A Discussion On A.H.Masluo's Theories Of Human Nature

In the 50's of 20~th century, a group of American psychologists, led by A. H. Masluo, created Humanist Psychology. In the academic circles, Humanist Psychology is called "the third wave" after Psychoanalysis and Behaviorism, and Masluo himself got the name of the "father of Humanist Psychology". Since then, Humanist Psychology, both theoretically and practically, has exerted a extremely wide and deep influence, not only in the area of psychology, but also in the areas of management, economics, sociology, pedagogy, philosophy, esthetics, etc. This paper, divided into three parts, tries to discuss Masluo's Humanist Psychology and its significance.The first part: mainly discusses Masluo's criticism to S. Freud's Human Nature in Psychoanalysis and Watson's Human Nature in Behaviorism. It sets forth the historical status of Masluo's Humanist Psychology and its theories. Objecting both Freud's "strong instinct" in Psychoanalysis and Watson's "anti-instinct", Masluo claimed "similar instinct". He thought that "Similar instinct" human nature was a revolution in the studies of human nature, but this revolution was just a preparation for a higher stage of development. So it had a transitional nature.The second part discusses the major content of Masluo's Human Nature Theory. This text thinks that, when criticizing Watson's Behaviorism and Freud's Psychoanalysis, Masluo used integrative analysis and subjective introspective method to study the self-realized persons. A person's existence and its process are based on similar instinct. Therefore, the human nature theories, containing similar instinct, need layer theory, ego realization theory, high peak experience theory, laid a solid theoretical foundation for Humanist Psychology.The third part: First, using the standpoint, view and method of Marxism, the author objectively appraises Masluo's Human Nature. This text thinks that, compared to Freud's "strong instinct" and Behaviorist "anti-instinct", Masluo's human nature theories is undoubtedly a great progress. It contributed much in promoting the development of human nature theories, and it is also a revolution in the western human nature studies. But Masluo's theory has its own shortcomings, mainly in that he studied human beings losing contact with society, and viewed human nature as remaining animal instinct. He took a one-sided viewpoint on ego realization; as a result, he swung to human nature of individual departmental selfishness and abstract humanist human nature theory. Second, this article thinks that Masluo's theory has a role of reference and revelation in understanding correctly the "human centered" scientific development view. On the one hand, the author thinks that the reasonable part of Masluo's Human Nature Theory is of vital importance for us to correctly understand the "human centered" scientific development view; on the other hand, it is also very important to criticize Masluo's shortcomings in his theory, in order to prevent a one-sided understanding of the "human centered" scientific development view.