A while back we had a debate on my Yahoogroups list about the nature of intelligence in which it was pointed out that being intelligent did not consist of how much one knows, but rather how skilled one is in obtaining information that one needs in any given situation. Certainly that comes into play in taking an i.q. test. Those who have good critical thinking skills are those who with inquisitive minds who have developed the means of acquiring the knowledge they need through self-direction.
I've been thinking more deeply about this since then and in researching this matter i've come across Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, which he subsequently extended to include his observations of innate curiosity in humans.
He studied high achievers such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass, as well as the healthiest one percent of the college student population. He acknowledged that doing so might skew his findings. In his book, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, Maslow writes, "By ordinary standards of this kind of laboratory research... this simply was not research at all. My generalizations grew out of my selection of certain kinds of people. Obviously, other judges are needed." His reasons for doing so were, as he put it, that "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy."
That said his conclusions are generally accepted as valid for the average person, whoever that may be. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is predetermined in order of importance. It is often depicted as a pyramid consisting of five levels, as pictured above. The lower four layers of the pyramid are what Maslow called "deficiency needs" or "D-needs": physiological, safety and security, love and belonging, and esteem. With the exception of the lowest (physiological) needs, if these "deficiency needs" are not met, the body gives no physical indication but the individual feels anxious and tense.
Only when all of these needs are met at the most basic level can self-actualization begin to occur. Certainly the things he lists as being part of that can be part of a person's life if the lower four levels are only partially met, but for complete acutualization every aspect below it on the pyramid must be happening fully.
I find this theory interesting because I know that I, and others i've known, have a tendency to think of people who lack creativity, spontaneity and problem solving skills as being if not unintelligent, as at least not living up to their potential, wasting their lives, if you will. I now believe this to be an unfair assessment. If Maslow is right, one cannot reach one's full potential without the basis, the lower four levels of the pyramid being met.
Certainly there are exceptions, and Maslow has had his detractors. It has been argued that poverty is the result of any one of these needs being frustrated, denied or unfulfilled, but I personally don't buy that. My observation of such matters is that poverty is mostly generational and due to what I call the poverty mentality, wherein thinking beyond immediate survival is discouraged, along with curiosity and creativity of any sort that doesn't meet basic needs. To me that dovetails with Maslow's pyramid, if one gets those needs fulfilled, most people will begin to rise to their potential, whatever that may be.
Near the end of his life Maslow revealed that there was a level on the hierarchy that was above self-actualization: self-transcendence. This is, of course, the spiritual aspect rising above mere religion, or if you will, superstition, to an awareness of what is beyond the self. Maslow argued that this could only occur in a meaningful way when full self-actualization has occurred.
This idea certainly rings true. When all needs are met, or at least dealt with in a satisfactory manner, and self-acutalization is pre-eminent, then the spirit is free to explore beyond itself. Something to think about, anyway.
