The move from selfish motivation to unselfish motivation

Once our physiological needs, our need for safety, our need for love and our need for esteem are being satisfied on a regular basis, we become aware of a need for something more. If we have not become confident in our ability to satisfy those needs ourselves, this can present itself as a life crisis. We start asking questions like; "What was it all for? What does it all mean?" All our needs are being satisfied but they start to feel petty and unworthy. If we have truly become confident in our ability to provide for those needs, then we will start to become other motivated or motivated by what Maslow calls meta needs or aesthetic needs or being needs. It is almost as if our self concept grows to absorb others who become part of our self.

"Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time." Pablo Picasso

 SYNERGY ,   DICHOTOMY TRANSCENDENCE,   LIFE MISSION.

Maslow struggled with three concepts to try and explain a phenomenon for which we had no real words in our language. They are synergy, dichotomy transcendence, and life mission.

First, synergy is about how ideas and actions of people can complement and coordinate with each other towards mutual benefit. If I take food from you, I have the food and you do not have the food. No synergy has taken place. If, on the other hand, you and I cooperate to get food, I have food and you have food too. Synergy has taken place. Cooperation is the most primitive form of synergy. Synergy is why humans can live together without killing each other and to the extent humans fail to do this is a failure to implement synergy. In fact synergy means mostly an action or attitude which is mutually advantageous to all parties involved. If synergy exists between you and me, what is in my best interest, is also in your best interest. If synergy exists between me and the world, what is in my best interest is in the world's best interest and vice versa.

"No man can help another without helping himself." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Second, dichotomy transcendence is the principle where two ideas which seemed opposite come together to form a single idea. Dichotomy transcendence illustrates the synergy of opposites. Take selfishness and unselfishness. If we give what we have to others and we benefit by others liking us more and being willing to help us more. Are we being selfish or unselfish? Even if nobody knows and we are rewarded in heaven, we can still ask the question, "Are we being selfish or unselfish?" In fact the concepts of selfishness and unselfishness have been transcended.

When meta needs become the primary motivators, it seems further dichotomy transcendence becomes possible for many pairs of opposite concepts, culminating in the transcendence of the self and the not-self. In order to satisfy our lower or deficiency needs, we first have to define what is our self, where it ends and where the not-self begins. When the meta needs take hold this definition of the self begins to become fuzzy again.

"A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle." Benjamin Franklin

Maslow had a lot to say about this transcendence as follows:

"This introjection means that the self has enlarged to include aspects of the world and that therefore the distinction between the self and the not-self (outside, other) has been transcended."

"If justice or truth or lawfulness have now become so important to him that he identifies his self with them, then where are they? Inside his skin or outside his skin? This distinction comes close to being meaningless at this point because his self no longer has his skin as its boundary. The inner light has become the outer light."

"For instance, we know that it is possible for a person to get more pleasure (selfish? unselfish?) out of food through having his child eat it than by eating it with his own mouth. His self has enlarged enough to include his child. Hurt his child and you hurt him."

"Just as beloved people can be incorporated into the self, become defining characteristics of it, so can beloved causes and values be similarly incorporated into a person's self. Many people, for instance are so passionately identified with trying to prevent war, or racial injustice or slums, or poverty that they are quite willing to make great sacrifices, even to the point of risking death. And very clearly, they don't mean justice for their biological bodies alone. Something personal has become bigger than the body. They mean justice for everyone, justice as a principle. Attack upon the B-Values is then also an attack upon any person incorporating those values into his self. Such an attack becomes a personal insult."

Third, life mission is that which gives our lives purpose and meaning that goes beyond what we normally call the self. Self actualized people normally find a focus for their actions for the implementation of various meta needs. This means choosing among the meta needs grading their personal importance and correlating them with the person's own abilities to make them realizable. In other words self actualized people define for themselves a life mission. They develop a passion to devote themselves to this life mission such that they can be said to be spending most of their time in their element. This is not something that is impossible, but rather something they know that they can accomplish, and it is through the accomplishing of this mission that they are able to satisfy their meta needs. This life mission is usually an extension of early deep interest which has become a passion or an obsession. In our youth these passions or obsessions are not the driving force in our lives and only become the driving force in our lives when most of our deficiency needs seem to be being satisfied.

