I'll try and answer each point in turn.
> I made the point last week that research conducted by David McClelland
> essentially disproved the hierarchy. He actually had set out to prove it
> both quanitatively and qualitatively. He spent many years and conducted
> TAT's with thousands of people. There was no acknowledgement of this
> information by anyone involved in these threads. (Except Ray but he went
> on to a different point -- oh and someone else said McClelland's work
> taught people how to change their motivations. This is true but it is
> only a part of the story).
OK. We've got some original research that proports to disprove the theory,
using a mechanism called TAT, from someone who set out initially to prove
the theory.
Happens all the time.
> So here are my questions:
> Are we so enamoured by the thought that one day we all can self-actualize
> that to acknowledge that there is no linear path leaves people scared?
That's a whole lot of emotions being ascribed to others: "enamoured",
"one day", and "scared".
> I also realize the point that someone made about it being non-linear,
> others saying that it is situational and we go up and down, that
> communication is missing...
> Are we so stuck into a Maslowian mindset that we cannot give it up?
Are we so looking for a universally applicable explanation that we cannot
accept a structure that provides some illumination?
> Someone said it had face validity -- well so did the fact that the
> universe revolved around the earth....
And in some contexts, the universe is perfectly well modeled as revolving
around the earth. (There are examples of elaborate celestial clocks which
model, and predict movement of "heavenly bodies", with the earth in the
middle.)
This model becomes difficult under some circumstances, like sending rovers
to Mars. It fails to align with some other cosmological observations.
> Here's my point -- everyone jumped onto Maslow's theory because we driven
> human beings needed to know there is a process by which we will eventually
> reach godhood -- and coincidentally and luckily for us -- it was linear!!!
> YIPPEEE!!!
Or we jump on a model that provides some insight into a phenomena that has
previously been more opaque. Speaking for myself, the attraction is more
"ring of truth" than predictive capability.
And the points of "dynamic", "situational", "communications", and related
are refinements, additions, additional contributions. They are of the
form, I think: "What an interesting idea, here's an extension that is
also interesting."
> We are too complex to simply be represented by his model.
Well, yes. Any model will be incomplete (this is the use of models, they
are simplifying structures providing insights, one hopes), so breaks down
eventually. Personally, I don't think it's a complete model, but I don't
think we have any complete model of humans or human development. Any more
than "has five fingers" is a complete description of a physical human. I
am not aware of Maslow or anyone else claiming that this model is
complete.
- It may, however describe some interesting incompletion.
- I think the idea that the complex that is a human includes a
motivational development component is very key. That insight alone is
worth quite a bit, however it works, or does not.
In physics, Newtonian mechanics work just fine up to the limits of very
high speeds. In physics, the reconciliation of quantom theory, gravity,
and electro-magnetism has stifled theorests for a long time. Doesn't mean
"gravity doesn't work". Does this mean that quantom theory is invalid? or
Electro-magnetism? (No lasers, for one thing.)
The insight that the physical universe (mechanics) can be modeled is
itself profound.
No model is complete when initially formed. When new information, and new
insights generate "better" models (in the sense of predicting more or more
accurately). In a sense all we do is fix broken models. This is learning.
One of the issues that Senge & co. talk about in TFD is the need to, in
order to develop new models, look for the value in what (new different
thing) they do predict, as well as the limits of that prediction.
One of my frustrations with reading philosophy, and psychology (and some
of the social disciplines) is the "critical pose". Often I must wade
through a large amount of bunk - "de-bunking" an idea in its limits, that
was never asserted to be a universal, or even consistent explanation of
everything.
> In summary -- why are you folks all so stuck on curing a model that has
> been disproven and that I am told the author has said isn't valid?
Speaking for myself, mainly because the idea of human development seems
important, and there are few alternative models put forward.
I'll admit it's an engineering approach. There is an approximation, known
to be such, that works some of the time. Absent a better model, I'll use
that when I can.
--" All of the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble . . . They can never be solved, but only outgrown."
-Carl Jung
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