freud and maslow

1. Psych 150 WFR Ma. Victoria Ty Cruz
Tuesday, November 29, 2016 2015-89009
PART 1: An Essay Comparing Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory vs Abraham
Maslow’s Humanistic Theory
Through time, many different schools of psychology have emerged, two of which are
psychoanalysis and the humanistic approach. Psychoanalysis was founded by Sigmund Freud, who
emphasised mostly the unconscious mind on behaviour. On the contrary, humanistic psychology, which
was known as the “third force” in psychology, was actually a reaction to the pessimistic determinism of
Freud’s psychoanalysis. One of the most known proponents under the humanistic approach is Abraham
Maslow, who emphasised individual free will, and assumed that people are good and have innate
worth. On his opinion on Freud’ psychoanalytic theory, Maslow was actually quoted saying, “it is as if
Freud supplied us the sick half of psychology and we must now fill it out with the healthy half.” Thus,
both Freud’s psychoanalytic view and Maslow’s humanistic view are both unique in that they are
almost polar opposites within the field of psychology.
Though both theories are from two very opposing schools of thought, there are still some
recognisable similarities between the two. Both Freud and Maslow’s theories offer important
reassurance and help we need to grow as individuals, which both established through certain stages
that they proposed we must go through in life. Secondly, both actively use the image we have of
ourselves. Moreover, both of them were interested in solving how the motivation is produced in then
person. However, there are key differences in what they believe motivated a person. Freud placed
emphasis on biologically-based drives, wherein he reduced all motivation to sex (life instinct) and
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2. aggression (death instinct). Ultimately, he believed that humans are born with a psychic energy, a
sexual drive he called the libido. On the contrary, Maslow had a holistic approach to motivation, in that
the whole person is motivated at any on time, and that humans have an innate motivation to achieve
their highest potential. He believed that motivation is complex, and that people are continually
motivated by one need or another.
A similarity between Freud and Maslow is that they both believed that a person experiences a
series of stages of development throughout his or her life. However, such stages that both theorists
proposed were completely different. Freud proposed the psychosexual stages of development, a
completely different view from what Maslow had proposed. Freud believed that children go through
psychological development in a series of five stages; oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital. Each
psychosexual stage in the child’s life focuses on the fixation of libido (which are sexual drives) on a
certain area of the body. The first stage, the oral stage, which takes place from 0-1 years, is wherein the
libido is directed towards the mouth, which can be done through sucking, biting, or breastfeeding. After
a year, the libido becomes directed to the anus (the second stage). The anus now emerges as a sexually
pleasurable zone, and this period is characterised by infants gaining satisfaction through excretory
functions. The third stage, the phallic stage, begins at approximately 3 or 4 years of age, and this is a
time when the genital area becomes the leading erogenous zone. This is also wherein boys experience
the Oedipus complex, which is when a young boy develops a rivalry toward the father and incestuous
feelings toward the mother. Young girls experience this also; however, they develop hostile feelings for
their mother and incestuous feelings toward the father. It is the Oedipus complex that allows children to
learn what is appropriate behaviour for their sex and establish a moral code of conduct for themselves.
The latent stage, which starts at around five years, and goes on until puberty, is a stage wherein there is
little psychosexual development. Lastly, the genital period, which begins at puberty, is a time wherein
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3. adolescents direct their sexual energy toward another person, instead of toward themselves.
Adolescents now have the reproductive capacity for a sexual drive.
On the contrary, Maslow developed the hierarchy of needs, which can be visually seen as a
pyramid, with each ascending step representing a higher need. He believed that human beings are
continually motivated by one need or another and that people in different cultures are all motivated by
the same basic needs. The hierarchy is a linear progression, in the sense that a person starts at the
bottom and progresses up. The five needs, starting from the bottom of the pyramid progressing to the
top, are physiological needs (i.e. food, water, warmth), safety needs, love and belongingness needs,
esteem needs, and self-actualization. Maslow theorised that the stages are fully dependent on the stage
before, and thus lower level needs have prepotency over higher level needs, which means they must be
satisfied before moving on to a higher need. Because of the hierarchical arrangement, Maslow
emphasizes that a person cannot fully attain self-actualization without satisfying the lower order needs
first. Maslow defined self-actualisation to be “a state of fulfilment in which a person is achieving at his
or her highest level of capability,” which is only satisfied by the psychologically healthiest people. He
held that self-actualizers are metamotivated by B-values (e.g. truth, goodness, beauty, justice, and
simplicity), which he termed metaneeds to indicate that they are the ultimate level of needs. However,
it is possible for a person to have all their lower level needs satisfied but still fail to pass the threshold
to self-actualization, which indicates that the person still lacks B-values. Lastly, Maslow believed that
what makes self-actualisers unique is that they are metamotivated, which is characterised by
expressive, rather than coping behaviour.