When people are being mostly motivated by meta needs (those needs listed below) Maslow describes them as having become self actualized. Not all of these needs need to be active at once and certainly are not active to the same extent.

Morality and inherent moral values. 
There has now been gathered an impressive array of scientific evidence that humans have evolved a universal moral instinct. In his book "Moral Minds" Marc D. Hauser presents evidence from the latest findings in cognitive psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, economics and anthropology to the effect that man is propelled to deliver judgments of right and wrong independent of culture, race, education and religion. This is in keeping with Maslow's proposal that humans experience needs above and beyond the deprivation needs and provides more evidence for these meta-needs.

In western society people seem to believe, for the most part, that children are a blank slate and thus need to be taught morals and values. They believe that children need instruction in what it is to be moral and how to be moral. But research has uncovered that morality and thus values are genetically determined. Morals and values (as Maslow suspected) are determinants of genetic viability. Some are viable for the individual but all are viable for our species as a whole. Far from needing to be taught morals children need to be protected from environmental influences that can and will distort and corrupt the implementation or actualization of this moral potential.

These are the meta needs.

Though any list of meta needs must necessarily be incomplete as meta needs overlap and split into any number of needs. The ones given here are the ones Maslow mainly used. Maslow does not usually refer to these as needs but rather as values or expressions of our ultimate ability to actualize ourselves. These are the qualities yearned for, not just by self-actualized people but of all human beings at their deepest levels.

The need to be and to become whole. 

In expressing all we can be, a unity is required, an inclusion and integration of all parts into a oneness of ordered structure. This is not only desired by self-actualized people but comes about almost as a by-product of how they conduct themselves. Untroubled by needs at the lower levels, self-actualized people make better choices. They choose better (healthier) food to eat, they attract better partners in life, they are surrounded by better friends, they are able to create opportunity out of any vocation, making their achievements more suitable and appropriate. Furthermore, they choose to follow paths that do not promote inner conflict. These choices lead naturally to better use of their abilities. They maintain a healthy body and attain psychological integration and unity. Everything they embrace works together in synergy. This is not only true within the self-actualized person's self but is also true in their interaction with the world.

This whole referred to above, is actually more like what Arthur Koestler refers to as a holon in his book "The Ghost in the Machine". A holon is the word he uses to describe a dichotomy transcendence of the concepts of part and whole. Each whole becomes part of yet a greater whole and that whole is part of yet a greater whole again. A bodily organ is a whole made up of cell parts. A human is a whole made up of organ parts. A society is a whole made up of human parts. Thus each whole is a part and each part is a whole of something larger. They are a part whole or a whole part or a holon.

Because the self in self-actualized people reaches out beyond their skin to include other people and meta need values what is beneficial for them is beneficial for others or for society at large. Thus there is a synergy between them and the world that is not activated in people who are not self-actualized. Self-actualized people eat what they like and what they like is good for them. They do what they want and they can do so because what they want is good for the world.

The need for perfection 

In expressing all we can be, everything must be in its right place, nothing must be lacking and nothing must be there that does not need to be. All self-actualized person's efforts are geared toward improvement until no more improvement can be made. They seek suitability and perfection in themselves and everything else. Of course perfection is only temporary. What is perfect today is imperfect tomorrow so that the improvement in self-actualized people and the world where they are interacting with it is continual and develops ever increasing synergy both within themselves and between themselves and the world. By improving themselves they improve the world and by improving the world they improve themselves.

The need for completion. 

In expressing all we can be, consummation is paramount. self-actualized people can find no rest when something is incomplete. They must reach the climax to obtain closure in whatever they do. They must finish what they start, and this includes their own development. If they believe they have a destiny, they must fulfill that destiny. Self-actualized people set their own goals so they know where they need to go. Thus they see the end in view. They learn how to get there with the least amount of fuss. Obstacles do not deter them. Only death will prevent them from finishing, and not always then, for they will try to arrange for others to finish their work if they see death coming. This persistence is the very heart of the synergy within themselves and is the dependability of their synergy with the world.

