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9 self-actualized historical figures
When he was developing his famous hierarchy of needs, Abraham Maslow cited 9 historical figures that achieved self-actualization.

- In order to develop his model of self-actualization, Abraham Maslow interviewed friends, colleagues, students, and historical figures.
- These 9 historical figures demonstrate different aspects of self-actualization that Maslow believed all self-actualized individuals possessed to one degree or another.
- By studying these figures, we can come to a better understanding of what self-actualization really is.
Most, by now, are familiar with Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The model describes a series of successive, basic needs that must be satisfied before a human being can concern themselves with the next level. One needs to eat before one can worry about safety, one needs to feel safe before seeking out belonging, one needs to feel love and belonging before one can establish self-esteem, and one needs to have self-esteem before they can reach the pinnacle of the hierarchy, self-actualization.
In his most comprehensive book on the subject, Motivation and Personality, Maslow described self-actualization as the "full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, etc. Such people seem to be fulfilling themselves and to be doing the best that they are capable of doing. […] They are people who have developed or are developing to the full stature of which they are capable."
To develop this definition, Maslow studied friends, colleagues, college students, as well as 9 historical figures that he believed had become self-actualized. The qualities of these figures, he argued, could shed light on the qualities of self-actualized individuals in general. Though they all share characteristics of self-actualized people to one degree or another, some stand out more than others.
1. Abraham Lincoln
Portrait of Abraham Lincoln
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Abraham Lincoln could be said to represent many of the qualities of self-actualized people, but Maslow called him out for one in particular: a philosophical, unhostile sense of humor. "Probably," wrote Maslow, "Lincoln never made a joke that hurt anybody else; it is also likely that many or even most of his jokes had something to say, had a function beyond just producing a laugh. They often seemed to be education in a more palatable form, akin to parables or fables."
In his book, Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, author David B. Locke wrote, "But with all the humor in his nature, which was more than humor because it was humor with a purpose (that constituting the difference between humor and wit) […] His flow of humor was a sparkling spring gushing out of a rock – the flashing water had a somber background which made it all the brighter."
2. Thomas Jefferson
Today, Thomas Jefferson's historical legacy is a bit mixed. Having argued that all men are created equal, his position as a slave-owner seems contradictory. Still, Maslow considered Jefferson to be a self-actualized person, perhaps because of Jefferson's "democratic character structure," though this may be the result of the thinking of 20th century historians in regards to Jefferson's slavery practices.
Self-actualized people, wrote Maslow, possess a "hard-to-get-at-tendency to give a certain quantum of respect to any human being just because he is a human individual; our subjects seem not to wish to go beyond a certain minimum point, even with scoundrels, of demeaning. of derogating, of robbing of dignity."
This is certainly reflected in Jefferson's most famous piece of writing, the Declaration of Independence, which contended that all men possess unalienable rights. It is, however, more difficult to square with his ambivalent position on slavery. Throughout his life, Jefferson expressed his dislike of slavery and introduced anti-slavery legislation, yet he owned over 600 slaves and freed only 7. He also believed blacks to be inferior — in this regard, Maslow may have picked a poor candidate.
3. Albert Einstein
Maslow argued that self-actualized people are firmly grounded in the real world, rather than the miasma of stereotypes, abstractions, expectations, and biases that most of us experience. "They are therefore far more apt to perceive what is there rather than their own wishes, hopes, fears, anxieties, their own theories and beliefs, or those of their cultural group," he wrote.
Maslow argued that many excellent scientists possess this quality and that it drives them to learn more about the unknown, the ambiguous, and the unstructured. Most people like stability and are disturbed when reality doesn't seem to reflect that desired stability. In this regard, Einstein is very much the opposite; he once said "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all art and science."
4. Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, holds up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
FPG/Getty Images
Eleanor Roosevelt best exemplified the quality that Maslow called Gemeinshaftsgefuhl, a kind of psychologically healthy social connectedness and concern for other's well-being, even — or especially — when other's behavior is disgraceful or disappointing. Roosevelt was an extremely productive humanitarian and much loved for it. She has been described as "the First Lady of the World" and "the object of almost universal respect," and for good reason. Roosevelt was one of the earliest advocates for the civil rights of African Americans, spoke out against the discrimination of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, and oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
5. Jane Addams
As an early feminist, social worker, and pacifist, Jane Addams best represents the sense of morality that Maslow believed self-actualized people to possess. To Maslow, the self-actualized individual "rarely showed in their day-to-day living the chaos, the confusion, the inconsistency, or the conflict that are so common in the average person's ethical dealings."
