own goals, and to question valuesand basic assumptions. This is somethingwhich clearly cannot be measured by tradi-tional IQ-tests. Therefore we will have toanalyse more deeply how problems whichare not a priori well-structured, can besolved.

We have here assumed that perceivedcompetence is a special case of actual com-petence, but of course we can also imaginesituations where a subject believes to becompetent, yet is unable to solve the prob-lems. However, we may suppose that suchsituations are not very stable: if the actualneed of the subject is not satisfied, whenthe subject expects it to be, the subject willnormally review his expectations. Ofcourse the reliability of this natural self-correcting mechanism will depend on theurgency of the frustrated need: in case oflong-term, non-urgent needs the incompe-tent subject could maintain for a long pe-riod that he is competent; in case of urgentneeds, self-delusion would rapidly lead tofatal errors. In general, though, it seemsimprobable that someone would continueto actually believe (and not simply publiclystate) that he is competent to solve all his

A problem is defined by a goal or end,and by possible means to reach this end.Solving it requires: a) the ability to distin-guish satisfactory from non-satisfactorysituations (value or ends distinctions); b)the ability to distinguish relevant objectsand properties (means distinctions); c) theknowledge about how the different states,defined by the objects and properties, arecausally connected. Distinctions and con-nections together define a distinction sys-tem [4, 5, 6], which is a basic model of acognitive structure allowing problem-solv-ing. A problem is well-structured if all the



fundamental means and ends distinctionsare explicit, precise and invariant. An ill-structured problem, on the other hand, ischaracterized by lacking, ambiguous orvariable distinctions.

and uncertain.Cognitive competence in the gratifica-

tion of basic needs can hence be conceivedas requiring a stable foundation, consistingof invariant distinctions representing low-order needs, pertaining to the short-termmaintenance of the self, and an open-endedflexible superstructure, consisting of vari-able, easily adaptable distinctions, pertain-ing to long-term potentialities for develop-ment. This type of cognitive organizationcan be easily recognized in Maslow's de-scription of SA behavior.

In general, the more urgent the need,the better it is to have a well-structuredproblem, because this reduces the searchneeded to find a satisfying solution. Thisexplains why homeostatic needs corre-spond to biologically inherited, fixed dis-tinctions between satisfactory and non-satisfactory situations (e.g. thirst as distin-guishing between sufficient and insuffi-cient concentration of water in the tissues).If each time something is going wrong inyour physiology, you would have to think:"What do I lack? Am I hungry, or am Ithirsty or am I sleepy?", you would not bevery well-equipped for survival. In thesame way, when confronted with a preda-tor it is better not to begin doubting aboutwhether the animal is a jaguar, or a leop-ard, or perhaps a panther: it suffices tomake the clear-cut observation: "This ani-mal is dangerous!"

Self-actualizers are characterized by: asimple, accepting attitude towards theirphysiological needs, a great self-confi-dence, autonomy and stability in the faceof frustration and danger, yet a profoundflexibility and creativity in learning anddiscovering new ideas. This is particularlyclear in their problem-solving attitude:their stable system of values allows themto make decisions without hesitation if thisis necessary, yet they will withhold judg-ment and explore alternative distinctions,if there is still insufficient certainty tomake an informed decision, and if a deci-sion is not urgently needed. The flexiblesuperstructure provides the platform for allthe typical traits of self-actualizers: cre-ativity, openness, spontaneity, unconven-tionality and especially transcendence ofdichotomies. Indeed, what Maslow calls a"dichotomy" is just a rigid distinction,which is not necessarily adapted to the spe-cific context. In contrast to other people,self-actualizers are not bound to the oncelearned distinctions, but are able to changethem in a way which takes into account theunique characteristics of the specific situa-tion.

On the other hand, for the higher-orderneeds, it is not so urgent to make clear dis-tinctions. Moreover, it is more difficult tomake early distinctions since these needscorrespond by definition to situationswhich belong to a still far away and uncer-tain future. In such problems it is wise toquestion whether some conceived futuresituation would or would not be satisfac-tory, since its effects will in general extendover a much longer period than the effectsof drinking or escaping a predator. For ex-ample, if you consider marrying, it is nor-mal to ask: "Am I really in love with her?"