The need for justice. 

In expressing all we can be, fairness and impartiality in the way things ought to be is required and inevitable for self-actualized people. Justice for the self-actualized person is not only justice for themselves or their family or friends. It is justice as a principle; justice as a way of life. Self-actualized people believe in the dichotomy transcendence of justice. They believe that if it is "just" for them it must be "just" for others. It must be just for all. By working for justice for a few, they are working for justice as a principle. Thus when they seek justice for themselves, it will benefit all. Or alternatively, if they seek justice for a stranger it will benefit themselves.

The need for complexity and chaos. 

In expressing all we can we be, we are drawn toward complexity and chaos. Self-actualized people in their desire for newness, uniqueness and creativity are attracted to complexity and chaos because it is only from chaos and complexity that a new order and simplicity can be forged. The very act of creation is one of taking chaos and giving it order; of taking complexity and simplifying it. Uniqueness does not come from orderly progression, but from fragmented intuitive leaps, where chaos is the raw material of a new order, and similarly complexity is the raw material of a new simplicity. It is only because self-actualized people do not fear disorder and intricacy, that they can approach it and find the beauty, order and simplicity within it.

The need for core simplicity and order. 

In expressing all we can be, what is prized is the essential skeletal structure or understanding of simple inner truths. Ornamentation and the unnecessary are striped away by self-actualized people so that they can get at the heart of the matter. This accounts for a certain bluntness and inability to suffer fools gladly. The self-actualized person sees complexity as a fog that hides both beauty and the essential truth of things by obscuring them, rendering them unintelligible to others. Self-actualized people have no tolerance for confusion and will strip away this unnecessary complexity to pare everything back to what is essential thus making it as clear as possible. When we make things unintelligible we are hording knowledge as surely as if we censor it. Because of the synergy between self-actualized people and all other people, the hording of knowledge in any form is an anathema for them. Simplicity and essentiality thus presented by self-actualized people then allow other humans to understand and and so benefit.

The need for richness. 

In expressing all we can be, both complexity and simplicity, chaos and order are transcended to give rise to a rich variety of life. There is such intensity in everything a self-actualized person does that we may be tempted to think of them as being obsessive. But in fact the reverse is true as self-actualized people do not have a single focus but rather focus on many things. To these many things the self-actualized person applies himself fully in the moment of doing. If it is worth doing, it has his full attention and effort. For example it could be a small thing like setting the table or something huge like saving the world. The self-actualized person loves, concentrates on and works at a rich variety things. For the self-actualized person each task is the most important while he is working on it. This inner focus reflects inner synergy of all parts working together for their mutual benefit. In the world this means everything the self-actualized person does contributes to the richness of life.

The need for beauty. 

In expressing all we can be, what is most enjoyed is beauty, for beauty is the expression of all the other values. The well known values such as rightness, simplicity, richness, wholeness, perfection, completeness, uniqueness, vitality and honesty in physical form all contribute to beauty. self-actualized people are great admirers of beauty, but do not feel the need to possess it, only to be surrounded by it. Yet beauty, it is said, is in the eye of the beholder. What is beautiful for one person may be ugly to another. What embodies meta values for one person may be obnoxious for another. Although having said that, there is an area of overlap where most people recognize or commonly accept beauty. Again surprisingly, self-actualized people's taste in beauty tends to be both within this conservative or well recognized area of beauty and yet be uncaring of social convention and current fashion. Their taste is both idiosyncratic and yet fundamentally conservative in creating or accepting what is beautiful.

Ultimately beauty is itself an expression of dichotomy transcendence where two mutually exclusive opposites merge to become a single idea. The rules of design, of balance, of color harmony, of style are all incorporated with such transcendence and yet violated in some unique way. A simple example of a bonsai tree will show this to be so. It is stunted and off-symmetrical yet embodies a simplistic beauty. Beauty can also be expressed by the fractal which approaches regularity but never actually becomes regular. Some people see mathematics as an expression of the beautiful harmony of the world yet mathematical models of the world have to contend with the fact that the real world is not quite symmetrical. Where beauty is expressed in action one comes back to the ideas of synergy where the universe bends to make ideas and actions complement and coordinate with each other for mutual benefit. Beauty gives us a reason to function with the universe and benefit from the universe.