Addams fought for women's right to vote, documented the impact of typhoid fever on the poor, and worked diligently to bring an end to World War I, despite considerable criticism from the public after the U.S. joined the war. Rather than succumb to public pressure, however, Addams maintained her position, in part due to the innate moral compass that self-actualized individuals possess. Because of her work, she was rewarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
6. William James
William James
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Known as the "father of American psychology," William James serves as an example of self-actualized people's ability to accept the self, nature, and others. In 1875, James offered the very first U.S. course in psychology. Prior to James, serious research into the function of the human mind was scant in the U.S.
As a young man, James experienced depression himself and often contemplated suicide. "I originally studied medicine in order to be a physiologist," wrote James, "but I drifted into psychology and philosophy from a sort of fatality." In seeking to understand the human mind, James fits the bill for self-actualized people's ability to accept the world around them without bias or prejudice. Maslow wrote that self-actualized individuals "see human nature as it is and not as they would prefer it to be. Their eyes see what is before them without being strained through spectacles of various sorts to distort or shape or color the reality."
The nineteenth century is often referred to as the "asylum era," where a large number of mentally ill individuals were locked up, mainly to be ignored and forgotten about. The work of early psychologists like James helped to dismantle this practice.
7. Albert Schweitzer
Self-actualized people, wrote Maslow, "customarily have some mission in life, some task to fulfill, some problem outside themselves which enlists much of their energies." Polymath and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Albert Schweitzer best exemplifies this quality.
In addition to being an accomplished theologian, Schweitzer was a driven medical missionary, returning to what is now the country of Gabon (then a French colony) twice to establish a functional hospital. The hospital was desperately needed, as Schweitzer saw more than 2,000 patients in his first nine months there, treating leprosy, yellow fever, malaria, and many other diseases.
The fact that Maslow selected Schweitzer as indicative of the superlative qualities of self-actualized people reflects mid-century American attitudes, too: Schweitzer would later be criticized as having a somewhat racist, paternalistic attitude towards the Africans he treated, reflected through statements like "The African is indeed my brother, but my junior brother." Though the good Schweitzer brought to the world is undisputable, his personal attitudes may not truly reflect those of the self-actualized individual.
8. Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
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Another quality that Maslow argued self-actualized people presented was frequent "peak" or "mystical" experiences. These were moments of ecstasy and awe that conveyed "the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before" and "the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened."
For science fiction writer Aldous Huxley, pursuing mystical experiences was central to his work. Not only did his most famous work, Brave New World, criticize the pursuit of superficial pleasures, Huxley also pursued deep experiences through the use of psychedelic drugs like mescaline and LSD. He wrote about his psychedelic experiences in The Doors to Perception. Regarding these experiences, Huxley wrote "The mystical experience is doubly valuable; it is valuable because it gives the experiencer a better understanding of himself and the world and because it may help him to lead a less self-centered and more creative life."
9. Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza was a 17th century philosopher who demonstrated the kind of autonomy and independence of culture that Maslow claims self-actualized individuals to possess. "Self-actualizing people," he wrote, "are not dependent for their main satisfactions on the real world, or other people or culture or means to ends or, in general, on extrinsic satisfactions. Rather they are dependent for their own development and continued growth on their own potentialities and latent resources."
Spinoza worked against the grain of the dominant culture at the time. For his rationalist philosophy and theological criticism, the Jewish community issued a cherem against him, similar to excommunication in Christianity.
His works in philosophy are today considered foundational to metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, though his greatest work, Ethics, was published after his death in 1677. This work established him as one of the Enlightenment's great thinkers, and despite being a somewhat famous philosopher prior to this, Spinoza lived a modest life as a lens grinder. He turned down being named the heir of his friend, Simon de Vries, turned down a prestigious academic position at the University of Heidelberg, and doggedly persisted in writing a work of biblical criticism that advocated for a secular, constitutional government, despite a possible threat to his life. Although he was despised by many in his own time, even his enemies admitted that he lived "a saintly life."
