Revising Maslow’s Hierarchy for a Socially-Connected World

April 21, 2012 By 3 Comments
Revising Maslow for a socially connected world

In my November 2011 Psychology Today post “What Maslow Misses,” I argued that Maslow’s popular Hierarchy of Needs pyramid undervalues the role of social connection in human basic survival needs and, therefore, as a driver of behavior. Recently, storytelling and management guru and Forbes contributor Steve Denning picked up this idea in the context of how management can better meet the psychological needs of employees by focusing on social connection in a recent article: "What Maslow Missed." In response to Denning’s column, Maslow scholar and executive coach Don Blohowiak objected to the simplification and misrepresentation of Maslow’s work. I very much appreciate Mr. Denning’s attention to my revision of Maslow and furthering the discussion I started. And I want to take the responsibility for any misrepresentation of Maslow’s hierarchy in “Maslow Rewired” relative to Maslow's published works. I was speaking to the common heuristic of Maslow’s work, which, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture & Society, Psychology, Social Media & Networks Tagged With: , , , ,

Media Psychologist, Clinical Psychologist or Media Personality?

April 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I get lots of questions about media psychology, such as ‘What is media psychology?’ and ‘What does a media psychologist do?’ A big stumbling block is the common understanding of a media psychologist as a psychologist who appears in the media. That's the wrong answer. Here is a recent question: Dear Dr. Rutledge, I am conducting research in media psychology and stumbled upon this dissertation and I am more confused than anything. A recent dissertation defines a "media psychologist" as a psychologist that conducts a session with a patient on air. She compares what a psychologist does in private with a patient with what Dr. Phil does on air in front of a live TV audience. I conducted a phone survey where I contacted clinical psychologists in NYC randomly and asked how they felt about Dr. Phil and everyone said that they had a low opinion of Dr. Phil. However according to dissertation's thesis, psychologists rating were supportive of the "media psychologist"... Can you … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Education, Psychology Tagged With: , , , ,

Does ‘No Such Thing As Bad Publicity’ Apply To Psychologists?

March 26, 2012 By 2 Comments
2012-03-17-therapy-on-tv

The ethical questions surrounding psychologists who appear in the mass media are emotionally-loaded and subject to much debate.  But we also have to realize that there really is no such thing as just 'mass' media anymore in the traditional sense of uni-directional broadcast one-to-many media.  The information flows are much more fluid and networked which has had a profound effect on society as a whole and individual behaviors, beliefs and expectations.  It's impossible to isolate broadcast media within the broad spectrum of media channels, including Internet and social technologies, because the boundaries are coming down.  New channels have web pages and stories show up on Twitter.  Blogs and social media can fuel news channels as well. Whatever the media channel, bad publicity is pretty clearly bad for all professionals, but no publicity or presence can be bad, too, when people use the Internet to check the legitimacy of services and information and can’t find you. Here are … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Psychology Tagged With: , , , , ,

‘Pointless humor’ Isn’t Pointless: It Rewires & Inspires Us

March 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
cat dangling

As I told Carrie Cummings from OMMA (interview excerpted below),  I so rarely get asked questions about the positive side of social media or the Internet, it was a joy to talk about the benefits of humor.  Even the act of smiling has powerful impact on how you feel and the way you interact with others.  (For a wonderful discussion of this, check out Ron Gutman's charming ebook from his TED talk Smile: The Astonishing Powers of a Simple Act ).  We often underestimate the importance and power of our ability to self-soothe and the impact of our mood on others.  So getting to talk about happiness, made me happy.  Hopefully that will be contagious and it will make you happy, too.  At the very least, I hope you spend 5 minutes looking at LOLcats on sites like http://icanhascheezburger.com/, wallowing in cuteness at http://cuteoverload.com/ or reading the hilarious things that autocorrect can do to text messages at http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/.  If you have a site you … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Psychology Tagged With: , , , , ,
« Older Posts