Jacob Martinez

Safety

I’ve just recently read Abraham Maslow’s “A theory of human motivation” and it is full of gems. I love reading scientific articles published in the 40’s - 60’s, it seems like the authors were allowed to have fun, and that these articles are just as much a part of literature as they are of scientific literature. Now with heavy regulations regarding the language that you use in scientific papers, the authors personality can become lost. Below is a complete footnote from Maslow’s article detailing the ways we might be able to measure the basic motivation of safety in a child:

“A ‘test battery’ for safety might be confronting the child with a small exploding firecracker, or with a bewhiskered face, having the mother leave the room, putting him upon a high ladder, a hypodermic injection, having a mouse crawl up to him, etc. Of course I cannot seriously recommend the deliberate use of such ‘tests’ for they might very well harm the child being tested. But these and similar situations come up by the score in the child’s ordinary day-to-day living and may be observed. There is no reason why these stimuli should not be used with, for example, young chimpanzees.”