Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs Theory Example

HUMANIST
The personality of the Grinch can be explained through the humanistic theories of Maslow and Rogers. The way the Grinch starts in the story is as an egoist, self-centeredman. One theory that could explain this is the Ideal self, the Grinch could have been taught since young to be egoist, so now his perception of who he should be is of an egoist selfcentered man. This theory could be linked to another one, the conditional positive regard. His parents may have only demonstrated affection towards him when he did something bad, so know helooks for the love of others by doing bad things. Another theory could be the Real self, which means that he knows his actual characteristics, traits and abilities, and he thinks theyare not enough to be a Who, so he stays away and watch them with greed. There is another way his parents may have not demonstrated unconditional positive regard, so he doesn’t know how tomake people like him, he never experienced love, affection and respect without strings attached.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory states that an individual has to achieve 5 steps toreach self-actualization. We can observe that the Grinch had only 2 of these steps, the physiological, which include all his basic survival needs, and he also has the safety step,which include security of health, property and resources. When the Grinch meets the little Who girl, he connects with her and he starts to feel a belonging feeling. With this done he hasreach another step, the love and belonging step. Since the Grinch now feels he belong to a group, he has developed self-esteem, he has reach the esteem step. When the Grinch realize thebad things he has done, and returns the gifts to the Who he has reach the last step which is Self-actualization. This is the step which makes everyone happy, a win, win situation.