The need for things to be right and good. 

In expressing all we can be what we want to be is right and good. Goodness has been so overused and misused by humanity that we feel stupid to use the word, yet we have no other word to substitute for what we most love, are attracted to, and approve of. This rightness and goodness is central in every self-actualized person's life. While others sometimes seem to admire those who get away with things that are bad, self-actualized people cannot. While others tend to substitute poor and bad qualities in order to satisfy their needs, this is seen as violating a self-actualized person's principles. Even in the worst of people there is some desire to be good. Freed as they are from any need to be bad self-actualized people cannot help but be and do good.

We all recognize goodness. It is exemplified by the parable of the good Samaritan. It is helping others without thought of reward. It is helping when it places ourselves in danger by doing so. It is the code of knighthood where the strong must defend those that cannot defend themselves. Self-actualized people cannot help but act in this manner because their self is enlarged to include others and goodness it self as part of their self. Yet for all that goodness is rewarding. When we do good we get an immense feeling of well being and that is only the beginning. People who do good are held in the highest esteem and are often honored for their good works. The whole universe seems so constructed that synergy always develops rewards for acts of goodness.

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations in life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." Ralph Waldo Emmerson

The need for uniqueness. 

In expressing all we can be what we want to be is like nothing else. self-actualized people desire this individuality far more than the rest of us, they yearn for novelty and revel in idiosyncrasy. They are each unique and this is what they desire to be. It is because we fear that we will not be accepted, that we will not be able to belong, to find friends and lovers, that we try to be the same. In trying to be the same, we try to do the same things, to like the same things yet it is our differences our uniqueness that truly makes us interesting and acceptable. It is uniqueness that allows us to belong and to find a lover we do not have to evade the truth with. There is, of course, a dichotomy transcendence involved here. Self-actualizing people are both the same as one another in their values yet each is unique. They are more fully human, in that they are what all humans would like to be, yet again, they are each radically different and unafraid to be different. In them sameness and uniqueness are transcended. Though they stand apart they fit in better than average humans.

The need for things and self to function well. 

In expressing all we can be we desire to do what we do in such a way as to be perfectly in tune with it. Though the doing requires effort the abilities of self-actualized people are such that for a while the effort and the abilities are so matched as to produce a continuous flow of motion. Self-actualized people not only wish to achieve this state of flow, they actually manage to quite often achieve it especially when they are working. Thus they may attain a grace and beauty that is in all things that function well. When self-actualized people do this the world around them takes on a grace and beauty of functioning well also. This grace and beauty of functioning well is also to be found in their friends and lovers as they too are encouraged to function well and that it is easier to function well when you are around self-actualized people. Of course self-actualized people are attracted to others of their kind, and so this is self-reinforcing. The synergy in self actuating people and the synergy between them and the world around them is itself a finely tuned beautifully functioning mechanism once it is in place.

The need for humor and playfulness.   

In expressing all we can be we cannot help but laugh and enjoy ourselves. Self-actualized people are not always serious minded. It is because they are so serious sometimes that they need much relief from seriousness and so they are playful, joyful and adept at having fun. Their humor is not the harsh sick humor of the disturbed and bigoted but rather a gentle chiding at the absurdity of the world. The seriousness yet lightheartedness of self-actualized people is yet another example how dichotomy transcendence is achieved in self-actuating people. The very seriousness of their commitment in life requires that they are able to be joyful. Consider all the great serious plays of Shakespeare are dotted with humor for relief. This need may in fact be the most important of all meta needs as it is the the one that develops earliest and is to be found in all normal. children. It is the play in playfulness that is perhaps most important. John Holt talks about the healing power of schools like "Summerhill" and attributes a lot of it to the reemergence of and encouragement of play. Here are a few excerpts of John Holt's words from his introduction to "Open Education - The Informal Classroom".

