Motivation and Personality

Motivation and Personality explores the complex world of what motivates people and how their personalities interact with these motivations. Maslow is a significant contributor on timeless thinking about personal and professional motivational theory. Abraham Maslow is best known for his Hierarchy of Needs. Chapter 5 in this book explores that hierarchy; not in the detail of his original paper on the subject, but it does have some good food for thought. Maslow's writing is easy to read and understand, but has a great deal of depth to it. For example, in a section called Satisfactions Generate New Motivations, Maslow writes: "The Human being is a wanting animal and rarely reaches a state of complete satisfaction except for a short time. As one desire is satisfied, another pops up to take its place." This simple but profound statement at least partially explains why we as humans have accomplished so much...good and bad. Overall, a fantastic book about motivation and personality that is extremely insightful! The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide to: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking

Maslow pours his wisdom into our minds explaining the core needs of human beings. This is a great book to learn about yourself and the motivations of others.

The book's title and author intrigued me in the first place. I'd heard about Maslow's hierarchy of needs in college. Usually, about half a page or so was dedicated to it in general college psychology textbooks. What a disservice! Dipping one's big toe in the swimming pool is not the same as plunging into it. This book deserves to be plunged into, marked up, highlighted, commented on, thought about, and discussed. It is brilliant, original, fascinating, and readable. I'm not sure how to say it because there is so much, but I would say that what makes it especially unique is its study of psychologically healthy people (Maslow calls them self-actualizing people). This book will turn your brain on. I am not a technically/medically trained person. It took time to read trough Motivation and Personality, mostly because I wanted to stop and think about what it was saying. It's not a rush through kind of book. This book, as well as Dr. Peck's "People of Lie," exposed a whole new layer of the world I live in. I believe it fine tunes perceptions and make one so much more aware and alive.

This is one of the best books written in Psychology and is often overlooked my many people in the field. It was last revised in 1970 and it is still a classic in the field. If you want to see "future" projections of what is it is to be human, read this book. The man was a genius.