Fun fact: When Maslow set out to study self-actualizing people, he wasn't interested in "high achievers" or "high performers" or those who were "crushing it". His impetus for studying self-actualizing people was to discover the characteristics of a "good human being".
-
-
Replying to @sbkaufman
Am curious if you have any thoughts on what caused this shift to why we worship high achievers/performers nowadays? (Or perhaps it was the same back then and Maslow was an outlier)
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @a_yawning_cat
It definitely wasn't the focus back then. The humanistic psychologists were much more interested in growth, wholeness, development, meaning, and transcendence. I'm trying to bring these concepts back on a scientific foundation. I'm not sure what happened.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @sbkaufman
What I find interesting is that many of the very popular productivity gurus nowadays *do* have a wholeness/development/transcendent aspect to what they say. (e.g. Tim Ferris/Naval Ravikant/etc...) I suspect the nuance of the word "growth" is at play here.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @a_yawning_cat @sbkaufman
In terms of worshipping high achievers/producers - maybe the original roots of psychology & statistics in eugenics, i.e., IQ testing, as well as the power of capitalism, simply are too strong to be overtaken by relatively new perspectives on self-actualization & personal growth.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
There's also real pragmatism in additional to cultural momentum. A temple of enlightened monks beating off invaders with guns (or weaponized economics) only happens in movies.
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.