Self-Reports of Peak and Nadir Experience Effects
Peter Ebersole, Russell C. Baumer
Perceptual and Motor Skills June 1, 1988 DOI: 10.2466/pms.1988.66.3.950 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Survey Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 102 |
| Population | Introductory psychology students (47 men and 55 women, average age 19 years) |
| Topics | Mystical experience |
| Key findings | Among 102 introductory psychology students, 53% rated their most important nadir experience as having equal (13%) or greater (40%) effect on their lives than their strongest peak experience, replicating Ebersole's 1970 finding of 70%. The authors argue this supports studying peaks and nadirs jointly and aligns with May's existential critique of humanistic psychology's neglect of negative experience. |
Abstract
Comparatively stronger attention was given by Maslow (3) to his notion of the peak experience than to his concept of the nadir experience (defined as the most important negative happening in one's life). This tendency still is dominant in humanistic literature (5). One method of determining the apppropriateness of this almost exclusive emphasis on peaks to the exclusion of nadirs could be to ask people how comparatively influential they felt their nadir versus their peak experiences to have been in their lives. When Ebersole did this in 1970, he found that 70% of his college srudent sample rated their strongest nadir as having an equal ( 31% ) or greacer ( 39% ) effect than their strongest peak experience. The present experiment, psrt of a larger study, investigated how similar the results would be for a comparable group almost 20 years later. The 102 introductory psychology student participants (47 men and 55 women of an average age of 19 yr.) indicated by means of a checklist whether their most important nadir or peak had the stronger effect. The importance of the nadir was again borne out, with 53% citing the nadir as either of equal (13%) or greater (40%) effect than the peak. If such self-reports are seen as having validity, methodology like Finkel and Jacobsen's (2) whereby both peaks and nadirs are jointly studied, would seem more appropriate than the more typical emphasis upon positive experiences only. May (4), writing from an existential position, criticizes Rogers and humanistic psychologists in general for a similar neglect of the darker side of human experiencing related to our notion of evil; we see our data as supporting May's position.