Other research
Experiences Leading to Self
Actualization: Personal Growth and Life Satisfaction in a College Student
Population.
- Definition of self actualization
- Operationalizing Self actualization
- Who can become self
actualized?
- Hypotheses for the present study
- Methods
- Results
- Discussion
- Applicability
- References
- Table 1
- Table 2
- Table 3
- Appendix
Running
head: Experiences leading
Experiences Leading to Self Actualization: Personal
Growth and Life Satisfaction in a College Student Population.
Benjamin Hidalgo
Pomona College
Abstract
Positive
psychological functioning can be conceptualized in many different ways. The
present study examined positive psychological functioning as indicated by
self-actualization in a sample of 104 college students. Using a paper and
pencil questionnaire, five areas of experience and activities were examined as
predictors of a student's extent of self actualization. These areas were, a
student's spiritual experiences, his or her experiences with non-prescription
psychoactive substances, interpersonal relationship experiences, experiences in
nature, and academic experiences. Positive correlations were found with both a
person's spiritual experiences and level of close relationships, with level of
self actualization. A negative correlation was discovered between a person's
use of legal drugs (alcohol, caffeine/ephedrine, and tobacco) and his or her
level of self actualization. Recommendations for future studies are proposed
and implications of the results for the Claremont Colleges are discussed.
Experiences leading to Self actualization: A study of personal growth and life satisfaction in a college student population.
The are many ways in which to conceptualize
positive mental health. (Jahoda, 1958; Gilliand, James, & Bowman, 1989.)
The choice of a definition of what it is to have positive mental health has a direct
bearing on the outcome of any study in which positive psychological functioning
is compared to other domains of life. An example can be seen in the treatment
of religious experiences by certain models of psychological health. For the
psychoanalytic researcher this domain often has a negative impact on a persons
psychological health (Prince & Savage, 1972), while for the transpersonal
researcher it may have a positive effect (Maslow, 1964).
Self actualization
The concept of positive
psychological functioning that generally guides the present study is that of
self actualization. Defined for purposes of this study, it is that state that a
person reaches in which he or she is experiencing life in a way that allows for
optimal growth towards a better state of being. The general concept used in the
present study is most akin to the two most popular concepts of self
actualization presented by the humanistic psychologists Abraham Maslow (1968)
and Carl Rogers (1961, 1980). Maslow viewed the self actualized person in two
ways. This person will have realized latent potentials, talents and abilities
as well as achieved a state of self-fulfillment. "Such people seem to be
fulfilling themselves and to be doing the best that they are capable of doing.
They are people who have developed or are developing to the full stature of
which they are capable" ( Maslow, 1970, p. 150). Maslow based his concept
of the self actualized person on an analysis of personal acquaintances and
friends as well as on the lives of public and historical figures. Self
actualizing people, he reports have the following personality and behavior
characteristics: More accepting of themselves, others, natural processes; more
spontaneous and natural; enjoying solitude more than the average person; more
independent of their physical and cultural environment; more appreciative of
the basic goods in life; more likely to experience the acute mystic or peak
experience; more likely to possess a special kind of creativeness and
originality; and a more philosophical, unhostile sense of humor.
Rogers
(1961) had a similar view to Maslow's of
positive psychological functioning. The Rogerian view is based on his
interactions with people in psychotherapy and their positive functioning. Carl
Rogers shied away from the term "self actualization", which implies
that a person has reached a fulfilled end state, and substituted for it the
concept of the fully functioning person. Roger's "fully functioning
person" is not one who has reached a perfect end-state, rather one who had
the freedom to fully experience and access those conditions that nurture
growth. For Carl Rogers this state was the process of fully being and
continuous becoming for an organism when it is inwardly free to move in any
direction. Rogers characterized a person who had successfully tapped into this
type of process as being: increasingly open to experience, increasingly
existential in his or her living, and increasingly trusting in his or her
organism. For Rogers, then, the self actualized person is one who is in his or
her everyday life fully open to experience in a way that allows them learn and
grow.
Operationalizing Self actualization
These two psychologists use
extensive personal interviews and interactions to assess the self-actualized
person, however, due to the subjective nature of each of these psychologist's
views on positive psychological functioning, operationalizing their concepts of
self actualization has proved somewhat difficult. Various people have developed
operational definitions of certain aspects of self actualization. A very comprehensive view of positive
psychological functioning was developed by Carol Ryff (1989) to assess the
concepts present in Rogers' and Maslow's theories as well as those present in
life span developmental theories such as Erikson's (1959), and Buhler's (1935).