U.S. Navy controls inventions that claim to change "fabric of reality"
Inventions with revolutionary potential made by a mysterious aerospace engineer for the U.S. Navy come to light.
U.S. Navy ships
- U.S. Navy holds patents for enigmatic inventions by aerospace engineer Dr. Salvatore Pais.
- Pais came up with technology that can "engineer" reality, devising an ultrafast craft, a fusion reactor, and more.
- While mostly theoretical at this point, the inventions could transform energy, space, and military sectors.
The U.S. Navy controls patents for some futuristic and outlandish technologies, some of which, dubbed "the UFO patents," came to life recently. Of particular note are inventions by the somewhat mysterious Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais, whose tech claims to be able to "engineer reality." His slate of highly-ambitious, borderline sci-fi designs meant for use by the U.S. government range from gravitational wave generators and compact fusion reactors to next-gen hybrid aerospace-underwater crafts with revolutionary propulsion systems, and beyond.
Of course, the existence of patents does not mean these technologies have actually been created, but there is evidence that some demonstrations of operability have been successfully carried out. As investigated and reported by The War Zone, a possible reason why some of the patents may have been taken on by the Navy is that the Chinese military may also be developing similar advanced gadgets.
Among Dr. Pais's patents are designs, approved in 2018, for an aerospace-underwater craft of incredible speed and maneuverability. This cone-shaped vehicle can potentially fly just as well anywhere it may be, whether air, water or space, without leaving any heat signatures. It can achieve this by creating a quantum vacuum around itself with a very dense polarized energy field. This vacuum would allow it to repel any molecule the craft comes in contact with, no matter the medium. Manipulating "quantum field fluctuations in the local vacuum energy state," would help reduce the craft's inertia. The polarized vacuum would dramatically decrease any elemental resistance and lead to "extreme speeds," claims the paper.
Not only that, if the vacuum-creating technology can be engineered, we'd also be able to "engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level," states the patent. This would lead to major advancements in aerospace propulsion and generating power. Not to mention other reality-changing outcomes that come to mind.
Among Pais's other patents are inventions that stem from similar thinking, outlining pieces of technology necessary to make his creations come to fruition. His paper presented in 2019, titled "Room Temperature Superconducting System for Use on a Hybrid Aerospace Undersea Craft," proposes a system that can achieve superconductivity at room temperatures. This would become "a highly disruptive technology, capable of a total paradigm change in Science and Technology," conveys Pais.
High frequency gravitational wave generator.
Credit: Dr. Salvatore Pais
Another invention devised by Pais is an electromagnetic field generator that could generate "an impenetrable defensive shield to sea and land as well as space-based military and civilian assets." This shield could protect from threats like anti-ship ballistic missiles, cruise missiles that evade radar, coronal mass ejections, military satellites, and even asteroids.
Dr. Pais's ideas center around the phenomenon he dubbed "The Pais Effect". He referred to it in his writings as the "controlled motion of electrically charged matter (from solid to plasma) via accelerated spin and/or accelerated vibration under rapid (yet smooth) acceleration-deceleration-acceleration transients." In less jargon-heavy terms, Pais claims to have figured out how to spin electromagnetic fields in order to contain a fusion reaction – an accomplishment that would lead to a tremendous change in power consumption and an abundance of energy.
According to his bio in a recently published paper on a new Plasma Compression Fusion Device, which could transform energy production, Dr. Pais is a mechanical and aerospace engineer working at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), which is headquartered in Patuxent River, Maryland. Holding a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, Pais was a NASA Research Fellow and worked with Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. His current Department of Defense work involves his "advanced knowledge of theory, analysis, and modern experimental and computational methods in aerodynamics, along with an understanding of air-vehicle and missile design, especially in the domain of hypersonic power plant and vehicle design." He also has expert knowledge of electrooptics, emerging quantum technologies (laser power generation in particular), high-energy electromagnetic field generation, and the "breakthrough field of room temperature superconductivity, as related to advanced field propulsion."