"The Plowden Report discusses at length why play is important and useful for children, as their natural and effective way of understanding the world around them and their place and possibilities in it... One might feel, reading the report that play is fine for little children, and even the best thing for them, but that after a while they must out grow it and learn more "serious" or "adult" ways of learning. This would be a great mistake."

"The ordinary 'serious', non-playful man cannot escape things as they are; though he is always talking about 'facing reality', he is as trapped by this notion of reality as any rat in a cage. For him whatever is, is all there can be. The playful man is always saying and cannot help saying, 'But suppose things weren't this way, didn't have to be this way. Lets just for the fun of it imagine what might happen if this were different, if we did that instead of this...'."

"Serious people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious." Paul Valery

The need for truth.   

In expressing all we can be what we want to know is what is true and what we want of people is honesty. Self-actualized people are honest and truthful unless they deem it dangerous to the world. In return they expect others to be honest. They also strive to get closer and closer to the truth of reality. Truth and honesty are of course just another way of seeking to reveal knowledge. How can self-actualized people do good, achieve perfection, function effortlessly, be just or complete what they set out to do, if they do not know what is true? Because their self is enlarged to include part of the external world they cannot help but want these thing for others as well as themselves and so they cannot help but seek truth for themselves and others as well. By being truthful and trying to encourage it in others they often help to make the world clearer or more transparent and people better. When they do this knowledge is shared and made to work for the mutual benefit of all. Truth is the instrument that forges synergy.

The need for self-sufficiency.   

In expressing all we can be we need nothing and no one. Self-actualized people having become completely confident in their ability to satisfy all their worldly needs cease to be dependent in any way. While others may remain dependent in some way all their lives and not feel the need to gain the competence necessary to escape this, self-actuating people will not rest until they are dependent on no one. They live by their own laws and their own moral code and they can do this because their morals and their laws are always better than those of society. It is their morals and their laws that both hold society together by propping it up yet continue to improve society by criticizing it. Because they wish not to be dependent they try to wean others from dependence and because they wish to be independent of society they try to make society strong enough to do with out their help. This is so great a task however that it is unlikely that society will ever reach a state where it will not benefit from the action of self-actualized people. However, there is a certain paradox at play here. Just because self actualizers do not need others does not mean they do not want others, nor does it mean they do not form mutually dependent relationships. It simply means they can survive the loss of people because they the are motivated by higher, more important values. 

The need for creativity.

In expressing all we can be we cannot help but be creative. Self-actualized people are not passive people, they are active people, who want change and change for the better. Self-actualized people have ideas, are innovative and entrepreneurial, and need to be, to change the world as they do. There is creativity in everything they do from big things to small things. This is not always the creativity we associate with art like painting or sculpture or even movies (though it can be) it is more a general approach to life. The main difference between the creativity of self actualized people and the creativity of others is its outward focus. While the creativity of others may express their inner self and show great technical skill, the creativity of self-actualized people does that but also helps people and improves the world. Of course it can be said that this is also true of some great works of art produced by people that were clearly not self-actualized. But all that means is that sometimes great artists can achieve this synergy with the world that self-actualized people achieve effortlessly almost all the time. Creativity has its roots in playfulness chaos and order. It is an outgrowth of, or the natural maturing of play. John Holt makes this abundantly clear in his introduction to "Open Education - The Informal Classroom".

"More important, what makes our truly inventive and creative thinkers, whether political, artistic, or scientific, what sets them apart from the great run of us, is above all that they can still play with their minds. They have not forgotten how to do it nor grown ashamed nor afraid of it. They like it, and they do it every chance they have. It is as natural to them as breathing."

"He plays for fun, ready to discard as useless and without regret, as he has many times in the past, most of the ideas that come to him. When a good one comes along, then a more directed thinking may begin less like what the ordinary man calls 'play', and more like what he would call 'work', though to the truly creative person there is no difference."

"If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play." John Cleese

The need to work at some great task.  