After carefully reviewing a literature base of mostly humanistic theories on
the subject, Ryff identified six characteristics of positive and superior
psychological functioning. Ryff developed the following theory-guided
dimensions of well-being and self actualization: Self acceptance, positive
relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and
personal growth.
Along with her new theory-driven
instrument, Ryff (1989) included indicators of positive psychological
functioning that were less theory-driven. These measure of subjective
well-being typically define "high psychological functioning" as high
life satisfaction, high positive affect and low negative affect. Ryff's operationalized view of positive
psychological functioning is comprised of high subjective well-being as well as
high scores on her six theory-driven components. Her operationalization of
positive psychological functioning is similar to the way in which the present
study has operationalized positive psychological functioning which,
subsequently, has been termed "self actualization."
There is one major difference
between the way the present study defines self actualization and the way in
which it is conceptualized above. The present study sought to eliminate from
the concept of self-actualization those components that are arbitrarily defined
by the researcher. Questions of
subjective bias result when the researcher is free to assert that another
person is or is not self-actualized based on indirect measures of a lifestyle
which the researcher considers to be successful. Most of the aspects of self
actualization characterized by the above psychologists are based on a single
researcher's observation of people he or she considered to be the ideal person.
These people were then studied and their positive behaviors and personality
traits (as defined by the researcher) were established as the universal marker
for the self actualized, positively functioning person. Any approach, however,
that defines how well a person is living his or her life in a way that excludes
that person from the decision is problematic. While some attempt has been made
to measure self-actualization in a less biased way (Ryff, 1989) the concept is
still approached from a pre-set determination of optimum personality structure
in a way that, for the most part, excludes the experiencer from having the
final say in how successful and actualized his or her life is. Sufficient evidence was not found in the
literature, by the present study's principal investigator, to support any of
the personality trait combinations as being the most applicable to the self
actualized person. Maslow (1971) readily admits that his construct of the fully
self actualized occasionally fails to account for a person whom he, in
retrospect, judges to self actualized.
This particular lack of universal applicability and the more general
problem in psychology of pigeon-holing a person's subjective psychological
world into a contrived and artificially objective structure prevents the
present study from validating most of the components of self-actualization
reviewed above.
A new, more subjective (for the
participant) approach to self-actualization was adopted for the present study.
Personal growth and subjective well-being have been isolated from the above
self-actualization theories because they are the ones that are defined less by
the researcher and more by the person whose life is being assessed. These two
very distinct components of a person's life intersect in a way that indicates a
person's subjective sense of positive and optimal psychological functioning. It
is the approach of this study that a person's self actualization or full and
healthy functioning can only be defined by how well that person subjectively
believes that he or she has grown into a place in which he or she is more
satisfied with how he or she is living life.
Self actualization for the rest of this paper, then, will be defined as a person's subjective
sense of personal growth and his or her subjective sense of well-being and life
satisfaction.
Who can become self actualized?
"What kind of person
can become self actualized?" Most of the research done in the field of
personal growth and subjective well-being focuses on the personality traits or
demographic variables that define a person. These studies have found that a
variety of these types of factors influence a person's ability to self
actualize as defined by this study. Personal characteristics typically examined
include ethnicity, age, gender, nationality, religiosity, religious group
identity, socio-economic-status, and general culture. (Myers & Diener,
1995)
However, fewer studies have
comprehensively looked at activities and experiences leading to self
actualization or even subjective well being. The present study is concerned
with those experiences that a person can actively select that affect his or her
ability to self actualize. This study is less concerned with what background a
person has or what type of personality he or she has, and more concerned with
what experiences the person has and actively seeks. Experiences that are typically central to many college students'
lives were noted along with experiences most commonly studied in the literature.
Five areas of experience, whose correlations to self actualization or
subjective-well being[1] have been
previously studied, were selected for inclusion in this study based on
relevance to a Claremont College student's life. These were: spiritual experiences,
drug experiences, experiences in close relationships, experiences in nature,
and the academic experience. The hypotheses as to how a person's experiences in
these areas would influence his or her tendency towards self actualization were
generated from a short review of the literature concerning these experiences.
