Abraham Harold Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist. He is noted for his conceptualization of a "hierarchy of human needs", and is considered the founder of humanistic psychology.[1]
Biography
Maslow was born and raised in Brooklyn. the eldest of seven children. His parents were uneducated Jewish immigrants from Russia. He was slow and tidy, and remembered his childhood as lonely and rather unhappy, because, as he said, "I was the little Jewish boy in the non-Jewish neighborhood. It was a little like being the first Negro enrolled in the all-white school. I was isolated and unhappy. I grew up in libraries and among books, without friends."[2]
Maslow first studied law at the City College of New York (CCNY). In 1927 he transferred to Cornell University, where his cousin Will Maslow was studying. His father hoped he would pursue law, but he went to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin to study psychology. While there, he married his first cousin Bertha in December 1928, and found as his chief mentor, professor Harry Harlow. At Wisconsin he pursued an original line of research, investigating primate dominance behavior and sexuality. He went on to further research at Columbia University, continuing similar studies; there he found another mentor in Alfred Adler, one of Sigmund Freud's early followers.
From 1937 to 1951, Maslow was on the faculty of Brooklyn College. In New York he found two more mentors, anthropologist Ruth Benedict and Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer, whom he admired both professionally and personally. These two were so accomplished in both realms, and such "wonderful human beings" as well, that Maslow began taking notes about them and their behavior. This would be the basis of his lifelong research and thinking about mental health and human potential. He wrote extensively on the subject, borrowing ideas from other psychologists but adding significantly to them, especially the concepts of a hierarchy of needs, metaneeds, self-actualizing persons, and peak experiences. Maslow became the leader of the humanistic school of psychology that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, which he referred to as the "third force" -- beyond Freudian theory and behaviorism.
Self Actualization through Humanistic Theories - There have been countless psychologists throughout history that have shared their theories and made a significant impact on how society understands the world that surrounds them. Abraham Maslow was one of these theorists; he brought a new face to studying human characteristics. He was inspired by great minds, and his own gift of thought that brought on the unique concept of Humanistic Psychology. Maslow was born in 1908, His views throughout his career stemmed from his Orthodox Jewish Background. His family and his experiences impacted the ideas that created a whole new form of psychology; most of his writings came to reality after World War II. (The Developing Person through the Life Span, (1983) pg. 42) Maslow began to question the way that psychologists had come to their conclusions and though he didn’t completely disagree, he had his own ideas on how to understand the Human mind. Humanistic Psychologists believe that in every person there is a strong desire to realize his or her full potential, to reach a level of Self-actualization. To prove that humans are not simply blindly reacting to situations, but trying to accomplish something greater. To prove this Maslow decided to study the mentally healthy individuals instead of the people with serious psychological issues. He realized through his studies that individuals experienced “peak experiences” which are the high points of life, when the individuals believe they are at harmony with themselves and their surroundings. Self-actualized people can have many peak experiences throughout a day when others have those experiences less often. (The Developing Person through the Life Span, (1983) pg. 43) Maslow created a visual aid to explain his theories; he called it the Hierarchy of Needs. It is a pyramid that depicts the levels of humanistic needs, psychological and physical. When a human being executes the steps of the pyramid then that individual will have reached self actualization. The bottom of the pyramid is the “Basic needs” of a human being, food and water. The next level is “Security and Stability.” These two steps are important to the survival of the person physically. Once the individual has basic nutrition and shelter then they instantly look to accomplish more. The third level is “Love and Belonging,” this is a psychological need, once the individual has taken care of themselves physically then they are ready to share themselves with others. The fourth step occurs when the person feels comfortable with what they have accomplished then they have reached the “Esteem” level. This level is success and status. The top of the pyramid is “Self-actualization” that occurs when it is believed that the individual has reached a state of harmony and understanding. (The Developing Person through the Life Span, (1983) pg. 44)
Maslow looked at historical figures, also people who he knew, that he felt clearly met the standard of self actualization, to base his study on. He studied many people; Albert Einstein was one of those figures. Maslow looked at his writings and his accomplishments throughout his life time and began creating characteristics of the self actualized person. He realized that the individuals who he was studying had similar personality traits. They were all “reality centered” meaning that they were able to differentiate what was fraudulent from what was genuine. They also were “problem centered” meaning that they treated life’s difficulties as a problem that demanded a solution. These individuals also were all right being alone and their personal relationships were healthy. They had only a few close friends and family rather than a large amount of shallow relationships. (ship.edu/wcqboeree/maslow.html) One historical figure that Maslow found to be helpful in his journey to understanding self actualization was Lao Tzu, The Father of Taoism. The basis of Taoism is that the people do not obtain personal meaning or pleasure by seeking material possessions. When Maslow introduced these ideas to the world of psychology some people were not ready to understand why he believed the things he did. He was on the total opposite spectrum of Sigmund Freud who was and still is a renowned psychologist. Maslow stated in his book “It is as if Freud supplied us the sick half of psychology and we must now fill it out with the healthy half” (Toward a psychology of being, 1968) there are two faces to human nature- the sick and the healthy- and so there should be two faces of psychology.
