Comment on Davies's "Maslow and Theory of Political Development"

Abstract

In his application of Maslovian theory to interpreting the political eruptions of 1989, Davies (1991), as a founder of political psychology, draws on a whole career in which he has given committed consideration to his themes (Davies, 1963). His rich essay therefore commands our respectful attention. My way of paying respect, however, has to take the form of serious criticism, since, unlike Davies, I have not found Maslow a reliable guide to thinking about human nature. I agree with Davies, nevertheless, that the social sciences should give more weight to sociobiological considerations than they have. At issue is the standing of Maslow's (1953) familiar need hierarchy, from physiological (physical needs in Davies' terminology) through safety (security, for Davies), belongingness and love, and esteem (self-esteem or dignity) to self-actualization. Davies would remove safety or security from the hierarchy of substantive needs, and group it with knowledge and power as instrumental needs, not hierarchically ordered. I think this is an improvement, one that Davies says that Maslow accepted. In a rough-and-ready way, the hierarchy obviously does make sense; that is why it has survived in spite of not really having been subjected to direct tests. (The indirect tests assembled by Davies seem to me essentially a complete list; much more often, the hierarchy has merely been assumed.) A major objection to Maslow's theory of motivation as a foundation for political psychology concerns Maslow's conception of self-actualization at the pinnacle of the hierarchy. As I have argued repeatedly (e.g., Smith, 1973), Maslow's own supposedly empirical characterization of self-actualizing people depended on his selecting exemplars from his personal heroes-like Albert