It is evident that Maslow put forth a very different view on child development from Freud’s
psychosexual stages. Unlike Freud’s psychosexual stages, the progression through Maslow’s hierarchy
of needs is not bounded by age, and instead, are based on life circumstances. Moreover, Freud’s stages
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4. only goes up to puberty, whereas Maslow’s hierarchy of needs continues over one’s lifespan. In Freud’s
psychosexual stages, a person cannot regress back to the previous stages, so it is very rigid and
inflexible. Freud also over emphasizes of importance of sexuality and did not highlight the role of
social relationships in the development of a child. Lastly, with Maslow, the order of needs also may be
reversed in certain cases, as he even said, “you will either step forward into growth, or you will step
backward into safety,”. For example, the drive for justice, which is a self-actualization need, may take
precedence over safety and physiological needs, thus in this sense making it flexible.
Another major contrast between Freud and Maslow was that while Freud believed unconscious
forces influenced our actions and behaviour, Maslow placed more emphasis on the conscious; he
believed that conscious thoughts and feelings shape behaviour. He believed human behaviour has a
purpose and is goal-directed, and that each person has an idea of themselves and aware of their
behaviour, whether good or bad. Maslow believed that people who reached self-actualisation are more
aware than others of what they are doing and why. However, Maslow did not fully disregard the
unconscious, as he believed that since motivation is so complex, people could be driven by several
needs at the same time, and thus healthy people may not always be fully aware of all the reasons
underlying their actions and behaviour. The unconscious is also seen in what Maslow said to be
expressive and coping behaviours. Maslow saw coping behaviours to be consciously motivated and
directed towards the satisfaction of basic needs. However, he believed expressive behaviour has no aim
and is merely a person’s mode of expression. He proposed that it is one’s expressive behaviour that is
frequently unconscious, unmotivated, and takes place naturally (e.g. slouching). Thus, a similarity is
seen here, wherein both Maslow and Freud believed in unconscious forces in shaping behaviour.
Freud, on the contrary, did not place much emphasis on the conscious mind. He likened the
human mind to an iceberg, which was a visual representation of what he saw as the three levels of
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5. mental life; the unconscious, preconscious, and conscious. The small amount of the iceberg visible was
the conscious, which is our observable behaviour, or the mental elements in awareness at any given
point in time. Then there is the preconscious, which contains all those elements that are not conscious
but can become deliberately conscious if we pay attention to it. The biggest area of the iceberg, was the
part submerged underwater, which was the unconscious. Freud believed that the unconscious contains
all the drives, urges, and instincts that are beyond our awareness but nevertheless motivate most of our
words, feelings, and actions. He saw that the true nature of the self is largely unconscious, which is
why it was the submerged mind (the unconscious) that had the most influence on our behaviour.
Ultimately, the contradiction here can be seen wherein Freud believed that it was the unconscious that
affected behaviour, but Maslow argued that people are well aware of their actions and behaviours.
Freud also argued that the mind is divided into three parts - which he termed the provinces of
the mind; the id, the ego and the super ego. The id develops first, and is known as the pleasure
principle. It is the most primitive structure, is inaccessible to consciousness and has no contact with
reality. An example can be seen when a young boy sees chocolate on the table and tries to grab it; the
boy’s id tells him, “I want that chocolate right now”. The ego is concerned with conscious thinking; it
is the reality principle, so it finds realistic ways to satisfy our desires. It is the executive of personality,
as it mediates between the id and the superego. In relation to the first example, the ego will tell us that
we cant always have what we want, so a compromise is made. Instead of grabbing the chocolate, the
child will ask for the chocolate. The third and last province of the mind is the superego, which is the
moralistic principle. It contains the conscience and judgement about what is right and wrong, based on
our moral values. The superego is what makes us feel guilty or ashamed if we don’t behave properly.
Again, relating back to the example, the superego will tell the young boy that, “No, it’s not right to do
that,” if he grabs the chocolate.
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6. Moreover, the psychotherapy of both Freud and Maslow were very different. Freud’s
psychotherapy was more focused on attempting to uncover the unconscious and repressed memories,
through free association and dream analysis. Freud saw dreams as the “royal road to the unconscious,”
and thus he wanted to discover the meaning behind his patients’ dreams. Contrastingly, Maslow’s
psychotherapy was more directed at understanding how people see themselves, and because he
believed that everyone can reach self-actualisation by progressing through his hierarchy of needs, he
believed that all of his patients could reach this ultimate stage of happiness. Specifically, Maslow’s
therapy involved a therapist who helped his or her client to satisfy their love and belongingness needs.