Abraham Maslow brought a new face to psychology and changed the way that modern-day physiologists understand the world around them. Without his creative mind critically looking at the situations that surrounded him humanistic psychology would not have been as well understood and developed as it has been
Maslow saw human beings' needs arranged like a ladder. The most basic needs, at the bottom, were physical -- air, water, food, sleep. Then came safety needs -- security, stability -- followed by psychological, or social needs -- for belonging, love, acceptance. Then, came esteem needs -- to feel achievement, status, responsibility, and reputation. At the top of it all were the self-actualizing needs -- the need to fulfill oneself, to become all that one is capable of becoming. Maslow felt that unfulfilled needs lower on the ladder would inhibit the person from climbing to the next step. Someone dying of thirst quickly forgets their thirst when they have no oxygen, as he pointed out. People who dealt in managing the higher needs were what he called self-actualizing people. Benedict and Wertheimer were Maslow's models of self-actualization, from which he generalized that, among other characteristics, self-actualizing people tend to focus on problems outside of themselves, have a clear sense of what is true and what is phony, are spontaneous and creative, and are not bound too strictly by social conventions.
Peak experiences are profound moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, when a person feels more whole, alive, self-sufficient and yet a part of the world, more aware of truth, justice, harmony, goodness, and so on. Self-actualizing people have many such peak experiences.
Maslow's thinking was surprisingly original -- most psychology before him had been concerned with the abnormal and the ill. He wanted to know what constituted positive mental health. Humanistic psychology gave rise to several different therapies, all guided by the idea that people possess the inner resources for growth and healing and that the point of therapy is to help remove obstacles to individuals' achieving this. The most famous of these was client-centered therapy developed by Carl Rogers.
Maslow's influence extended beyond psychology - his work on peak experiences is relevant to religious studies, while his work on management means that his ideas have relevance to transpersonal business studies.
In 1967, the American Humanist Association named him Humanist of the Year.
Maslow was a professor at Brandeis University from 1951 to 1969, and then became a resident fellow of the Laughlin Institute in California. He died of a heart attack on June 8, 1970.
Hierarchy of needs
Maslow has set up a hierarchy of five levels of basic needs. Beyond these needs, higher levels of needs exist. These include needs for understanding, esthetic appreciation and purely spiritual needs. In the levels of the five basic needs, the person does not feel the second need until the demands of the first have been satisfied, nor the third until the second has been satisfied, and so on. Maslow's basic needs are as follows:
Physiological Needs
These are biological needs. They consist of needs for oxygen, food, water, sex, and a relatively constant body temperature. They are the strongest needs because if a person were deprived of all needs, the physiological ones would come first in the person's search for satisfaction.
Safety Needs
When all physiological needs are satisfied and are no longer controlling thoughts and behaviors, the needs for security can become active. Adults have little awareness of their security needs except in times of emergency or periods of disorganization in the social structure (such as widespread rioting). Children often display the signs of insecurity and the need to be safe.
Needs of Love, Affection and Belonging
When the needs for safety and for physiological well-being are satisfied, the next class of needs for love, affection and belonging can emerge. Maslow states that people seek to overcome feelings of loneliness and alienation. This involves both giving and receiving love, affection and the sense of belonging.
Needs for Esteem
When the first three classes of needs are satisfied, the needs for esteem can become dominant. These involve needs for both self-esteem and for the esteem a person gets from others. Humans have a need for a stable, firmly based, high level of self-respect, and respect from others. When these needs are satisfied, the person feels self-confident and valuable as a person in the world. When these needs are frustrated, the person feels inferior, weak, helpless and worthless.
Needs for Self-Actualization
When all of the foregoing needs are satisfied, then and only then are the needs for self-actualization activated. Maslow describes self-actualization as a person's need to be and do that which the person was "born to do." "A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write." These needs make themselves felt in signs of restlessness. The person feels on edge, tense, lacking something, in short, restless. If a person is hungry, unsafe, not loved or accepted, or lacking self-esteem, it is very easy to know what the person is restless about. It is not always clear what a person wants when there is a need for self-actualization.
Bibliography
- A Theory of Human Motivation (originally published in Psychological Review, 1943, Vol. 50 #4, pp. 370–396).
- Motivation and Personality (1st edition: 1954, 2nd edition: 1970)
- Religions, Values and Peak-experiences, Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1964.
- Eupsychian Management, 1965; republished as Maslow on Management, 1998
- The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance, New York: Harper & Row, 1966; Chapel Hill: Maurice Bassett, 2002.
- Toward a Psychology of Being, (2nd edition, 1968)
- The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, 1971
See also
References
Further reading
- Cooke B, Mills A and Kelley E in Group and Organization Management, (2005) Vol.Situating Maslow in Cold War America, 30, No. 2, 129-152
- Roy Jose DeCarvalho, The Founders of Humanistic Psychology
- Edward Hoffman, The Right to be Human: a biography of Abraham Maslow, (ISBN 0-07-134-267-2)
- Mook, D.G. (1987). Motivation: The Organization of Action, London: W.W. Norton & Company Ltd (ISBN 0-393-95474-9) Motivation:
- Nicholson, I., (2001). Giving Up Maleness: Abraham Maslow, Masculinity, and the Boundaries of Psychology. History of Psychology, 2, 79-91
- Jessica Valdez, Self Actualization through Humanistic Theories
- Wahba, M.A. & Bridwell, L. G. (1976). Maslow Reconsidered: A Review of Research on the Need Hierarchy Theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 15, 212-240
- Wilson, Colin (1972) New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow and the post-Freudian revolution. London: Victor Gollancz (ISBN 0-575-01355-9)
External links
| Persondata |
| NAME |
Maslow, Abraham |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES |
|
| SHORT DESCRIPTION |
American psychologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH |
April 1, 1908 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH |
Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| DATE OF DEATH |
June 8, 1970 |
| PLACE OF DEATH |
California, United States |
