{"id":431,"date":"2023-10-26T22:53:29","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T22:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/?p=431"},"modified":"2023-10-26T22:56:08","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T22:56:08","slug":"can-reading-self-help-books-increase-self-actualization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/26\/can-reading-self-help-books-increase-self-actualization\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Reading\u00a0Self-Help Books Increase Self-Actualization?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>By Brad Bell<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are a significant number of self-help books. \u00a0Some of these\u00a0books may be read by a large number of people. \u00a0One important\u00a0question is whether there is any benefit of reading these self-help\u00a0books.\u00a0\u00a0One possible benefit of reading self-help books is an increase in self-actualization. \u00a0\u00a0Self-actualization involves personal growth in\u00a0which a person achieves his or her true potential. \u00a0Self-actualization is part of Maslow&#8217;s hierarchy of needs theory.\u00a0\u00a0In Forest&#8217;s (1987) experiment, participants read either no book,\u00a0or one of two self-help books. \u00a0Also, whether participants\u00a0completed a pretest concerning self-actualization measures was manipulated in the experiment. \u00a0Some participants had a pretest,\u00a0and other participants did not have a pretest. \u00a0All of the\u00a0participants were female. \u00a0\u00a0Only two self-actualization subscales\u00a0were used in the study. \u00a0One of them was Time Competence, and\u00a0the other was Inner-directedness.\u00a0\u00a0Forest (1987) found that posttest scores on the\u00a0Inner-directedness measure were influenced by whether\u00a0participants read a self-help book. \u00a0On the average, participants\u00a0who read a self-help book had higher posttest scores on the\u00a0Inner-directedness measure than participants who read no book\u00a0(this was true for both self-help books). \u00a0With respect to the Time Competence measure, on the average, participants who read Book\u00a01 had higher posttest scores on the Time Competence measure\u00a0than participants who read Book 2 or no book.\u00a0\u00a0These findings suggest that reading some self-help books may increase some dimensions of self-actualization.\u00a0\u00a0However, it is unclear about the generality of the findings. \u00a0We\u00a0do not know if there are some self-help books that would\u00a0<em>not\u00a0<\/em>increase self-actualization. \u00a0Also, it is not clear whether the effect on self-actualization is relatively short-term, or whether it may be\u00a0long-term.<br><br><strong>References<br><br><\/strong>Forest, J. J. (1987). \u00a0Effects on self-actualization of paperbacks\u00a0about\u00a0psychological self-help. \u00a0<em>Psychological Reports<\/em>,\u00a0<em>60<\/em>, 1243-1246.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Brad Bell There are a significant number of self-help books. \u00a0Some of these\u00a0books may be read by a large number of people. \u00a0One important\u00a0question is whether there is any benefit of reading these self-help\u00a0books.\u00a0\u00a0One possible benefit of reading self-help books is an increase in self-actualization. \u00a0\u00a0Self-actualization involves personal growth in\u00a0which a person achieves his &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/26\/can-reading-self-help-books-increase-self-actualization\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Can Reading\u00a0Self-Help Books Increase Self-Actualization?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}