Suffice it to say, with such a list of research credentials that would make Nikola Tesla proud, Dr. Pais seems well-positioned to carry out groundbreaking work.
A craft using an inertial mass reduction device.
Credit: Salvatore Pais
The patents won't necessarily lead to these technologies ever seeing the light of day. The research has its share of detractors and nonbelievers among other scientists, who think the amount of energy required for the fields described by Pais and his ideas on electromagnetic propulsions are well beyond the scope of current tech and are nearly impossible. Yet investigators at The War Zone found comments from Navy officials that indicate the inventions are being looked at seriously enough, and some tests are taking place.
If you'd like to read through Pais's patents yourself, check them out here.
Laser Augmented Turbojet Propulsion System
Credit: Dr. Salvatore Pais
Do you worry too much? Stoicism can help
How imagining the worst case scenario can help calm anxiety.
Stoicism can help overcome anxiety
- Stoicism is the philosophy that nothing about the world is good or bad in itself, and that we have control over both our judgments and our reactions to things.
- It is hardest to control our reactions to the things that come unexpectedly.
- By meditating every day on the "worst case scenario," we can take the sting out of the worst that life can throw our way.
Are you a worrier? Do you imagine nightmare scenarios and then get worked up and anxious about them? Does your mind get caught in a horrible spiral of catastrophizing over even the smallest of things? Worrying, particularly imagining the worst case scenario, seems to be a natural part of being human and comes easily to a lot of us. It's awful, perhaps even dangerous, when we do it.
But, there might just be an ancient wisdom that can help. It involves reframing this attitude for the better, and it comes from Stoicism. It's called "premeditation," and it could be the most useful trick we can learn.
Practical Stoicism
Broadly speaking, Stoicism is the philosophy of choosing your judgments. Stoics believe that there is nothing about the universe that can be called good or bad, valuable or valueless, in itself. It's we who add these values to things. As Shakespeare's Hamlet says, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Our minds color the things we encounter as being "good" or "bad," and given that we control our minds, we therefore have control over all of our negative feelings.
Put another way, Stoicism maintains that there's a gap between our experience of an event and our judgment of it. For instance, if someone calls you a smelly goat, you have an opportunity, however small and hard it might be, to pause and ask yourself, "How will I judge this?" What's more, you can even ask, "How will I respond?" We have power over which thoughts we entertain and the final say on our actions. Today, Stoicism has influenced and finds modern expression in the hugely effective "cognitive behavioral therapy."
Helping you practice StoicismCredit: Robyn Beck via Getty Images
One of the principal fathers of ancient Stoicism was the Roman statesmen, Seneca, who argued that the unexpected and unforeseen blows of life are the hardest to take control over. The shock of a misfortune can strip away the power we have to choose our reaction. For instance, being burglarized feels so horrible because we had felt so safe at home. A stomach ache, out of the blue, is harder than a stitch thirty minutes into a run. A sudden bang makes us jump, but a firework makes us smile. Fell swoops hurt more than known hardships.
What could possibly go wrong?
So, how can we resolve this? Seneca suggests a Stoic technique called "premeditatio malorum" or "premeditation." At the start of every day, we ought to take time to indulge our anxious and catastrophizing mind. We should "rehearse in the mind: exile, torture, war, shipwreck." We should meditate on the worst things that could happen: your partner will leave you, your boss will fire you, your house will burn down. Maybe, even, you'll die.
This might sound depressing, but the important thing is that we do not stop there.
Stoicism has influenced and finds modern expression in the hugely effective "cognitive behavioral therapy."
The Stoic also rehearses how they will react to these things as they come up. For instance, another Stoic (and Roman Emperor) Marcus Aurelius asks us to imagine all the mean, rude, selfish, and boorish people we'll come across today. Then, in our heads, we script how we'll respond when we meet them. We can shrug off their meanness, smile at their rudeness, and refuse to be "implicated in what is degrading." Thus prepared, we take control again of our reactions and behavior.
The Stoics cast themselves into the darkest and most desperate of conditions but then realize that they can and will endure. With premeditation, the Stoic is prepared and has the mental vigor necessary to take the blow on the chin and say, "Yep, l can deal with this."