Most research done in the area of
spirituality and subjective well-being has found a positive correlation between
the two. (Myers & Diener, 1995) The Gallup foundation (1984) found that people
with high spiritual commitment (tending to agree more often with statements
like "My religious faith is the most important influence in my life")
were twice as likely to say that they were "very happy" compared to
those with low spiritual commitment. A study by Donahue and Benson (1995) found
that there was a robust positive association between religiousness, defined by
God-centered spirituality, and adolescent well-being and pro-social values and
behavior. It was furthermore negatively correlated with suicide ideation and
attempts as well as delinquency.
Studies have also examined whether different types of spiritual
experiences have an impact on a person's ability to self actualize. John Larsen
(1979) using Maslow's theory of self actualization and Stark's (1965)
definition of religious experience types (confirming, responsive, ecstatic, and
revelational), found no differences between type of religious experience and
self actualization. While other studies
have shown a difference in level of subjective well-being and personal growth
(self-actualization) based on the type of religious experience a person has,
(Greely, 1975; Poloma & Pendelton, 1989), there is a great general
variability in the way in which theorists categorize religious and spiritual
experiences. The present study will concern itself only with the incidence and
centrality of a person's self defined spiritual experience. It is hypothesized
that the more a student finds his or her spiritual experience to be a central
part of his or her life, the higher they will score on the self-actualization
measure.
An overwhelming majority of the
studies examining self actualization and drug use tend to demonstrate the
negative relationships between a person's use of psychoactive substances and
his or her ability to self actualize. Many of these studies focus on the move
towards self actualization in drug abusers as they become sober. (Skolnick
& Zuckerman, 1979; Jansen, Knapp, & Knapp, 1976)
However, a few studies and
theoreticians have painted certain recreational drugs taken in
"appropriate" situations as being useful in a person's search for
self actualization. (Walsh 1982, Rogers, 1980) Carl Rogers (1980) cautiously
promoted the use of LSD for those people who choose to use it appropriately in a
controlled way in order to be more fully in touch with their true selves. Being
in touch with who one really is, according to Rogers, is the only way to become
self actualized. Roger Walsh (1982) conducted studies on self actualized people
who were psychedelic drug users and non-drug users. He found that when
psychedelic drugs use was employed in combination with a more traditional
discipline (such as meditation) self actualization was promoted.
Also at issue is the legality of
certain drugs. Those psychoactive substances that are legal are much more
readily available to the general population and are socially accepted. The
legal and social phenomenon of accepted
and non-accepted psychoactive substances is important to the present study
because, one would assume, different types of people would be grouped into
categories of people who use legal drugs and those who use illegal drugs. While
a psychoactive substance experience is defined simply by the initiation of an
altered state of consciousness many Americans and college students view legal
and illegal drug consumption as two completely distinct experiences. For
purposes of this study they have also been measured separately. Also at issue
is the reason that a person chooses to use these substances. For example
caffeine consumption because one enjoys the taste of the beverage is a
different experience than consumption because one feels that he or she needs it
to be productive. The reasons that a
person feel is most influential in his or her use of drugs was, therefore, also
assessed in this study. It was predicted that the more a that a person's drug
experiences play an important part in his or her life the less self actualized
that person will tend to be. This however might be qualified, however, by the reason
that a person chooses to use the substance. The person who uses a substance in
an effort towards personal betterment might score significantly higher than the
average student.
A
person's experience of close and intimate relations with other people has long
been associated with self actualization (Myers and Diener, 1995; Pavot, Diener,
& Fujiata, 1990) A few researchers have even gone so far as to include
intimate and positive interpersonal relationships in their definitions of self
actualization (Ryff, 1989; Rogers, 1961) This ability to form intimate and
genuine relationships with the people with whom a given person interacts is
essential in leading to self actualization according to these psychologists.
"Self actualizers are described as having strong feelings of empathy and
affection for all human beings and as being capable of greater love, deeper
friendship, and more complete identification with others." (Ryff, 1989:
1071) It was predicted that the more central a close relationships were to a
person's life the more self-actualized they would be.
Only a few studies have examined a
person's experience in nature and its ability to help them self actualize, A
study done by Young and Crandel (1984) helps explain the influence of
wilderness use and self actualization as defined by Maslow's criterion. This
study found that wilderness users were more self actualized than non-users and
that potential users were more self-actualized than potential non-users. It was
hypothesized that the more that nature experiences played a part in a person's
life the more self actualized he or she would tend to be.