The "least urgent" needs correspond tocompletely ill-defined problems: if yourgoal is learning or exploration, then thereis no criterion which tells you when youhave achieved your goal, i.e. when you canstop learning. Moreover, if you want to ex-plore unknown domains, then by definitionthere is not much knowledge availablewhich can help you to choose the most ef-fective way to do it. Everything is vague

Developmental requirementsfor self-actualization

Let us now try to understand which are therequirements for developing perceivedcompetence, i.e. SA. We will assume thatin our present Western society there aresufficient resources for most people, so wewill not consider the obvious case of mate-


52 HEYLIGHEN

rial competence. Another requirement is asufficiently high level of genetically inher-ited intelligence (and perhaps also othertraits which may be influenced by inheri-tance, such as curiosity or emotional stabil-ity): we do not expect children born withmental defects to achieve high compe-tence. We may expect that the higher the"inherited" component of someone's IQ,the easier he or she may reach self-actual-ization. However, this is far from suffi-cient, and relative deficiencies in geneti-cally determined IQ can be compensatedby good education and other externallystimulated forms of cognitive develop-ment.

lems (e.g. Van Gogh or Newton). For thethird component, we must go back to theorigin of subjective competence.

Suppose that one of the basic needs(physiological, safety, protection, feed-back...) has been frustrated during pro-longed periods in early childhood, i.e. at astage of development where there is notyet a sufficiently stable cognitive system ofdistinctions, then the child will develop afeeling of insecurity and incompetencewith respect to this particular need orneeds. Even if the need is satisfied later on,the child (and later the adult) will alwayssuspect that it may be suddenly frustratedonce again, and that it will not be able tocompensate the perturbation. In otherwords, the child will experience a continu-ous threat to the need, even if there is noobjective, actual threat. This will in generallead to a lack of self-confidence, and todifferent types of fears.

This determines a second componentnecessary for SA: most of the distinctionswe make are learned from other people. Soif our parents, teachers, and cultural envi-ronment propose adequate distinction sys-tems (i.e. adapted to the external realityand to our basic needs), it will be easier forus to build up a competent system of per-sonal values and concepts. For example, astrictly puritanical education may fail toconvey a distinction between natural sex-ual desire and sexual pathology, and thismay lead to a personality which is incom-petent to satisfy its sexual needs. This edu-cational and cultural component must espe-cially stimulate the individual learning ofnew distinctions, i.e. it should entice us toexplore things for ourselves, and not to ac-cept ideas on the basis of pure authority.Thus a liberal, open-minded educationshould be more effective in reaching self-actualization, than one based on the un-questioned transmission of traditional con-cepts and rules, however positive thosetraditions may be.

This may be understood because thedistinction system, representing the possi-ble ways to formulate and solve the prob-lem corresponding to the need frustration,has not received sufficient reinforcement:the child was not able to solve the problembecause of external deficiencies, or cogni-tive incompetence. Hence the child will(consciously or unconsciously) doubtabout the adequacy of the learned distinc-tion system, so that the distinction systemwill not be stabilized.

Because of the lack of internal stabilityof the system of personal concepts of val-ues, the person will now look for externalstability and reinforcement, clinging towhat looks like a stable support. Mostlythis will be found in society at large, or inone of its subcultures, in the form of con-ventions, fashions, traditions, ideologies,religions, etc. The problem with collectivedistinction systems like these is that theyare directed at a kind of "largest commondenominator", and hence not very flexible:like in the example of the doctor, they can-not take into account all the idiosyncrasiescharacterizing a particular person in a par-ticular situation.

