Reposted 10/06/2016
Abraham Maslow
"Abraham Harold Maslow (/ˈmæzloʊ/[citation needed]; April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970)
was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs,"
By: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Biography
Youth
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Maslow was the oldest of
seven children and was classed as "mentally unstable" by a psychologist. His parents were first generation Jewish
immigrants from Russia who fled from Czarist persecution in the early 20th century.[5] They had decided to live in
New York City and in a multiethnic, working-class neighborhood.[6] His parents were poor and not intellectually
oriented, but they valued education. It was a tough time for Maslow, as he from his teachers and from other
children around the neighborhood. He had experienced anti-Semitism various encounters with anti-Semitic gangs who
would chase and throw rocks at him.[7] Maslow and other young people at the time with his background were
struggling to overcome such acts of racism and ethnic prejudice in the attempt to establish an idealistic world
based on widespread education and monetary justice. The tension outside his home was also felt within it, he rarely
got along with his mother, and eventually developed a strong revulsion to her.
He is quoted as
saying,
"What I had reacted
to was not only her physical appearance, but also her values and world view, her stinginess, her total selfishness,
her lack of love for anyone else in the world – even her own husband and children – her narcissism, her Negro
prejudice, her exploitation of everyone, her assumption that anyone was wrong who disagreed with her, her lack of
friends, her sloppiness and dirtiness...
" He also grew up with few
friends other than his cousin Will, and as a result "...[He] grew up in libraries and among books."[9] It was here
that he developed his love for reading and learning. He went to Boys High School, one of the top high schools in
Brooklyn.[10] Here, he served as the officer to many academic clubs, and became editor of the Latin Magazine. He
also edited Principia, the school's Physics paper, for a year.
He developed other strengths as well:
As a young boy, Maslow believed physical strength to be the single most defining
characteristic of a true male; hence, he exercised often and took up weight lifting in hopes of being transformed
into a more muscular, tough-looking guy, however, he was unable to achieve this due to his humble-looking and
chaste figure as well as his studiousness.
College and
university
Maslow attended the City
College of New York after high school. In 1926 he began taking legal studies classes at night in addition to his
undergraduate course load. He hated it and almost immediately dropped out. In 1927 he transferred to Cornell, but
he left after just one semester due to poor grades and high costs. He later graduated from City College and went to
graduate school at the University of Wisconsin to study psychology. In 1928, he married his first cousin Bertha,
who was still in high school at the time. The pair had met in Brooklyn years earlier.[14] Maslow's psychology
training at UW was decidedly experimental-behaviorist.[15] At Wisconsin he pursued a line of research which
included investigating primate dominance behavior and sexuality. Maslow's early experience with behaviorism would
leave him with a strong positivist mindset.[16] Upon the recommendation of Professor Hulsey Cason, Maslow wrote his
master's thesis on "learning, retention, and reproduction of verbal material".[17] Maslow regarded the research as
embarrassingly trivial, but he completed his thesis the summer of 1931 and was awarded his master's degree in
psychology. He was so ashamed of the thesis that he removed it from the psychology library and tore out its catalog
listing.[18] However, Professor Carson admired the research enough to urge Maslow to submit it for publication.
Maslow's thesis was published as two articles in 1934.
Academic career
He continued his research at Columbia University, on similar
themes. There he found another mentor in Alfred Adler, one of Sigmund Freud's early colleagues. From 1937 to 1951,
Maslow was on the faculty of Brooklyn College. His family life and his experiences influenced his psychological
ideas. After World War II, Maslow began to question the way psychologists had come to their conclusions, and though
he did not completely disagree, he had his own ideas on how to understand the human mind.[19] He called his new
discipline humanistic psychology. Maslow was already a 33-year-old father and had two children when the United
States entered World War II in 1941. He was thus ineligible for the military. However, the horrors of war instead
inspired a vision of peace in him and this led to his groundbreaking psychological studies of self-actualizing
people. These studies began with his two 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[disambiguation needed].[20]
He wrote extensively on the subject, borrowing ideas from other psychologists but adding significantly to them,
especially the concepts of a hierarchy of needs, meta needs, meta motivation, self-actualizing persons, and peak
experiences. Maslow was a professor at Brandeis University from 1951 to 1969, and then became a resident fellow of
the Laughlin Institute in California. In 1967, Maslow had an almost fatal heart attack, and knew his time was
limited. Maslow considered himself to be a psychological pioneer.
He gave future psychologists a
push by bringing to light different paths to ponder.
[21] He built the framework that later allowed other
psychologists to add in more information. Maslow long believed that leadership should be non-intervening.
Consistent with this approach, he rejected a nomination in 1963 to be president of the Association for Humanistic
Psychology because he felt that the organization should develop an intellectual movement without a
leader.[22]
Death
While jogging, Maslow suffered a severe heart attack and died on June 8, 1970 at the
age of 62 in Menlo Park, California.[23][24]
Legacy.