Finally when looking at academics it
has been found, in studies examining demographic data and subjective well
being, that higher education tends to lead towards higher subjective well
being. Diener, Diener, and Diener (1995) found that, in a study with 120,000
participants throughout 55 countries, higher education was a significant
predictor of subjective well-being. This
makes sense when one looks at other demographic variables associated with
higher education (e.g. income and security). High attainment in these areas
indicate that a person is most likely able to meet his or her basic needs.
According to Maslow's theory of self actualization and hierarchy of needs
(1968), it is only when a person meets
his or her basic needs that he or she can self actualize. While types of
education and the reasons for obtaining it might help determine the extent to
which academic experiences help a person to self actualizes, the present study
is content to assess the extent to which a person's devotion to his or her
understanding of the academic experience will help him or her to self
actualize.
Hypothesis
In summary the present study focuses
on five common areas of experience in a college student's life through which he
or she can obtain higher levels of self actualization and human functioning.
These areas are a person's spiritual experience; his or her experience with psychoactive substance, both legal and
illegal; his or her involvement in close relationships, his or her experiences
in nature, and his or her academic experiences. The present study examines the
centrality of these experiences to a person's life and how this might relate to
his or her ability to self actualize. The study was designed to test the
following more specific hypotheses.
Hypotheses:
1)
The more central a student's spiritual experience is to his or her
life, the more self actualized he or she
will be.
2)
The more central drug experiences are to a student's life, the less
likely he or she will be to
self-actualize. However, if the primary
reason for drug use is explicitly one
that is engaged in an effort to
promote self betterment (e.g. Using LSD
for spiritual
exploration,) the student will be more
self actualized than those
that use drugs for purely recreational
reasons.
3)
The more central a student's close relationships are to his or her
life, the more self actualized he or she
will be.
4)
The more central a person's nature experiences are to his or her
life, the more self actualized he or she
will be.
5)
The more central a person's academic experiences are to his or her
life the more self actualized he or she
will be.
Methods
Participants
One-hundred-and-four students at the
Claremont Colleges participated in this study. Approximately 76% of the
participant were women (n=79); 24% were men (n=25). The participants were, a
convenience sample from dining halls, classrooms, computer labs, and in common
rooms. People were also recruited from parties but did not fill out a
questionnaire if they were not sober. Almost all people asked to participate
returned a completed survey. Some of the participants who were suspected of
frequent illicit drug use or high frequency
of religious experience were purposefully asked to fill out the questionnaire
as it was believed that a completely random sample of the colleges would not
yield significant sample sizes for the categories of spirituality and drug use.
Materials
and Procedure
Participants were given a 47 item questionnaire of three main
sections: demographics, measures of experience, and measures of self
actualization. [See appendix] The demographics included short- answer questions
concerning age, gender, ethnicity, semesters in college, grade point average,
and concentration.
The second section, measuring
experiences that college students seek out, was divided into five areas. Each
area was measured differently but standardized to carry the same weight as a predictor
of self actualization. The first area assessed the participant's religious,
spiritual, or mystical experiences. Participants reported the frequency,
personal significance and setting for these experiences. They were further
asked if they had, in the last four years, had a spiritual, mystical, or
religious experience that had significantly altered the way they lived their
lives. This section was scored by assigning a z-score to three of the items
(frequency, significance, and presence of a life altering experience), then
averaging those for a total z-score for the section. Each participant's score
on each of these items was turned into a percentage based on the highest
possible score for that item (e.g. a score of five on a seven point likert
scale was transformed into a percentage score of 71.43%.) These three
percentages were averaged to yield a person's total score on the spirituality
measure out of 100%. This mean percentage score of the centrality of a
spirituality in a person's life can be seen in Table one. The exact item
content can be seen in the Appendix.
The next area of inquiry assessed
the participant's patterns of non-prescription drug use. The first part of this
subsection examined the participant's uses of the following legal drugs: caffeine
or ephedrine (an over the counter stimulant commonly used by college students),
tobacco, and alcohol. The participants were asked to rate how frequently they
used each of these substances, the primary factors that they believe led to
their use, and the significance that these substances played in their lives.
