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Lucrecia Kasilag and Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs: An analysis of Lucrecia Kasilag’s life through a p

Abraham Maslow

Upon getting to know the life of Lucrecia Kasilag and conducting an analysis of her life through a psychological lens and applying the specific theory of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, it could be argued that Lucrecia Kasilag, in her 90 years of living, had experienced and achieved the highest stage of Abraham’s extended Hierarchy ofNeeds, transcendence.

Her Family

Born on August 13, 1918 to a well-off family, her father was Marcial Kasilag. He worked as a civil engineer and he was the first Filipino head of the Bureau of Public Works, and the first Filipino chief of the National Power Corporation. He had also a degree from Purdue University. According to Lucrecia, her father was firm but was a fair disciplinarian. Lucrecia’s mother, was a violin and solfeggio teacher, kind and affectionate.

Lucrecia had five siblings who were all also accomplished. Arguable, with Lucrecia’s family status, she lived a pretty comfortable life. She and her siblings had begun in their music education at early ages. Kasilag herself delved into guitar, the bandurria, the Hawaiian guitar, and even the violin, an indication of their family’s wealth at the time.

Her Achievements in Brief

Kasilag exhibited academic excellence, in graduating valedictorian from Paco Elementary School, and accelerated from freshman to junior year while in the Philippine Women’s University. Outside of academics, she’d go so far as to even offer informal algebra classes, and being elected as president of the student council. After three years of high school, she graduated from the PWU as valedictorian as well. Although she was going to enroll in the University of the Philippines for a pre-med course, but decided to continue her studies at PWU, wherein she graduated cum laude with an AB English course.

Philippine Women's University

Her other achievements and forays include the following: becoming an associate editor of the Philippine Women’s Magazine, as well as the president of the liberal arts organization. She even took part in sports, was part of the varsity cheer team, and many more. She earned herself a Music Teacher’s diploma, and also pursued a Bachelor in Music, from all the colleges she enrolled in through the years. She also joined the Philippine Literary Musical Society (Philimus). Although she was part of Philmus, she was also teaching piano at St. Scholastica as her dream really was to become a music teacher. Eventually, she taught music history, theory subjects, and piano.

What was most interesting was that because of her wealthy background, Lucrecia had the ability to stay indoors during the experience of the Japanese occupation. In fact, she was able to teach music theory and piano when the Japanese reopened the schools and had even learned Japanese to teach the language as well in PWU. She was able to accomplish a lot despite the war, and despite being evacuated several times.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow, in 1943, on the other hand, suggested that all human beings have a certain amount of needs that can be arranged in a hierarchy. In order to be motivated in life, there are needs that need to be fulfilled before moving on to the next set of needs in the hierarchy.

The bottom needs, such as the physical, safety, social (love and belonging) and ego(esteem) needs are all called deficiency needs. The top need, self-actualization, suggests that a person has the need to develop and be creative.

This top need, however, can only be achieved once the bottom deficiency needs have been met. The higher needs are not necessarily stemmed from a lack of something(unlike the deficiency needs).

Essentially, life experiences are what can shape the growth needs from occurring. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was extended however, in 1970, this time, including the cognitive, aesthetic, and transcendence needs.

In the new hierarchy, the following needs are in order from the bottom to the highest:biological, safety, love and belongingness, esteem, cognitive (curiosity, exploration ,need for meaning), aesthetic (appreciation of beauty), self-actualization, and transcendence needs.

Examining Kasilag’s

Life Undoubtedly, it can be seen that in Kasilag’s life, there was an abundance of things she had accomplished. Furthermore, no circumstances occurring in her life (especially during the Japanese occupation) stopped her from achieving more and growing more as an individual.

Her ability to continuously push herself to all of these, would arguably aid in the conclusion that she was able to acquire the highest needs of Maslow’s hierarchy –self-actualization and transcendence. In self-actualization, one finds that they need to be able to realize their full potential and they have the need to continuously find experiences that can help them grow more.

With all of Lucrecia Kasilag’s experiences and even her contributions not only to her own compositions but also the performances of the Bayanihan Dance Troupe, it is obvious that Lucrecia Kasilag did not just stop once she had achieved one thing. She continuously kept moving forward, and with that, she was able to also achieve and fulfill her transcendence needs.

Lucrecia Kasilag’s values started to go beyond her self, it would thus seem. While she had her own personal goals to become a teacher and a composer, her achievements in these aspects allowed her to acquire skills that went beyond what she could have expected – such the variety in the scope of her achievements, and even being given the tile of a National Artist of Music.

She was more motivated by values that went beyond her personal goals, rather. Lucrecia Kasilag was able to pursue composing and advocating for ethnic music and original Filipino instruments. She pursued preserving our ethnic culture through music and dance.

With this energy of hers, a cultural awareness has been sparked in the representation of Filipino identity in her works, making the average Filipino appreciate the original music they have even more.

Through a psychological lens and using merely one psychological theory, it can be argued that Lucrecia Kasilag was very well aware of her life and identity. Because of this, she was motivated by needs outside of herself, thereby turning to music, and finding a way to sharpen our appreciation for Philippine music and compositions. Lucrecia Kasilag not only lived a long 90 years, but contributed to infinite amounts of knowledge on music and the preservation of the cultures present in the rest of the regions of our country.

 

References

Abraham, M. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 381-382.Neel, B. (2012). Our hierarchy of needs: True freedom is a luxury of the mind. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/our-hierarchy-needsKasilag, L. (2000). My Story: PWU Publishing.

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