These two components, genetic and ed-ucational, are not sufficient, however.Everybody knows people who are highlyintelligent, well-educated, and with a broadcultural background, yet who are unhappyand neurotic. The "mad scientist" or "crazyartist" have become a cliché, and historyprovides many examples of creative ge-niuses who had deep psychological prob-



The result will be a person who is un-certain about basic aspects of his or herpersonality: sense of physical well-being,of security, of protection, of self-confi-dence, yet who tends to be rigid about lessbasic, less intimately personal conceptsand rules, such as social conventions,metaphysical ideas and everyday knowl-edge. In other words, the opposite of a self-actualizing person, who is basically confi-dent about issues pertaining to the mainte-nance of his or her identity, and thus freeto doubt about more abstract, more distantconcepts and rules (and even to doubtabout certain of the more basic aspects, ifthe rest of the system is stable enough tosupport this questioning).

sons, it does not require that one be lovedand respected by everybody. The remain-ing uncertainty about basic needs togetherwith the inability to make new distinctions,will lead the non-self-actualizer to wantmore and more of the same, without evergetting satisfied.

Let us now consider the opposite devel-opment pattern: gratification of needs dur-ing childhood in due time. Under "in duetime" we must understand: not too late, i.e.before the frustration has had destructiveeffects on the sense of safety and self-con-fidence, but not too early either, i.e. notimmediately after the child has expressedits need. Otherwise, the child will becomespoilt: its tendency to solve problems andlearn by itself will not be reinforced, and itwill get lazy. How long "due time" is, willdepend on the specific need: short for ur-gent needs, longer for higher needs. If theearly gratification is accompanied by suffi-cient inherent intelligence and by the pre-sentation of adequate distinctions systemsby parents and educators, we may assumethat the person will succeed in building upa well-adapted hierarchy of distinction sys-tems, with stable foundations and a flexiblesuperstructure, leading to an overall per-ception of competence. If such a person isin adulthood confronted with a situation ofextreme deprivation and threat to the basicneeds, for example in a Nazi concentrationcamp, this will have little effect on his orher perceived competence. Indeed the flex-ibility of the higher-order distinctions willallow the person to formulate the problemsituation in such a way that the externalcauses of the problem become clear, so thatthere is no reason to doubt about one's owncompetence or system of values.

If in a later stage of life the basic needsare nevertheless satisfied, after initial frus-tration, it will be quite difficult to reorga-nize the hierarchy of distinction systems inorder to reach a more self-actualizing sys-tem. The perception of incompetence andhence insecurity will tend to maintain,even though all actual danger has disap-peared, because subjective incompetencetends to create actual incompetence. Evenif after many years the person has suffi-ciently gained confidence about his basicvalues and competences, there will still bethe problem of the rigidity of higher-orderdistinctions which restricts the openness toexperience and thus thwarts further devel-opment. In such cases it may be necessaryto break open the rigid perception of real-ity, by radical interventions, such as pro-found psychotherapy, mystical experi-ences, hallucinogenic drugs, etc.

If this does not happen, the typical sit-uation will be that the person continues tolook for more and more gratification of thelower needs, even though the level of grati-fication he or she has reached may be morethan sufficient. For example, though thesafety and protection needs require a cer-tain level of material well-being, let us saysufficient to buy or rent a house, they donot require a level sufficient to buy a cas-tle. Though the feedback need may be sat-isfied by the love and esteem of a few per-

In conclusion, although we have startedby separating material, cognitive and sub-jective competences, we see that they in-teract in a quite intricate way: if during theperiod of basic cognitive development, thechild experiences either material or cogni-tive incompetence, or both, this will createsubjective incompetence, and this will inturn hinder the further development of


54 HEYLIGHEN

cognitive competence because of the re-sulting cognitive rigidity and lack of moti-vation. In other words, subjective incompe-tence acts as a self-fulfilling prophesy:once you start to believe that you are in-competent, you effectively become incom-petent. Conversely, if you believe you arecompetent (and if this belief is not brutallyfalsified by the facts), you tend to be lessinhibited by possible threats to your self-image, and hence you have more energyand are more motivated for further devel-oping your competence by learning andexploration. Hence we see that both self-actualization and non-self-actualization arereinforced by positive feedback loops.

tion of self-actualization, and the insuffi-ciency of simple need gratification to ac-count for its emergence. Apart from gratifi-cation, we have proposed to include tem-poral and cognitive factors.