Later in life, Maslow was concerned with questions such as,
"Why don't more people self-actualize if their basic needs are met? How can we humanistically understand the
problem of evil?"
In the spring of 1961, Maslow and Tony Sutich founded the
Journal of Humanistic Psychology, with Miles Vich as editor until 1971.[26] The journal printed its first issue in
early 1961 and continues to publish academic papers.[26]
Maslow attended the Association for Humanistic Psychology’s founding meeting in 1963
where he declined nomination as its president, arguing that the new organization should develop an intellectual
movement without a leader which resulted in useful strategy during the field’s early
years.
In 1967, Maslow was named Humanist of the Year by the American
Humanist Association.
Humanistic theories of self-actualization[edit]
Humanistic psychologists believe that every person has a strong desire to realize his
or her full potential, to reach a level of "self-actualization". The main point of that new movement, that reached
its peak in 1960s, was to emphasize the positive potential of human beings.[29] Maslow positioned his work as a
vital complement to that of Freud:
It is as if Freud supplied us the sick half of psychology and we must now fill it out with the healthy
half.
However, Maslow was highly critical of Freud, since humanistic
psychologists did not recognize spirituality as a navigation for our behaviours.
To prove that humans are not blindly reacting to situations,
but trying to accomplish something greater, Maslow studied mentally healthy individuals instead of people with
serious psychological issues. He focused on self-actualizing people. Self-actualizing people indicate a coherent
personality syndrome and represent optimal psychological health and functioning.[32]
This informed his theory that a person enjoys "peak experiences", high points in life
when the individual is in harmony with himself and his surroundings. In Maslow's view, self-actualized people can
have many peak experiences throughout a day while others have those experiences less
frequently.
Qualities of self-actualizing
people.
He realized that all the individuals he studied had similar
personality traits. All were "reality centered," able to differentiate what was fraudulent from what was genuine.
They were also "problem centered," meaning that they treated life's difficulties as problems that demanded
solutions. These individuals also were comfortable being alone and had healthy personal relationships. They had
only a few close friends and family rather than a large number of shallow relationships.
Self-actualizing people tend to focus on problems outside themselves; have a clear
sense of what is true and what is false; are spontaneous and creative; and are not bound too strictly by social
conventions.
Maslow noticed that self-actualized individuals had a better insight of reality,
deeply accepted themselves, others and the world, and also had faced many problems and were known to be impulsive
people. These self-actualized individuals were very independent and private when it came to their environment and
culture, especially their very own individual development on "potentialities and inner resources".[35]
According to Maslow, self-actualizing people share the following
qualities:
Truth: honest, reality, beauty, pure, clean and unadulterated completeness
Goodness: rightness, desirability, uprightness, benevolence, honesty
Beauty: rightness, form, aliveness, simplicity, richness, wholeness, perfection,
completion,
Wholeness: unity, integration, tendency to oneness, interconnectedness, simplicity,
organization, structure, order, not dissociated, synergy
Dichotomy: transcendence: acceptance, resolution, integration, polarities, opposites,
contradictions
Aliveness: process, not-deadness, spontaneity, self-regulation,
full-functioning
Unique: idiosyncrasy, individuality, non comparability, novelty
Perfection: nothing superfluous, nothing lacking, everything in its right place,
just-rightness, suitability, justice
Necessity: inevitability: it must be just that way, not changed in any slightest
way
Completion: ending, justice, fulfillment
Justice: fairness, suitability, disinterestedness, non partiality,
Order: lawfulness, rightness, perfectly arranged
Simplicity: nakedness, abstract, essential skeletal, bluntness
Richness: differentiation, complexity, intricacy, totality
Effortlessness: ease; lack of strain, striving, or difficulty
Playfulness: fun, joy, amusement
Self-sufficiency: autonomy, independence, self-determining.[36]
Dynamics of self-actualization[edit]
Maslow based his theory partially on his own assumptions about human potential and
partially on his case studies of historical figures whom he believed to be self-actualized, including Albert
Einstein and Henry David Thoreau.[37] Consequently, Maslow argued, the way in which essential needs are fulfilled
is just as important as the needs themselves. Together, these define the human experience. To the extent a person
finds cooperative social fulfillment, he establishes meaningful relationships with other people and the larger
world. In other words, he establishes meaningful connections to an external reality—an essential component of
self-actualization. In contrast, to the extent that vital needs find selfish and competitive fulfillment, a person
acquires hostile emotions and limited external relationships—his awareness remains internal and limited.
Methodology.
Maslow based his study on the writings of other psychologists,
Albert Einstein and people he knew who [he felt] clearly met the standard of
self-actualization.
