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Beyond Gamification. Designing up Maslow’s Pyramid.

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40hz:
If you're interested in Maslow (and ready to move beyond Wikipedia)...
-40hz (February 01, 2012, 04:57 PM)
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That could seem to be a rather cheap shot smacking of intellectual snobbery, and as such would do the author no credit.

-IainB (February 01, 2012, 09:04 PM)
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@IainB -Perhaps a certain sort of person might take my words as a "cheap shot." But my mind doesn't work like that. All I was suggesting was that if someone were interested enough in Maslow to move beyond the mostly descriptive articles found in Wikipedia, the suggested article could provide a more in-depth treatment of Maslow's ideas.

That's all it meant as far as I was concerned. Feel free, however, to interpret it as you will.

As far as an accusation of intellectual snobbery...well, that's the first time anyone's ever suggested I was guilty of that. But there's a first time for being called anything I suppose.

Regarding the notion of buzzword as it applies to self-actualization, all I can suggest is that it may have become a buzzword with the passing of time and it's passing into common parlance. But in Maslow's case it was anything but. He was groping for a term. And as terms go, within the context in which he used it, it was a very evocative and apt choice of words.

As for the rest...what can I say? I lack the patience for infinite hair-splitting and other debating tactics. Being an intensely noncompetitive sort of person, I also lack the appetite for that sort of thing. If you've tracked down a more reliably documented origin for the term self-actualization, please accept my "bravos" and collect full points for it. I hardly think it has much real bearing on the discussion.

Whether Maslow ultimately coined the term, or merely popularized it, he meant it in a rather specific sense. Which I think is not the case with what most people think of as a buzzword. (And I'm sure you'll be able to find a source to contradict me on that point as well.  :mrgreen:)

Either way, this discussion has gotten rather tiring.

So I'll leave it to you and others to carry on.

Best! :) :Thmbsup:

IainB:
@40hz: Apologies for the digression. And I do apologise if I offended you. I certainly meant no offense.
There was always the possibility that I was wrong and it was an entirely innocent and accidental choice of words, which is why I said (note the emphasis):
That could seem to be a rather cheap shot smacking of intellectual snobbery, and as such would do the author no credit.

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That was a rational and impersonal statement.
The thing is, I have a choice if I am involved in a discussion and perceive that someone may be subjecting someone else to a put-down. I generally make the choice not to stand idly by and watch it happen, and will tend to directly address the issue when I see it - which was what I did.

If it wasn't intended as a put-down but just came out accidentally phrased in a way that could be interpreted as being patronising, then no problem. My misinterpretation.
But -and again, I could be wrong, of course - this (following) perhaps could have been intended as a put-down (my added emphasis):
Perhaps a certain sort of person might take my words as a "cheap shot."
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This of course could be suggesting snidely that it is I who am "that sort of person" (in a pejorative sense).
Then again, perhaps that choice of words is accidental also. Only the speaker could know for sure.

IainB:
And as for Maslow, I'd say his pyramid isn't "disproved". Once again, it's also difficult to create any theory with *zero* use. Remember, he was among other things reacting to Skinner's rather insidious legacy of rat mazes applied to people. A lot of evil corporate managers deliberately chop off the top couple of pyramid layers to force people to keep worrying about the lower rungs, which results in getting away with lower pay rates.
-TaoPhoenix (February 01, 2012, 08:34 AM)
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It would be incorrect to say that because something has not been proven and yet:
isn't "disproved"
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- then it has even a grain of truth in it.
It could be possible that it might contain some truth, but you won't know until it is proven.
Thus, if your "evil corporate managers" are taking an action based on Maslow's unproven theory, then they are being irrational, by definition.

When 40hz sees it as unproven, he openly says that he accepts it on faith:
And that's the rub. There's no proof people actually do self-actualize. (Skinner would argue they didn't.) Because self-actualization argues for some higher order of existence or awareness (i.e. a soul) which amounts to a version of 'pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.'
It was something Maslow was never able to satisfactorily explain, although he did remark how horrible a world it would be if some form of self-actualization didn't really exist.
In the end, you have to take the existence of self-actualization on faith.
I do.  :)
-40hz (February 01, 2012, 09:17 AM)
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In an earlier post in this thread, here, I covered the points that there seems to have been nothing to prove Maslow's theory, and that it apparently remains just a theory.
That does not stop it from being:

* for perhaps many people (including myself), something that seems to be intrinsically "right" in many ways.
* a potentially useful construct for considering aspects of human motivation (and that is probably why it tends to be standard fare in many business management courses).
However, as Wikipedia puts it (here):
Recent research appears to validate the existence of universal human needs, although the hierarchy proposed by Maslow is called into question

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Wikipedia gives references to support this statement - here, and here.

That's why I said:
...Maslow's theory would seem to be a weak thing on which to base an argument for anything, because the research that relates to it has apparently only been able to throw the whole thing into question - i.e., the opposite of substantiating it (QED). There is apparently no proof that the theory holds out in practice (QED).
This would be quite the reverse, for example, to the validity of the theory (unverifiable at the time it was proposed) of gravitational lenses postulated by Einstein.
-IainB (October 21, 2011, 05:48 AM)
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Similarly, I rather liked Arthur Conan Doyle's improbable (and still not disproved!) theory that there were pretty winged fairies at the bottom of that garden in the UK, and I felt rather disappointed when the last surviving of the two girls who showed him the photos of the fairies confessed on her deathbed that it had all been a hoax, and that she wanted to get it off her conscience before she died.
It sometimes seems to me as though we may all need to believe in fairy stories at one time or another.
Unfortunately (or not?) the exercise of reason seems to lay waste to all belief. Cold and absolute, there is only Proven or Unproven, True or False - no room for "nearly true" or "only a little bit false" (e.g., the myth of AGW). And people don't like having their cherished or preferred beliefs or their religio-political ideologies laid waste.
No wonder Galileo's life was put at risk by the RC Church because of his "heresy" - e.g., here.

TaoPhoenix:
How do you even state the criteria of a proof? I tried an informal example above, in the sense of "given a class of people, the number of people engaging in "actualizing" activities is Non-Random and Greater Than the Control Group when the early levels of needs have been met."

Disproof/Not Yet Proven would indicate that there is no coorelation at all between met lower needs and higher activities. I'll take any links which demonstrate just that, but it feels very counter intuitive. "Hey, I can't make rent, so I think I'll go to Africa to feed starving kids."

Also I understand Maslow's theory to be a *correlation*, not a Boolean either-or-xor or such. (I'll leave that one to my betters.)

TaoPhoenix:
Re: Cheap Shots

I absolutely agree that Wikipedia is this "Bus Stop to Knowledge". It tends to be "sorta right", except for trolling etc it doesn't make that many blatant blunders. Then yes, if you really want to learn, Wiki's rather strange curation style does get in the way of insightful reading, so then you have to go to smaller sites.

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