In expressing all we can be what is normally needed is a focus to energize our efforts. Self-actualized people seem to develop a passion for some great task outside themselves which they use as a vehicle to satisfy or express all their meta-needs. This is their work or their life mission or being in their element as explained above. In this outside expression or identification self-actualized people transcend the dichotomy between work and play. Because this is what they most passionately want to do, they see no difference between it and play. (They do it for their enjoyment when they are not getting paid, yet they often and usually do get paid for it.) Their work is their play, and their play is their work. Thus they are willing to work hard and go the extra mile. They have a burning desire to succeed. They are willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish their mission. This life mission is different for each person but usually allows many of the same things to be accomplished to improve the world.

Self-actualized people have clear definite goals.

They know what they want and want to do.

They are highly motivated towards achieving those ends.

Their strong desire produces great and powerful results.

They go out and do things other people say can't be done.

They are not easily deflected from their great task by the opinions of others.

They take great pleasure and satisfaction in accomplishing their great task.

Abraham Maslow put it like this in 'The Farther Reaches of Human Nature'.

"At this level the dichotomizing of work and play is transcended; wages, hobbies, vacations, etc., must be defined at a higher level."

"Such vocation-loving individuals tend to identify (introject, incorporate) with their 'work' and to make it a defining-characteristic of the self. It becomes part of the self."

This may perhaps not really be a need and Maslow himself never included it as one. It may simply be the inevitable and most successful strategy for humans to implement and satisfy their meta-needs.

The need to know. 

In expressing all we can be we still need to know. The curiosity of self-actualized people is in some ways like that of a new born baby yet it holds no fear that the world holds no regularities or discoverable structural invariants. Indeed perhaps it is just another way of approaching the truth of reality. The main reason for including the need to know here is the very difference between it and the initial selfish and self centered need to know that was necessary for the learning of the skills that enable the lower needs to be satisfied by the self. This being need to know not only has no fear of irregularities in the universe, but also is not inner directed to the satisfaction of lower needs. It is a need to know for itself and so that it can be shared with others. It is a need to know so the world can be improved. It is a need to know so that things may be perfected, completed and made effortless. It is the need to know for the building of Popper's world 3. It is the need to know so that knowledge is not horded or destroyed but passed unerringly on to our descendants. It may be a need developed over time by the gradual expansion and refinement of interest. But it it is indistinguishable from curiosity. 

Self theories releasing your children's desire to satisfy his/her metaneeds.  Most parents have difficulty in letting go of their children. All the other needs can be satisfied by a parent thus encouraging children to be dependent. Metaneeds, however, can not be satisfied by others. Sure parents try to impart moral values to their children by being role models but those moral values will never become metaneeds if they do not flourish in the child's life environment.

Facilitating meta needs.

Letting go as allowing children to grow and become. Most parents have difficulty in letting go of their children. The problem occurs because parents initially have to satisfy all their children's needs because because human babies are born unable to satisfy almost all of their own needs. Parents have to change from doing everything for their infants to somehow standing back and letting their children satisfy their own needs. This is not only very difficult for parents but most parents have poor role model examples of how to do it in their own parents. However, it is only by allowing children to satisfy their own needs at each step in Maslow's hierarchy that they will be able to move up the hierarchy becoming motivated by needs higher up on the hierarchy. If parents want their children to become self actualized (and they should) they need to find better role models and find ways to let their children go.

Moving from esteem needs to meta needs. To get to the sef-actualized level the level of meta needs the final step is to move from the need for esteem to the need for meta values. This does involve praise but only the right kind of praise will help in lessening the need for esteem that will allow the meta needs to flourish and become prominent in motivating.

Praise and being the right kind of role model. 

Parents often seem to think that being good role models and using praise will move their children towards these meta values. They are right in their belief that being themselves good, just, creative etc., will help in allowing their children to likewise become so motivated but praise not so much. 

We use praise because it seems as if it should give our children the esteem they need to overcome the last rung of the hierarchy and allow themselves to be meta motivated. But as explained elsewhere, for esteem needs to be felt as being satisfied by each persons own efforts, it has to be earned by the child not given to the child by others regardless of the child's actions. Unearned praise is not esteem, it is a false construct, a pale superficial shadow esteem.