Catastrophizing as a method of mental inoculation
Seneca wrote: "In times of peace, the soldier carries out maneuvers." This is also true of premeditation, which acts as the war room or training ground. The agonizing cut of the unexpected is blunted by preparedness. We can prepare the mind for whatever trials may come, in just the same way we can prepare the body for some endurance activity. The world can throw nothing as bad as that which our minds have already imagined.
Stoicism teaches us to embrace our worrying mind but to embrace it as a kind of inoculation. With a frown over breakfast, try to spend five minutes of your day deliberately catastrophizing. Get your anti-anxiety battle plan ready and then face the world.
Study: People will donate more to charity if they think something’s in it for them
A study on charity finds that reminding people how nice it feels to give yields better results than appealing to altruism.
How to get people to want to give you money, literal balls of cash not gaurenteed.
- A study finds asking for donations by appealing to the donor's self-interest may result in more money than appealing to their better nature.
- Those who received an appeal to self-interest were both more likely to give and gave more than those in the control group.
- The effect was most pronounced for those who hadn't given before.
Even the best charities with the longest records of doing great fundraising work have to spend some time making sure that the next donation checks will keep coming in. One way to do this is by showing potential donors all the good things the charity did over the previous year. But there may be a better way.
A new study by researchers in the United States and Australia suggests that appealing to the benefits people will receive themselves after a donation nudges them to donate more money than appealing to the greater good.
How to get people to give away free money
The postcards that were sent to different study subjects. The one on the left highlighted benefits to the self, while the one on the right highlighted benefits to others.List et al. / Nature Human Behaviour
The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, utilized the Pick.Click.Give program in Alaska. This program allows Alaska residents who qualify for dividends from the Alaska Permanent Fund, a yearly payment ranging from $800 to $2000 in recent years, to donate a portion of it to various in-state non-profit organizations.
The researchers randomly assigned households to either a control group or to receive a postcard in the mail encouraging them to donate a portion of their dividend to charity. That postcard could come in one of two forms, either highlighting the benefits to others or the benefits to themselves.
Those who got the postcard touting self-benefits were 6.6 percent more likely to give than those in the control group and gave 23 percent more on average. Those getting the benefits-to-others postcard were slightly more likely to give than those receiving no postcard, but their donations were no larger.
Additionally, the researchers were able to break the subject list down into a "warm list" of those who had given at least once before in the last two years and a "cold list" of those who had not. Those on the warm list, who were already giving, saw only minor increases in their likelihood to donate after getting a postcard in the mail compared to those on the cold list.
Additionally, the researchers found that warm-list subjects who received the self-interest postcard gave 11 percent more than warm-list subjects in the control group. Amazingly, among cold-list subjects, those who received a self-interest postcard gave 39 percent more.
These are substantial improvements. At the end of the study, the authors point out, "If we had sent the benefits to self message to all households in the state, aggregate contributions would have increased by nearly US$600,000."
To put this into perspective, in 2017 the total donations to the program were roughly $2,700,000.
Is altruism dead?
Are all actions inherently self-interested? Thankfully, no. The study focuses entirely on effective ways to increase charitable donations above levels that currently exist. It doesn't deny that some people are giving out of pure altruism, but rather that an appeal based on self-interest is effective. Plenty of people were giving before this study took place who didn't need a postcard as encouragement. It is also possible that some people donated part of their dividend check to a charity that does not work with Pick.Click.Give and were uncounted here.
It is also important to note that Pick.Click.Give does not provide services but instead gives money to a wide variety of organizations that do. Those organizations operate in fields from animal rescue to job training to public broadcasting. The authors note that it is possible that a more specific appeal to the benefits others will receive from a donation might prove more effective than the generic and all-inclusive "Make Alaska Better For Everyone" appeal that they used.
In an ideal world, charity is its own reward. In ours, it might help to remind somebody how warm and fuzzy they'll feel after donating to your cause.
160-million-year-old ‘Monkeydactyl’ was the first animal to develop opposable thumbs
The 'Monkeydactyl' was a flying reptile that evolved highly specialized adaptations in the Mesozoic Era.
