Human Transcendence

Abraham H. Maslow, Motivation and Personality: Toward a Positive Psychology

One of the earliest psychologists to focus attention on happy individuals and their psychological trajectory, in what he named Positive Psychology, was Abraham Maslow, who is most well known for his “hierarchy of needs.”

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Self-transcendence

In the original model, self-actualization is at the top, with esteem below it, then love/belonging, then safety, and physiological needs at the bottom. This indicates that physiological needs are vital for survival and that they must be sated before one can move up towards actualization and fulfillment. In his early work, Maslow considered self-actualization the pinnacle of human development and the highest human need: the realization of one’s full potential. He later recognized the need for one more level of development.

Self-actualization is indeed a lofty (and worthy) goal of development and should not be cast aside in favor of the shiny new need, but self-transcendence is truly the “next level” of development; it is other-focused instead of self-focused and concerns higher goals than those which are self-serving.

Abraham Maslow, The Importance of Transcendence

Maslow describes the importance of transcendence thusly:

“Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos” (Maslow, 1971, p. 269).

According to Maslow, self-transcendence brings the individual what he termed “peak experiences” in which they transcend their own personal concerns and see from a higher perspective. These experiences often bring strong positive emotions like joy, peace, and a well-developed sense of awareness (Messerly, 2017). Someone who is highly self-transcendent may also experience “plateau experiences” in which they consistently maintain or enter a state of serenity and higher perspective (Messerly, 2017).

Maslow’s addition of self-transcendence to the pyramid is not always noted in the literature when his theory is cited, but it has managed to make its way through the research community nonetheless.

–Courtney Ackerman [What is Self-Transcendence? Definition and 6 Examples (+PDF)].

Additional Abraham H. Maslow Quotes

“Human life will never be understood unless its highest aspirations are taken into account. Growth, self-actualization, the striving toward health, the quest for identity and autonomy, the yearning for excellence (and other ways of phrasing the striving “upward”) must by now be accepted beyond question as a widespread and perhaps universal human tendency …”

— Abraham H. Maslow [Motivation and Personality, 1954] pp.xii-xiii.

“Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos.”

–Abraham Maslow [The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, 1971] p. 269.

“Every human being has both sets of forces within him. One set clings to safety and defensiveness out of fear, tending to regress backward, hanging on to the past, afraid to grow away from the primitive communication with the mother’s uterus and breast, afraid to take chances, afraid to jeopardize what he already has, afraid of independence, freedom and separateness. The other set of forces impels him forward toward wholeness of Self and uniqueness of Self, toward full functioning of all his capacities, toward confidence in the face of the external world at the same time that he can accept his deepest, real, unconscious Self.”

–Abraham Harold Maslow [Toward a Psychology of Being].