The participants were asked to answer the same questions in the second part of
this subsection regarding their illicit drug use. These drugs were categorized
in the following way: Cocaine, exstasy, inhalants, LSD and psilocybin
(mushrooms), marijuana, methamphetamine, nootropics (smart drugs),
hallucinogens not mentioned above, amphetamines and stimulants not mentioned
above, and downers and depressants not listed above. The category "other"
was also made available twice for a participant to identify substances used
that did not fall into the above categories, however, no one chose this
category. Each part of this section was given a separate score using the same
formula. A total score for amount of consumption was determined for the legal
and as well as the illegal drugs by adding up the frequency scores (zero to 5,
0 = "never" and 5 = "several time a week") for each
individual drug. Using this method each participant was given a consumption
score out of a total of 15 for legal drugs and out of a total of 55 for illegal
drugs. Each drug experience type (legal and illegal) was measured separately.
For each drug type, a z-score was determined for consumption and for the
participant's score on a seven point likert measure of the significance that
each drug played in his or her life. These two scores for both types of drugs
were averaged in order to determine, for each participant, an overall z-score
for legal drug use and for illegal drug use. These two sub-sections were then
scored in a similar way to the spirituality measure in that for each person,
each component (consumption and drug significance) was assigned a percentage
score based on the total possible score he or she could have received had the
provided the highest answers. Again this was used simply to determine the mean
score on this section and can be seen in Table one. The exact item content for
this section can be found in the appendix.
The third area assessed the
participant's experience of close relationships. Participants were asked of
they were in a close relationship. They were then asked to rate their level of
closeness to the following people in their lives: significant other, friends,
parents, faculty/teachers, and "other." The rating for each item was from one to five, (5= "very
close" and 1= "not close at all"). The participants were then
asked to rate their level of satisfaction with their relationships with the
people listed in the previous question. They were finally asked to rate how
significant their relationships with the same people were to their overall
lives. The latter two questions were also scored on a five-point likert scale.
Each participant was given a score
out of a total of five for each item they responded to. Each person's total score for this section was turned into a percentage of the total
possible score had they responded with a "five" for each item filled
out. For example, a person who had no
significant other and did not enter a person for the other category was scored
out of a total possible of 45 points. These scores were then standardized into
a z-score. The mean, non-standardized, percentage scores can be found in Table
one. The exact item content can be found in the appendix.
The
fourth and fifth areas of experience that were hypothesized to be associated with self actualization
were experiences in nature and academic experiences. Nature experiences were
defined for the participants as "those experiences in which your exposure
to or interaction with a natural setting has a significant effect on your
immediate state of being." This was assessed and scored in a similar way
to other areas in that the participants were asked to report the frequency and
significance of their nature experiences. This was scored by assigning a
z-score for each item then averaging the z-score for an overall experience of
nature score. The area of concerning academic experience was examined by
assessing the importance of the participant's academic pursuits and success in their
academic career (two separate items) along with the average number of hours the
participant spent weekly on schoolwork (including class hours). As in other
sections, a z-score was assigned for each item, then all three z-scores were
averaged for an overall z-score on the participant's academic experience. For
both of these measures the mean percentage score as assessed in the previous
three measures are presented in Table one. The exact item content for these
measures can be found in the appendix.
The two aspects of self
actualization assessed in this study were personal growth and life
satisfaction. Personal growth was assessed using a single item seven-point
likert measure of significant personal growth since entering college. Life
satisfaction was assessed by Neugarten's Life Satisfaction Index-A, (LSIA)
(Neugarten, Havinghurts, & Tobin, 1961) one of the most common multi-item
measure of subjective well-being. This scale assesses life satisfaction by
examining the following issues in a person's life: zest versus apathy,
resolution and fortitude, congruence between desired and achieved goals, self
concept, and positive vs. negative affect. The measure is scored from zero (low
subjective well-being and life satisfaction) to twenty (high subjective well-being
and life satisfaction). A total self actualization score for each participant
was determined in this study by simply averaging the percentage scores of
personal growth and the percentage score from the LSIA. See Table one for the
mean scores on these sections and see the appendix for the item content of this
measure of self-actualization.
These data were analyzed using a
one-way Spearman correlation matrix. Further analysis, forced entry linear
multiple regression, was used in order to determine the degree to which each
experience predicted self-actualization.