Fixed Mindset. The trouble is that praise of moral values and actions is usually of the sort that informs children that they are beautiful, good, honest, just, creative etc. tends to focus children's minds on 'what their values are' fixing their view of their values then and forever as unchangingly frozen into whatever that judgment was. This in turn provides a standard to live up to, which needs to be demonstrated often and well. This is a 'fixed mindset'. This produces a superficial skin deep kind of values.

Growth Mindset. However, if parents are willing to praise children a little differently they will be able to focus the children's minds on how things change and in particular on how they are able to change for the better. If instead of praising what children are, we instead praise how they have improved or how much effort they have made, or their strategies, parents can provide children with a mindset that encourages continuous expansion of talents toward the actualization of their ultimate potential or maybe even change that potential for the better. Parents who say things like, "Wow you have really put a lot of work into that" or "You're so much faster than you were just a few day ago." are giving their children an edge. This edge will enable them to change continuously and easily and thus continue to learn and build new knowledge and skills. Thus they will be able to provide works and actions that make them worthy of having esteem bestowed on them and to building true meta needs. This is a 'growth mindset'. For more on this see the self-theories page.

Other Praise. Praise of the child's work will be less damaging than praise of the person. But it is necessary to provide children with feedback both negative and positive. In fact positive feedback is essential in alerting children to the fact they are moving in the right direction, but it has been shown to increase children's intrinsic motivation and also help children feel they deserve to be held in high esteem. Praising the work provides children with information about what others like and what is held by peers and significant others to be worthy of praise. This positive feedback needs to be given in a form that promotes a growth mindset not a fixed one. Saying things like, "I liked the color and intensity in that work. It shows great improvement over your previous efforts." or "That's beautiful work. You have really mastered this technique since I last saw your work." or "You played a fantastic game today. Your new strategy was well thought out." are good ways to shore up children's esteem.

Conditional and unconditional esteem. It is not enough to just know how to provide your children with esteem. A good parent firstly satisfies directly the esteem needs of those in their care while they are babies and unable to satisfy their own esteem needs. Parents should be careful, the praise, the expressions of delight, and the beliefs they confer on children are for actions of worth and more importantly for actions the child has performed of his own volition and desire and not just what the parent desires. Otherwise esteem is not really being given but rather held to ransom. Later in the child's life the parent must be able to let go and refrain from helping allowing the child to earn that esteem which must still be given unconditionally.

The Role of Parents and Society as Regard Meta Needs. Parents, society, and the institutions of society have a distinct and similar role to play in the satisfaction of people's meta needs. The role of parents is to be a good parent and all that entails for the satisfaction of their children's meta needs. A good parent firstly demonstrates or models meta needs for those in their care while they are babies and unable to satisfy their own meta needs or even be aware of what they are.

More importantly, the parental role is to act as facilitators in enabling those in their care to learn the skills that are needed to satisfy their own meta needs. With regard to children and these higher actualizing needs, it becomes clear in the early stages of life that children are for the most part, unconcerned with satisfying meta needs as as their deficiency needs remain paramount until they have learned how to satisfy those needs for themselves. This said Maslow believed that all our needs are acting on us all the time to a greater or lesser extent and this must include the meta needs. Children therefore must experience meta needs in times of fortunate circumstances and can be encouraged in the satisfying of those needs when they occur.

If exposed to beauty, truth, justice etc. at an early age children can begin to experience the satisfaction of of identifying with the plights of and helping others at that early age. They can be encouraged in worrying about others by their parents, teachers and any others in a position to influence them. This other directedness or non self interested action in children will provide the beginnings of feelings of satisfaction in consequences beyond their own self image. This can lay groundwork for eventual enlargement of the self image beyond the skin.

If this is true for the good parent surely it should also be true for society and the institutions of society. Society and its institutions should encourage meta needs when we are young, but more importantly they should strive to enable us to learn the skills we will need to satisfy our own meta needs as they occur.

These are the yearnings of, not just by self-actualized people, but of all human beings at their deepest levels. This means that children in fortunate circumstances who have developed exceptional talents and grown confident in their ability to satisfy their own needs can experience early satisfaction of meta needs, which will stand them in good stead in satisfying those needs if and when the deficiency needs finally drop away to become mere survival mechanisms that are easily accomplished as part of satisfying various meta needs.