But ultimately, it focused on guiding people to achieve and fulfill their potential. Freud’s
psychoanalytic view, however, takes a very different look at this, as Freud did not think that all of his
patients could be happy. Thus, unlike Maslow’s therapy, Freud’s therapy is not directed towards
fulfilment. Freud’s therapy only worked towards allowing individuals to understand, and not control,
their unconscious motives because it lies beyond a certain degree of rational control. Thus, this lack of
power is something that is not seen in Maslow's thinking, because he believed it was important to
understand the person holistically rather than just separate parts of behaviour.
Ultimately, I personally think that both theorists offer a lot of insight on certain aspects of
behaviour and gives very thorough and in-depth understanding of what truly is it that shapes our
personality and behaviour. However, I think that both theories complement each other for what the
other misses out on. For example, even though Freud fails to recognise how experiences after
childhood contribute to personality development, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, specifically the love
and belongingness, and self-esteem stages, covers for it. On the other hand, I think Maslow somewhat
underestimates how the unconscious can shape our behaviour and personality, but the focal point in
Freud’s theory is unconsciousness.
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7. In conclusion, Freud’s psychoanalytic view and Maslow’s humanistic view both give significant
insight to how personality ultimately works; however, they explain personality in two very contrasting
ways, which we can see through their goals, causes to certain behaviours, and motivations. Freud
proposes a hostile and pessimistic view of people, and emphasises inner conflict and the unconscious.
Contrastingly, Maslow argued that a Taoistic attitude should be applied to psychology; he believed
psychologists should resacralize their science and have a non-interfering, passive, receptive, and
subjective approach, and view participants with awe, joy, and wonder. Maslow believed that people are
born with a positive drive to grow, improve ourselves, and achieve happiness, which he saw was self-
actualization. He believed that a person is shaped by his or her attempt to achieve a set of human needs
that are arranged in a hierarchy. Thus, Freud’s psychoanalytic view proposes more of a decision making
process, while Maslow’s approach is more of a life decision. Maslow’s humanistic approach is what
persuades us to wear a thick jacket when the weather is cold, simply because it gives us comfort, while
Freud’s psychoanalytic view is what whispers in our ear to steal a jacket we see lying on a bench if we
feel cold and don’t have a jacket ourselves or can’t afford it.
Works Cited
Feist, J., Feist, G. J., & Roberts, T. (2002). Theories of Personality. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Maslow's Humanistic Theory of Personality - Boundless Open Textbook. (n.d.). Retrieved
November 17, 2016
McLeod, S. (2008). Psychosexual Stages. Retrieved November 16, 2016.
Psychodynamic and Humanistic Therapy. (2016). Retrieved November 20, 2016.
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8. Psych 150 WFR Ma. Victoria Ty Cruz
Tuesday, November 29, 2016 2015-89009
PART 2: My Own Personality Theory - The Environmentalistic Theory
Majority of my personality theory is built and based upon my childhood experiences. When I
was just five years old, my family had moved to Bangkok, Thailand for two and a half years. After that,
my family then moved to Mumbai, India for another two and a half years. Thus, five years of my
childhood was spent outside of the Philippines; five years spent in countries that I had never been to
nor known about, because I was so young and naive. Reflecting back, having lived outside the country
in an early age has had a lot of influence on who I am today, and specifically, how my personality and
behaviours came to be throughout my life. Living in Bangkok and Mumbai helped me realise how
powerful one’s environment can be.
Firstly, I believe that all our personality traits, such as one’s temper, gender, age, IQ, coping
skills, and talent, have a genetic basis to them. In this case, I do agree with McCrae and Costa, wherein
they believed that personality had core components of personality, the first being basic tendencies.
Basic tendencies are the universal raw material of personality, which are inherited and have a biological
basis. These are stable and enduring throughout one’s life and refers to how we learn, specifically our
talent, intelligence, and aptitude.
Apart from basic tendencies, I believe that most of one’s personality is largely shaped by the
environment. For me, I see one’s environment as consisting of three factors: parents, school, and
culture.
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9. *made by Mavie Cruz on Photoshop
Figure 1: Factors consisting of Environment
Figure 1 simply shows what I think consists of one’s environment. The first factor, a child’s
parent, can affect the ways in which the child grows up. The parents’ education level, race, religion, all
play a role in how the parent will act and care for the child. As with school, one’s classmates, teachers,
and friends all have the power to shape one’s personality. The third factor, culture, also contributes to
one’s overall personality. Morals, values, and attitudes that a person learns comes from the culture from
which they are from or surrounded by.