Results
Out of the five predictors of self
actualization, three proved to correlate significantly with self actualization.
Mean scores can be seen in Table one. The hypothesis that high scorers on
spirituality would score highly on the self actualization measure was supported
(r=.20, p<.05). The hypothesis that high drug use would correlate with low
self actualization except when the user primarily used the substance for the
purpose of self exploration and development was partially supported. While no
significant correlation was found between a person's score on the illegal drug
section and their level of self actualization it was found that a persons score
on the legal drug section correlated negatively with their score on the self
actualization section (r=-.24, p=.02). There were no significant differences,
however, in scores on self actualization based on the reason a person chose to
use drugs. Finally a person's score on the close relationship measure was found
to correlate with his or her score on the self actualization measure (r=.27,
p=.01). These correlations between all
of the predictor variables and self actualization can be seen in Table 2. Forced
entry multiple regression was performed in order to determine the degree to
which each main factor predicted self actualization. The results of this
analysis can be seen in Table 3. This analysis revealed that only a person's
score on the close relationships section was a significant predictor of his or
her score on the self actualization measure.
Discussion
The aim of the present study was to
determine which experiences in a Claremont College student's life predict self
actualization. This study provides support for the general body of studies that
demonstrate significant links between a person's spirituality and how well they
are living their lives. This data from the present study reveal that not only
are college students in Claremont "spiritual" but that their
spirituality might be helping them to live better lives. The finding that a
student who has more successful close relationships tends to be more self
actualized is also one that is already widely supported by prior studies. The
fact that, when multiple regression was used, the experience of interpersonal
relationships was the only statistically significant predictor of self
actualization, might suggest that more energy should be spent by administration
and professors to promote those conditions that nurture relationships. For
example more seminars and special classes on mediation, or resolution conflict
might be offered. Professors might want to make themselves more available and
interact in personable ways with the student they teach.
Also of interest was the finding
that legal drug use was a negative predictor of self actualization. Perhaps, in
light of studies such as this one, the colleges should re-examine their liberal
alcohol policy or should, as an alternative, provide better support for
rehabilitative centers and legal drug abuse campaigns. If a student were more
aware of the detriments that these substances can have on a person's life they
might be more selective and conservative in their consumption.
Nature and academic experiences were
not correlated with self actualization even though the this sample of students
produced a full range of responses as to the centrality of these experiences to
their lives. This would seem to indicate that, while these experiences might be
very central to how a person lives his or her life, they do not aid necessarily
in that person's attainment of self actualization.
Carl Rogers (1980) asserts
that all experiences are valid and only a full appreciation of them can lead to
self actualization and full functioning. The data from the present study,
however, indicate that, for the college student, looking at his or her
experience in some domains of life rather than others is more useful in
determining how likely her or she is to self actualize.
Future studies of college students
might want to take other areas of experience into account as possibly
influencing their self actualizing ability. Perhaps a person choosing into an
experience in a multicultural setting is indicative of his or her ability to
self actualize and should be examined. Jason Lehman (1993) decided to examine
self actualization as a function expected or actual study abroad experiences
for Claremont College students. He did not find a significant correlation
between self actualization, as defined by Maslow, and the study abroad experience.
However, he presents convincing arguments as to why a consideration of cross
-cultural experiences should be included in studies on self-actualization in
the Claremont Colleges. In the present study, experiences that Claremont
college students often listed as being central to their lives, in addition to
the areas assessed, were recreational and leisure activities such as dance and
sports and non-academic work. Future studies might want to include these
experiences in a person's life as being influential in their tendency to become
self actualized.
Future studies might also want to
take into incorporate two design changes to this measure. One of the changes
concerns how the concept of self-actualization can be assessed along a
projected life path and the other concerns how the relative centrality of a
nature experience is understood. The first critique of this study brought
up is a more fundamental philosophical
one based on a process philosophy view of the self. It is an artificial
distinction, according to the process philosopher to separate the self into
past, present, and future. Our past
experiences make up an equally important part of who we are as our present
experience of life does. Furthermore, our future oriented direction is just as
pivotal in defining our state of self as our past and present states. Because
we live a long a continuum it is shortsighted to examine the state of the self
in only one or two of these dimensions. A full, three dimensional view of
ourselves is the only fully accurate view that we can use. The third or future
dimension of measuring whether or not a person is fully functioning and
therefore self actualized was neglected in this study. However future studies
examining this might include a question, of equal weight in the self
actualization section, perhaps asking to what extent the participant feels that
he or she has a purpose in life.