This has led us to study cognitive de-velopment from the point of view of an au-tonomous system trying to maintain itsidentity in a complex and changing envi-ronment. This allowed us to reformulateMaslow's need hierarchy, in terms of the"urgency" of (potential) perturbations ex-perienced by the system, such that urgentperturbations correspond to situationswhere the destruction of the system hashigh probability and short time horizon,whereas non-urgent "perturbations" corre-spond to long-term phenomena, with aweak probability of destruction, but with ahigh potentiality for "growth". The ur-gency ordering of perturbations led to acorresponding ordering of the needs toavoid such perturbations, generalizingMaslow's hierarchy: the need for home-ostasis, the need for safety, the need forprotection, the need for feedback and theneed for exploration.

It looks as though a child at birth standsbefore a bifurcation, with two "attractors":perceived competence and perceived in-competence. Positions in between the at-tractors are unstable: any not directly re-solved frustration of a basic need, due toexternal scarcity of the needed resources(insufficient food, unsafe environment,lack of love and reinforcement by the par-ents, etc.), or to cognitive incompetence tosolve the problem (insufficient intelli-gence, inadequate models proposed by ed-ucation, complexity of the problem), dur-ing development may be sufficient to pushthe child into the attractor of incompe-tence. We should hence not be surprisedthat self-actualizers form such a small mi-nority. Yet I believe that this picture in itssimplicity is a little too pessimistic, andthat one may develop a feeling of compe-tence for many needs, even though not forall, and that if this domain of perceivedcompetence is large enough from the start,it may continue to grow during the wholechildhood and adulthood.

Unsatisfied needs or perturbations cor-respond to problems which must be solved.This led us to redefine self-actualization asthe perceived competence to solve thesebasic problems in due time, where the re-quired time depends on the (subjective) ur-gency of the need. Perceived competencehas three components: material, cognitiveand subjective. Cognitive competence re-quires adequate distinction systems: lower-order needs demand well-structured, closedcognitive systems, with invariant, precisedistinctions; higher-order needs requireopen-ended systems with variable distinc-tions. Self-actualization is hence character-ized by the successful implementation ofthe following principle: stable low-orderdistinctions form the basis for flexiblehigh-order distinctions. This allows us toexplain most of Maslow's observations ofself-actualizing behavior.

DISCUSSION

SummaryA review of Maslow's theory and the criti-cisms raised against it has led us to pin-point the following shortcomings: the con-ceptually and empirically confusing defini-

However, if a distinction system is notsufficient to solve a problem and thus to



satisfy a need, the corresponding distinc-tions will not be reinforced and hence willremain unstable. The inability to reduce alow order deficiency during the period inwhich basic distinctions are developed,will lead to subjective incompetence, andto a hierarchy of distinctions systemswhich is not well balanced—in the sensethat higher order distinctions are morerigid than lower order ones—and thus toperceived incompetence. Perceived incom-petence tends to be self-enforcing since itdiminishes the motivation to solve prob-lems, to learn from experience, and henceto increase competence.

where individuals are taught to developtheir own distinctions, partly by openingup or de-automatizing [2] their existingrigid distinction systems (this is the"transpersonal" solution [9]), partly byproviding them with powerful methods andsupport systems for constructing more ade-quate distinction systems, thus enhancingtheir creative intelligence [1, 6] (this is the"cybernetical" solution).

Issues for further researchIt is clear that a problem as complex as thepromotion of human well-being demands amuch more detailed study than what couldbe offered in the present paper. Such studymight allow the formulation of more gen-eral and more concrete guide-lines for en-hancing self-actualization in individualsand in society.

This inability can have two types ofcauses: absence or scarcity of the neededresources, and cognitive incompetence tosolve the problem. The first, motivationaltype of cause corresponds to Maslow's the-ory stating that self-actualization requiresthe gratification of all the basic needs bythe environment. The second, cognitivetype of cause is omitted in Maslow's the-ory, and may explain some of its short-comings. In particular it allows us to ex-plain why the frustration of a basic need ata later age does not impede self-actualiza-tion, and may in certain cases even stimu-late it, by forcing the subject to reconsiderhis or her rigid system of distinctions.