*made by Mavie Cruz on Photoshop
Figure 2: How Factors Play a Role in One’s Lifespan
Figure 2 shows how I think these three environmental factors play out in one’s life. In the
earliest stages of life, I believe that parents hold the most influence over the child. They are the ones
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10. that hold the beginnings of they child’s personality, as they create the foundation of one’s actions and
behaviours. This is because children tend to pattern themselves after their parents, through observing
their behaviour, which is why I highly agree with Bandura’s social cognitive theory. Bandura states that
children learn through observational learning; more specifically, through modelling. Bandura believes
that modelling involves cognitive processes, and it is not simply an imitation or matching the action of
another. It involves symbolically representing information, and storing it for use, which is what I think
children do whenever they observe their parents. As children grow up, they tend to adapt their parents’
likes and dislikes and their ideas and values. Whatever the parent does, children can imitate their
attitudes and mannerisms, which is why childhood upbringing plays a huge role in shaping a child.
Whatever the parents says or do, the child is likely to follow - which is why parents need to be cautious
in what they do or say. For example, I remember my mom would get angry at my dad whenever he
cursed in front of us and had bad temper. This is because she did not want us to hear our dad cuss in
front of us because she believed that we could copy him and have a bad temper as well.
As seen in Figure 2, once a child reaches the age of around 5-6 years, I believe that most of the
power that the child’s parents has over them now transfers to school and culture. However, this does
not meant that the child’s parents has no influence whatsoever over their child; the timeline just shows
which factor plays the biggest role at which age. Even though the arrow stops at five years for the
parents, it just means that I don’t think it is the main factor of the environment influencing the child
anymore, but parents still do have influence five years later or any succeeding years after that. Thus, by
five years of age, I think that a person’s core values and beliefs are thus mostly influenced by one’s
culture and school.
Whoever a child interacts with in school, whether that be the teacher, friends, or classmates - all
of this has an affect on how we behave and how we act. As we go to school, we are influenced day in
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11. and day out. The books we read, the movies we watch, the things are friends talk about, or basically
anything that delivers information, has a huge influence on our behaviour and personality, because I
believe human society thrives on people trading and exchanging ideas with one another. I also think
that conformity is most likely to happen at this stage in one’s life because as children, we tend to act the
way we see how others act, just so we feel a sense of belongingness and feel we are part of something.
Specifically, I again agree with what McCrae and Costa discussed in their five-factor theory,
wherein characteristic adaptations are one of the core components of personality. Characteristic
adaptations are acquired personality structures that develop as people adapt to their environment, thus
they are shaped by external influence. These fluctuate and are subject to change over a person’s
lifetime, and differs from culture to culture. Characteristics adaptations refer to what we learn, rather
then how we learn, and thus they are culturally conditioned phenomena, personal strivings, and
attitudes. And thus, we learn these characteristic adaptations through school and culture. This is what
tells us how we should behave and act in certain situations.
In line with Figure 2 of one’s lifespan, I do think that Erikson’s psychosocial stages are
representative of what a child goes through in life. More specifically, I want to emphasise his first four
stages; infancy, early childhood, play age, and the school age. These four stages I think set the
foundation of one’s personality and behaviours. In infancy, the significant relations of an infant is to
their mother, and this stage is characterised by basic trust vs mistrust as the psychosocial crisis. This
stage is crucial to a child because a child is able to develop feeling of trust or mistrust if they realise
that their mother can provide for them regularly.
The significant relations in the early childhood stage are one’s parents, with the psychosocial
criss because autonomy vs shame and doubt. This is where children learn to express themselves
independently; however, parents may shame their children for expressing themselves. For example, a
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12. three year old who insists on dressing herself every morning for school always mismatches her outfit,
and thus the mother insists to dress her child, but the child wants to do it on his or her own. Thus, when
parents let children perform actions on their own, it allows for the child to learn and express his or
herself.
In the play age, the significant relations would be family. Moreover, the psychosocial criss in
this stage is initiative vs guilt, which allows for the child to have a head-on mode of approaching the
world. In the school age, wherein industry vs inferiority is the psychosocial crisis, children are able to
learn to keep themselves busy and to work hard. However, if their work is insufficient to accomplish
their goals, they acquire a sense of inferiority, which isn’t necessarily a negative thing because allows
for children become aware of how much they can accomplish in a certain situation or amount of time.