The second critique of this study is
more subtle design flaw. There is a confound when measuring how much a person's
experience in nature influences their ability to self actualize since when
running a correlational statistic on the measure in this study or Young and
Crandall's (1984) does not take into account comparable environmental
situations. There is no identifiable base of possible environments from which
to assess the relative significance of nature in a person's life. Has a
person's significance placed on nature been compared with that of the city and
to that of the residential setting, for example, there would have been grounds
on which to say that a person's experiences in a natural environment, as
opposed to another, are correlated with self actualization.
Applicability
This study examines cases in which
the Claremont College student subjectively experiences life in a way that is
associated with his or her self actualization. This study might be seen as more
useful from a clinical approach in that its results are not very useful for
establishing universal goals or experiences that absolutely lead to self
actualization. The present study is, instead, useful only in surveying the
nature of the college student. Specifically the survey examines the student at
the Claremont Colleges and characterizes the way in which he or she
self-actualizes. It is anticipated that these results will have little
applicability to outside populations or even to Claremont College students ten
years from now.
In order to seriously establish this
study's concept of self actualization as a generalizable one, it must be tested
against more popular and established approaches. Research must be done
comparing people's score on self actualization as defined by the present study
and their scores on measures and interviews created by theorists such as
Maslow's, Roger's, and Ryff's. If these analyses prove no correlation exists between a
person's score on the present measure of self actualization and that person's
score on more established ones, the concept of self-actualization will have to
be re-examined from a more fundamental philosophical level. At the point at which the basic assumptions of all of these theories were discovered, appropriate language might be
developed to describe positive psychological functioning along a new and
distinct axis.
This thesis, in a way, takes a
modern look at the age old question, "What must I do to be saved?" As
people we want to know what we must do to live the fullest life possible. Upon
what areas of our lives must we focus to ensure that we have the most positive
psychological functioning possible to us? The present pilot study takes a step
towards understanding subjective human nature and the identification of life
experiences that might help an individual to experience the good life.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following
people, in no particular order, for helping me realize this culmination of my four year journey of learning about
people and how we can go about living the good life: Richard Lewis, Bill
Peterson, Robert Gable, Jerry Irish, Kathleen Wicker, and Steve Smith.
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Table 1
MEAN SCORES FOR EACH
SECTION
Mean Std Dev Minimum Maximum N Label
72% .12 .29 .93 101 Self actualization
22% .18 .07 .67 102 Illegal Drugs
57% .21 .17 1.01 99 Legal drugs
61% .28 .10 1.00 104 Spirituality
72% .13 .23 1.00 101 Academics
72% .17 .31 1.00 104 Nature
75% .11 .44 1.00 104 Close Relationships
Table 2
SPEARMAN CORRELATION
COEFFICIENTS MATRIX
Spirituality
.20*
Legal Drug -.24** -.13
Use
Illegal Drug -.10 -.14 .60**
Use
Close .27** .14 -.21* -.18*
Relationships
Nature -.03 .36** .13
.19* .23**
Academics .14 -.23*
-.09 . 12 .20* -13
Self Actua- Spirituality Legal Illegal Close Nature
lization
Drugs Drugs Relation-
ships
*= Significance is less
than or equal to .o5 (1-tailed)
**=significance is less
than or equal to .01
Table 3
Forced Entry Multiple
Regression
Predictor
Variables: Standardized Beta T-value T
-sig.
Spirituality .14 1.21 .23
Legal
Drugs -.20 -1.53 .13
Illegal
Drugs .15 1.16 .25
Close
Relationships .25 2.17 .03
Nature
Experiences -.10 -.892 .37
Academics .15 1.37 .17
Constant 1.4 62.71 .00
APPENDIX
Section
2
Please answer the following
questions regarding spiritual, mystical, and religious experiences.
1)Approximately how often would you say that you
have a personal spiritual, mystical, or religious experience?
___
Never
___
Less than once a year
___
Once or twice a year
___
Once a month
___
Once a week
___
Several times a week
2)How significant are your spiritual, mystical, or
religious experiences to you overall life?