Maslow used Einstein's writings and accomplishments to
exemplify the characteristics of the self-actualized person. But Ruth Benedict and Max Wertheimer were also
Maslow's models of self-actualization. In this case, from a scientific perspective there are numerous problems with
this particular approach. First, it could be argued that biographical analysis as a method is extremely subjective
as it is based entirely on the opinion of the researcher. Personal opinion is always prone to bias, which reduces
the validity of any data obtained. Therefore Maslow's operational definition of Self-actualization must not be
blindly accepted as scientific fact.[38]
Hierarchy of needs.
An interpretation of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, represented
as a pyramid with the more basic needs at the bottom[39]
Main article: Maslow's hierarchy of needs
Maslow described human needs as ordered in a prepotent hierarchy—a pressing need
would need to be mostly satisfied before someone would give their attention to the next highest need. None of his
published works included a visual representation of the hierarchy. The pyramidal diagram illustrating the Maslow
needs hierarchy may have been created by a psychology textbook publisher as an illustrative device. This now iconic
pyramid frequently depicts the spectrum of human needs, both physical and psychological, as accompaniment to
articles describing Maslow's needs theory and may give the impression that the Hierarchy of Needs is a fixed and
rigid sequence of progression. Yet, starting with the first publication of his theory in 1943, Maslow described
human needs as being relatively fluid—with many needs being present in a person simultaneously.[40]
The hierarchy of human needs model suggests that human needs will only be fulfilled
one level at a time.
According to Maslow's theory, when a human being ascends the
levels of the hierarchy having fulfilled the needs in the hierarchy, one may eventually achieve self-actualization.
Late in life, Maslow came to conclude that self-actualization was not an automatic outcome of satisfying the other
human needs [42][43]
Human needs as identified by Maslow:
At the bottom of the hierarchy are the "Basic needs or Physiological needs" of a
human being: food, water, sleep and sex.
The next level is "Safety Needs: Security, Order, and Stability". These two steps are
important to the physical survival of the person. Once individuals have basic nutrition, shelter and safety, they
attempt to accomplish more.
The third level of need is "Love and Belonging", which are psychological needs; when
individuals have taken care of themselves physically, they are ready to share themselves with others, such as with
family and friends.
The fourth level is achieved when individuals feel comfortable with what they have
accomplished. This is the "Esteem" level, the need to be competent and recognized, such as through status and level
of success.
Then there is the "Cognitive" level, where individuals intellectually stimulate
themselves and explore.
After that is the "Aesthetic" level, which is the need for harmony, order and beauty.
At the top of the pyramid, "Need for Self-actualization" occurs when individuals reach a state of harmony and
understanding because they are engaged in achieving their full potential. Once a person has reached the
self-actualization state they focus on themselves and try to build their own image. They may look at this in terms
of feelings such as self-confidence or by accomplishing a set goal.
The first four levels are
known as Deficit needs or D-needs. This means that if you do not have enough of one of those four needs, you will
have the feeling that you need to get it. But when you do get them, then you feel content. These needs alone are
not motivating.
Maslow wrote that there are certain conditions that must be
fulfilled in order for the basic needs to be satisfied. For example, freedom of speech, freedom to express oneself,
and freedom to seek new information[46] are a few of the prerequisites. Any blockages of these freedoms could
prevent the satisfaction of the basic needs.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs has been subject to internet memes over the past few
years, specifically looking at the modern integration of technology in our lives and humorously suggesting that
Wi-Fi was among the most basic of human needs.
Peak experiences.
Beyond the routine of needs fulfillment, Maslow envisioned
moments of extraordinary experience, known as Peak experiences, which are profound moments of love, understanding,
happiness, or rapture, during which 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. In other words, these “peak experiences” or states of flow are the reflections of the realization of
one’s human potential and represent the height of personality development[48]
Metamotivation.
Maslow used the term metamotivation to describe self-actualized
people who are driven by innate forces beyond their basic needs, so that they may explore and reach their full
human potential.[49]
B-values
In studying accounts of peak experiences, Maslow identified a
manner of thought he called "Being-cognition" (or "B-cognition"), which is holistic and accepting, as opposed to
the evaluative "Deficiency-cognition" (or "D-cognition"), and values he called "Being-values".[50] He listed the
B-values as:
Wholeness (unity; integration; tendency to one-ness; interconnectedness; simplicity;
organization; structure; dichotomy-transcendence; order);
Perfection (necessity; just-right-ness; just-so-ness; inevitability; suitability;
justice; completeness; "oughtness");
Completion (ending; finality; justice; "it's finished"; fulfillment; finis and telos;
destiny; fate);
Justice (fairness; orderliness; lawfulness; "oughtness");
Aliveness (process; non-deadness; spontaneity; self-regulation;
full-functioning);
Richness (differentiation, complexity; intricacy);
Simplicity (honesty; nakedness; essentiality; abstract, essential, skeletal
structure);
Beauty (rightness; form; aliveness; simplicity; richness; wholeness; perfection;
completion; uniqueness; honesty);
Goodness (rightness; desirability; oughtness; justice; benevolence;
honesty);
Uniqueness (idiosyncrasy; individuality; non-comparability;
novelty);
Effortlessness (ease; lack of
strain, striving or difficulty; grace; perfect, beautiful functioning);
Playfulness (fun; joy; amusement; gaiety; humor; exuberance;
effortlessness);
Truth (honesty; reality; nakedness; simplicity; richness; oughtness; beauty; pure,
clean and unadulterated; completeness; essentiality).