The classification of basic needs, theiremergence from more or less urgent per-turbations, and the way they interact, mustbe further elaborated. Also the differentcomponents of perceived competence andtheir very complex interactions must beanalysed with much more detail, and theireffect on concrete behavior, such as socialinteraction, must be examined.

In particular, the newly introducedtheoretical concepts and assumptionsshould be empirically tested. It would beinteresting to measure the correlation be-tween different types of competence, dif-ferent types of need gratification, and self-actualizing personality traits, at differentstages of psychological development. Thismight help to check and elaborate the con-ceived interaction mechanisms stimulatingor inhibiting self-actualization. Partly, thiswould require the development of opera-tional definitions (psychological tests) forthe newly introduced concepts, in particu-lar the concepts of perceived competenceto satisfy basic needs in due time, stabilityof low order distinctions, and flexibility ofhigh order distinctions.

This cognitive-systemic reconstructionof Maslow's theory gives us some hints onhow to promote self-actualization in soci-ety. An obvious way to eliminate the firsttype of cause is to make society wealthierand more democratic so that everybodycan get what he or she needs. This is thetraditional socio-economic solution, whichis the driving force behind political sys-tems such as social democracy. However,the second factor reminds us that this is notsufficient, and that we also need to developsubjective and cognitive competence. Thiscan be stimulated by traditional educa-tional programmes, which provide theirpupils with a variety of distinctions sys-tems which have shown their adequacy indifferent contexts. However, this must befurther complemented by an education

A possible avenue to approach thisproblem might be found in attribution the-ory [16, 17], which examines how people


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attribute causes to perceived events, suchas success or failure to solve a personalproblem. The theory basically states thatcauses are attributed on the basis of co-variation between effects and their an-tecedent conditions, as they are experi-enced. Fundamental dimensions of attribu-tion include stability (is the cause likely tomaintain?), control (is the subject capableto change the cause?), and locus (is thecause external or internal to the subject?)[17, 18]. In particular the factor of at-tributed control is clearly related to theconcept of perceived competence. Wemight hypothesise that control too has a"material" component (does the subjectdispose of the resources necessary to pro-duce the desired effect?), and a "cognitiveone" (is the subject capable to make an ad-equate choice from the repertoire of avail-able actions or resources?). Experiments onthe attribution of controlability might shedmore light on the emergence of perceivedcompetence and its components.

tions". A significant correlation betweenindependent and dependent variableswould confirm the present theory, a lack ofcorrelation would point to basic difficul-ties. However, one should not rely toomuch on such tests, since perceived com-petence presupposes an analysis of basicneeds and their relative urgency, which isas yet absent in any of the existing "con-trol" or "efficacy" measures.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The concept of this paper has taken shapeduring conversations and correspondencewith several friends and colleagues:Elizabeth Dykstra, Zlatka Naydenova,Danny Rouckhout, Frank Van Overwalle,Zorislav Soyat and Brigitte Quenet.

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competence are "self-efficacy expectancy"[20], which measures the belief concerningone's ability to adequately execute actions,and "locus of control" [19], which mea-sures the degree to which a subject feelscapable to control events through his or heractions. Though these constructs are tosome degree ambiguous or controversial,and though they lack a clear theory aboutwhere the "competence" they measurecomes from, they have the advantage ofoffering more or less reliable psychologi-cal tests. They could hence be used asprovisional tools for testing the basicmodel proposed in this paper.

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function as partial measures for the postu-lated independent factor ("cause"), per-ceived competence. The dependent factor("effect"), SA or one of its necessary com-ponents, could then be measured byShostrom's test [13], or through the well-established construct of "openness to expe-rience" [21], which is similar to what wecalled "flexibility of high order distinc-

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1 Senior Research Assistant NFWO(Belgian National Fund for ScientificResearch

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