Please circle one:
1 2
3 4 5 6 7
Not Significant Very
At All
Significant
3)What are the three most common settings for your
personal spiritual, mystical, or religious experiences:
__
When you are alone
__
When you are in groups (other than an organized religious community)
__
When you are in an organized religious community
__
When you are in nature
__
When you are using psychoactive drugs
__
When you are with one other person or a small group of people.
__
Other______________
__
Other______________
4)Have
you recently (the past three or four
years) had a spiritual, mystical, or religious experience that has
significantly altered the way you live your life?
Please answer the following
questions regarding your use of psychoactive substances excluding medications
prescribed to you by a doctor.
5)Using the following scale, please mark how often
you use each of the substances listed below.
1= Never
2= Less than once a year
3= Once or twice a year
4= Once a month
5= Once a week
6= Several times a week
___
Caffeine, ephedrine
___
Tobacco
___
Alcohol
6)Please rank
the top four factors that lead to your use of the above substances:
___
I do it with my friends ___ They are readily available
___
People in my family have used them ___ I want to experiment
___
I want to more productive
___ I use them to relax
___
I have a lot of stress and problems ___ I use them for spiritual
In my life exploration
___
Just for fun
___ Other________________
___
Other_______________________ ___
Other________________
7)My use of some of these substances plays a
significant role in my life.
Please
circle one:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Not Significant Very
At All
Significant
8)Using the following scale please mark how often
you use each of the substances listed below.
1= Never
2= Less than once a year
3= Once or twice a year
4= Once a month
5= Once a week
6= Several times a week
__
Cocaine
__
Extasy
__
Inhalants
__
LSD, Psilocybin (magic mushrooms)
__
Marijuana
__
Methamphetamine
__
Nootropics (Smart drugs)
__
Opiates
__
Hallucinogens not mentioned above
__
Amphetamines and stimulants not mentioned above.
__
Downers or Depressants not mentioned above.
__
Other_____________
__
Other_____________
9)Please rank
the top four factors that lead to your use of the above substances:
___
I do it with my friends ___ They are readily available
___
People in my family have used them ___ I want to experiment
___
I want to more productive
___ I use them to relax
___
I have a lot of stress and problems ___ I use them for spiritual
In
my life exploration
___
Just for fun
___ other________________
___
Other_______________________ ___
Other________________
10)My use of some of these substances plays a
significant role in my life.
Please circle one:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Not Significant Very
At All
Significant
Please answer the following
questions regarding your close relationships.
11)Are you currently involved in a close or intimate
relationship with a significant other?
__Yes __No
12) How close do you feel to the following people in your life? Please assign a number
between one and five where 1=not close at all, and 5=very close.
__
Significant other
__
Friends
__
Parents
__
Faculty/teachers
__
Other___________
13)How satisfied are you with your relationships
with the following people in your life? Please assign a number between one and
five where 1=not satisfied at all, and
5=very satisfied.
__
Significant other
__
Friends
__
Parents
__
Faculty/teachers
__
Other___________
14)To what extent are your relationships with the
following people significant to your overall life? Please assign a number
between one and five where 1=not significant at all, and 5=very significant.
__
Significant other
__
Friends
__
Parents
__
Faculty/teachers
__
Other___________
Please answer the following
questions concerning your experiences in nature. For purposes of this study,
nature experiences are those experiences in which your exposure to or interaction
with a natural setting has a significant effect on your immediate state of
being.
15)Approximately how often would you say that you
have experiences in nature?
___
Never
___
Less than once a year
___
Once or twice a year
___
Once a month
___
Once a week
___
Several times a week
16)How significant are your experiences in nature to
your overall life?
Please
circle one:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Not Significant Very
At All
Significant
Please answer the following
questions regarding your academic experiences since you have come to college.
17)How important are your academic pursuits to you?
Please circle one:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Not Important Very
At All
Important
18)on average how many hours per/week do you spend
on schoolwork? Including the number of hours you typically spend in the class
room
___
0-5 ___ 25-30 ___ More than 47
___
6-12 ___ 31-36
___
13-18 ___ 37-43
___
19-24 ___ 47
19)How important is success in your academic career
to you? Please circle one:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Not Important Very
At All
Important
Section
3
Please answer the following
questions concerning your life in general
21)To what extent do you feel that you have achieved significant
personal growth since entering college? Please circle one:
1
2 3 4 5
6 7
I
have not I
have grown
grown
at all significantly