Maslow’s Intellectual Betrayal of Ruth Benedict?

Abstract

During the summer of 1938, Abe Maslow was engaged in a field study of the Northern Blackfeet. He received a grant-in aid from the Social Science Research Council under the sponsorship of Ruth Benedict to study the "security needs" of the tribe. This project reflected Benedict's long-term interest in her concept of synergic and nonsynergic societies, which culminated with her publication of Patterns of Culture in 1934. It was Benedict's thesis that synergic societies, such as Zuni, had most of their psychological security needs met, whereas low synergic societies, such as the Dobu, did not. Initially, Maslow as a neophyte anthropologist employed a questionnaire to members of the Northern Blackfoot tribe to measure psychological security needs. Scholars have already postulated that this experience had lasting effects on Maslow's later development of concepts such as "self-actualization and "peak experience." However valid this is, the thesis of this article is that Maslow's anthropological turn disappeared over time and his later work indicated that he did not understand the synergic collective anthropological approach of Benedict but rather misused the concept of synergy to promote a person-centered psychological reductionist position mostly devoid of its cultural context.

A Critique of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers as Educators

“…Maslow’s experience with the Northern Blackfoot tribe was imprinted upon him. From this experience and his work with Ruth Benedict, he became enamored with the explanatory strength of the concept of synergy (Smith & Feigenbaum, 2013). Tony Sutich, the prominent humanistic psychologist, wanted to publish Maslow’s summer field notes, but Maslow thought they were so important he wanted to publish them himself (Lowry, 1978).…”