The school age, I think, is the most important stage, in terms of the environment having the most
influence on a child. The significant relations at this stage would be school (i.e. friends, teachers,
classmates), which means children can use their energies to learn from those around them.
Moreover, I believe that the culture in which a children grow up in to also be a major factor of
establishing a child’s personality. Culture has a major influence in shaping personality because cultural
traits that are learned by the individual as an infant are reinterpreted and reinforced as the individual
goes through its stages of life. Body language, world view, gender roles, concepts of justice and time,
cooperation, competitiveness, friendship, and power, all play a role in shaping a child’s personality.
This is the reason why if you go from one culture to another, people from different cultures have
different personalities. For example, this is most exemplified with collectivist and individualist
countries. If a child grows up in an individualist country (e.g. United States and the United Kingdom),
the child grows up feeling in a “fend-for-yourself” environment, because individualist countries
emphasizes personal achievement and strong competition. They grow up realizing that being dependent
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13. on others is a weakness and not a strength, and thus, independence is valued. This starkly contrasts with
collectivist nations, who has a “we” identity. The child grows up with values of selflessness and
togetherness, and realizes that working and cooperating with others is the social norm. This is also
where the the rights of a family or community supersedes the right of an individual. Thus, I believe that
the differences between people in different societies are usually cultural differences imparted in
childhood.
*made by Mavie Cruz on photoshop
Figure 3: The Receptive-Unreceptive Spectrum
Figure 3 shows the interaction between people/culture and a person. As we exchange information
(such as ideas, beliefs, values, and attitudes), a person uses cognitive processes to take this all in and
make their own sense out of it. However, I believe there is a spectrum that can explain this, which
basically measures how receptive or unreceptive a person is to such information and ideas. Thus, a
receptive person is able to consider and accept the things around them, such as people and their
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14. culture. They are open, are willing, and are very responsive to the ideas, impressions, or suggestions.
On the the other hand, an unreceptive person does not have an open mind like a receptive person, as
they block off any new ideas, beliefs impressions, or suggestions that they get around them. For
example, when I had moved to India, I was very unreceptive with Indian customs and norms. In India,
the most known type of communication to say “Yes” was bobbing your head from left to right. As a
young child, I grew up thinking that if you turn your head side to side, that meant a “no”. However, in
India, bobbing your head from left to right, actually meant “yes,” something which took me a while to
understand and accept for a long time. Lastly, those who fall in the middle are somewhat open to the
ideas around them, but are confused with how to process the information given to them.
However, being receptive and unreceptive is not black and white. A person is not just completely
receptive or non-receptive, as this scale is on a continuum. It is bipolar, which means that people can
either be on the extreme end of either receptiveness or unreceptiveness (two opposing poles), but
people can also fall in the middle.
Lastly, as seen in Figure 2, when a person is around forty-five years (i.e. adulthood), I do
believe that people do make their own choices and grow beyond the people and culture they grew up
in. Thus, I think that one’s adulthood is just an extension of his or her childhood experiences, which is
why it is one’s childhood experiences that determines how their adult self will behave and be like. This
means that healthy, nurturing families produce more well-adjusted adults, whereas dysfunctional
families may produce confused adults who have a harder time adapting to life. Moreover, in terms of
McCrae and Costa’s characteristic adaptations, which they say fluctuates over one’s life, I believe that
this stays stable and is resistant to change when we reach adulthood.
Ultimately, I think that most of our personality is formed through the accumulation of life
experiences. Thus, though a small part of our personality is set in stone, I believe that people can
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15. choose to be what they wish to be. People have the power to shape their behaviour; it is up to them how
they react to whatever is around them, and how much they will let external forces influence their self-
identity. I also think behaviour and personality is more casual than teleological because behaviour is a
function of past experiences, in the sense that, whatever happens to us in our childhood, affects who we
are when we become adults. Moreover, I think that people are more ordinarily aware of what they are
doing. I also emphasize social factors over biological factors as having the most influence in our
personality; it is our social relationships, our exchanges with culture and people, that determines who
we are. However, I don’t disregard biological basis having an influence over one’s personality, as it
does, especially with one’s IQ, gender, talent, and temper. Despite this, I still do stand by the fact that it
is our environment that holds the most influence over our personality and behaviour. Lastly, I believe
that people are all unique; we are all a combination of traits and characteristics that makes each and
every person a unique individual.
Works Cited
Feist, J., Feist, G. J., & Roberts, T. (2002). Theories of Personality. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Collectivist and Individualist Cultures. (n.d.). Retrieved November 25, 2016.
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