Self-sufficiency (autonomy; independence;
not-needing-other-than-itself-in-order-to-be-itself; self-determining; environment-transcendence; separateness;
living by its own laws).
Humanistic psychology
Maslow's thinking was
original. Most psychologists before him had been concerned with the abnormal and the ill. He urged people to
acknowledge their basic needs before addressing higher needs and ultimately self-actualization. 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 them. The most famous of these was client-centered therapy developed by
Carl Rogers.
The basic principles behind humanistic psychology are
simple:
1. Someone's present
functioning is their most significant aspect. As a result humanists emphasize the here and now instead of examining
the past or attempting to predict the future.
2. To be mentally healthy,
individuals must take personal responsibility for their actions, regardless of whether the actions are positive or
negative.
3. Each person, simply by
being, is inherently worthy. While any given action may be negative, these actions do not cancel out the value of a
person.
4. The ultimate goal of living
is to attain personal growth and understanding. Only through constant self-improvement and self-understanding can
an individual ever be truly happy.
Humanistic psychology theory suits people who see the positive
side of humanity and believe in free will. This theory clearly contrasts with Freud's theory of biological
determinism. Another significant strength is that humanistic psychology theory is compatible with other schools of
thought. Maslow's Hierarchy is also applicable to other topics, such as finance, economics, or even in history or
criminology. Humanist psychology, also coined positive psychology, is criticized for its lack of empirical
validation and therefore its lack of usefulness in treating specific problems. It may also fail to help or diagnose
people who have severe mental disorders.
Psychology of religion and
transpersonal psychology.
Maslow's influence extended
beyond psychology. His work on peak experiences was relevant to religious studies, founding with Stanislav Grof,
Viktor Frankl, James Fadiman, Anthony Sutich, Miles Vich and Michael Murphy, a new school called by himself "the
fourth force in psychology" the transpersonal psychology, with applicability in many different areas, one of them
being the work on management in transpersonal business studies. Maslow's Hierarchy is used in higher education for
advising students and student retention[52] as well as a key concept in student development. Maslow himself found
it difficult to accept religious experience as valid unless placed in a positivistic framework.
Positive psychology Maslow called his work positive psychology.[55][56] His work has
enjoyed a revival of interest and influence among leaders of the positive psychology movement such as Martin
Seligman. This movement focuses only on a higher human nature. Positive psychology spends its research looking at
the positive side of things and how they go right rather than the pessimistic side.
Maslow's hammer
He is also known for Maslow's hammer, popularly phrased as "if all you have is a
hammer, everything looks like a nail" from his book The Psychology of Science, published in 1966.
Criticism.
Maslow's ideas have been
criticized for their lack of scientific rigor. He was criticized as too soft scientifically by American
empiricists. In 2006, author and former philosophy professor Christina Hoff Sommers and practicing psychiatrist
Sally Satel asserted that, due to lack of empirical support, Maslow's ideas have fallen out of fashion and are "no
longer taken seriously in the world of academic psychology." Positive psychology spends much of its research
looking for how things go right rather than the more pessimistic view point, how things go wrong. Furthermore, the
Hierarchy of Needs has been accused of having a cultural bias—mainly reflecting Western values and ideologies. From
the perspective of many cultural psychologists, this concept is considered relative to each culture and society and
cannot be universally applied.
Maslow's concept of self-actualizing people was united with
Piaget's developmental theory to the process of initiation in 1993.
Writings
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, 3rd edition 1987)
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, (1st edition, 1962; 2nd edition, 1968)
The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, 1971
Future Visions: The Unpublished Papers of Abraham Maslow by E.L. Hoffman (Editor) 1996
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow
Abraham Harold Maslow
(/ˈmæzloʊ/[citation needed]; April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist who was best known for
creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs
in priority, culminating in self-actualization.[2] Maslow was a psychology professor at Alliant International
University, Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research, and Columbia University. He
stressed the importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people, as opposed to treating them as a "bag of
symptoms."[3] A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Maslow as the tenth most cited
psychologist of the 20th century.[4]
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