Self-Actualization

Self-actualization is the fulfillment of a person’s capacities and possibilities. In humanistic psychology, it describes development toward realizing one’s potential.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs: A model arranging human needs from basic physiological requirements to growth and self-fulfillment. Maslow placed self-actualization at the hierarchy’s summit, though not as a simple reward for satisfying every lower need.
Organismic valuing process: A proposed innate capacity to evaluate experiences according to whether they support or hinder growth. Carl Rogers used it to explain how people can move toward fuller functioning.
Abraham Maslow: An American psychologist who developed a theory of human motivation and studied self-actualizing people. His hierarchy and account of growth needs made self-actualization widely known.
Self-determination theory: A theory of motivation centered on autonomy, competence, and relatedness as basic psychological needs. It offers a more empirically developed account of growth motivation than Maslow’s hierarchy.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs in business: The use of Maslow’s needs model to interpret employee motivation and workplace behavior. Workplace applications often treat the hierarchy as more rigid and universal than evidence supports.
Humanistic psychology: An approach to psychology emphasizing agency, subjective experience, personal growth, and human potential. Self-actualization became a central idea within this movement’s account of healthy development.
Unconditional positive regard: Acceptance and care for a person that do not depend on meeting conditions of worth. Rogers argued that this acceptance helps people trust their experience and develop their capacities.
Carl Rogers: An American psychologist who founded person-centered therapy and emphasized acceptance and personal growth. His concept of the actualizing tendency offers a related account rooted in organismic development.
Self-esteem: A person’s evaluation of their own worth or value. Feeling good about oneself is not the same as realizing one’s capacities.
Cultural psychology: The study of how cultural practices and meanings shape psychological processes. Ideas of fulfilled potential may vary with cultural values and models of personhood.

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