I'm studying
Maslow and Humanistic Psychology and finding it very
intriguing; I love this list, as featured on
this youtube video:
Characteristics of a Self Actualized Person
1. Realistic: realistically oriented, a self actualizing person has more efficient perception of reality and has comfortable relations with it; this is extended to all areas of life. A self actualizing person is
unthreatened and
unfrightened by the unknown; he has a superior ability to reason, to see the truth and is logical and efficient.
2. Self Acceptance: accepts himself, others, in the natural world the way they are; sees human nature as is; has a lack of crippling guilt or shame; enjoys himself without regret or apology and has no unnecessary inhibitions.
3. Spontaneity, Simplicity, Naturalness: spontaneous in his inner life; thoughts and impulses are unhampered by convention; his ethics are autonomous and self actualizing individuals are motivated to continual growth.
4. Focus of Problem Centering: a self actualizing person focuses on problems and people outside of himself; he has a mission in life requiring much energy as it is his sole reason for existence; he is serene, characterized by a lack of worry and is devoted to duty.
5. Detachment, the need for privacy: the self actualized person can be alone and not be lonely; is unflappable and retains dignity among confusion and personal misfortunes, all the while remaining objective; he is a self starter, is responsible for himself and owns his behaviour.
6. Autonomy: independent of culture and environment; the self actualized person has a fresh, rather than a stereotyped appreciation of people and the basic good in life; moment to moment, living for him is thrilling, transcending and spiritual, as he lives the present moment to the fullest.
7. Peak Experiences: feelings of limitless horizons, opening up to the vision: the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before; the feeling of ecstasy and wonder and awe; the loss of placement in time and space, with finally the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent, transformed and strengthened, even in his daily life by such experiences.
8. Inter Personal Relations: identification, sympathy, affection for mankind, kinship with the good, bad and ugly, are all traits of the self actualized person; truth is clear to him, as he can see things others cannot; he has profound, intimate relationships with few and is capable of greater love than others consider possible as he shares his benevolence, affection and friendliness with everyone.
9. Democratic Values and Attitudes: able to learn from anyone; humble; friendly with anyone regardless of class, education, political belief, race or colour.
10. Discrimination between means and ends and between good and evil: the self actualized person does not confuse between means and ends and does no wrong; he enjoys the hear and now, getting to goal, not just the result; he makes the most tedious task an enjoyable game and has him own inner moral standards, appearing immoral to others.
11. Philosophical,
Unhostile sense of humour: jokes to the self actualized person are teaching metaphors, intrinsic to the situation and are spontaneous: he can laugh at himself, but he never makes jokes that hurt others.
12. Creativity: the self actualized person enjoys an inborn uniqueness that carries over into everything he does; is original, inventive, uninhibited and he sees the real and true more easily.
13. Resistance to
Inculturation: transcendence of any particular culture; self actualized people have an inner detachment from culture, although folkways may be observed, self actualized people are not controlled by them; working for long term cultural improvement, indignation with injustice, inner autonomy, outer acceptance and the ability to transcend the environment, rather than just cope, are intrinsic to self actualized people.
14. Imperfections: self actualized people are painfully aware of their own imperfections and joyfully aware of their own growth process; they are impatient with themselves when stuck and feel real life pain as a result.
15. Values: the self actualized person is realistically human due to philosophical acceptance of self, human nature, social life, physical reality and nature.
16. Resolution of
Diconomies: polar opposites merge into a third, higher phenomenon, as though the two have united, therefore, opposite forces are no longer felt as conflict; to the self actualized person, work becomes play and desires are in excellent accord with reason; the self actualized person retains his child like qualities, yet is very wise.
