Abraham Harold Maslow Brooklyn, New York , 1 of April of 1908 – 8 of June of 1970 Palo Alto, California ) was a psicólogoestadounidense known as one of the founders and leading exponents of psychology humanist, a psychological current that postulates the existence of a basic human tendency towards mental health , which would manifest itself as continuous processes of search for self-actualization and self-realization.
His position is usually classified in psychology as a “third force”, placing itself theoretically and technically between the paradigms of behaviorism and psychoanalysis. His latest works also define him as a pioneer of transpersonal psychology. Maslow’s best-known theoretical development is the pyramid of needs, a model that proposes a hierarchy of human needs, in which the satisfaction of the most basic or subordinate needs leads to the successive generation of higher or superordinate needs.
Summary
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- 1 Biographical Data
- 2 Humanistic theories of self-actualization
- 1 Hierarchy of needs
- 3 See also
- 4 External Links
- 5 Bibliography
Biographical Data
Born and raised in Brooklyn, he was the eldest of seven siblings whose parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia . He was slow and orderly, and he remembered his childhood as lonely and quite unhappy. In his own words: “I was a little Jewish boy in a non-Jewish neighborhood. It was a bit like being the first black in a white school. I was lonely and unhappy. I grew up in libraries and among books ». Maslow was going to study law , but eventually went to the University of Wisconsin Graduate School to study psychology .
In December of 1928 , and while studying, he married his first cousin Bertha Goodman, and during that time he met his main mentor, Professor Harry Harlow. An original line of research began, studying the dominance and sexual behavior of primates. He received his BA in 1930 , his MA in 1931, and his Ph.D. in 1934 , all in Psychology and from the University of Wisconsin. It is this year when he proposes the psychological theory called today “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”, a theory about human motivation.
A year after graduation, he returned to New York to work with EL Thorndike at Columbia University, where he became interested in research on human sexuality. There he found another mentor in Alfred Adler, one of Sigmund Freud’s first colleagues.
Maslow’s pyramid: hierarchy of needs. Between 1937 and 1951 , Maslow was on the faculty of Brooklyn College, where he assumed an academic position as professor and began teaching full time. In New York he came into contact with many European immigrants who came to the United States , especially Brooklyn; people like Alfred Adler, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, as well as various Gestalt psychologists and Freudians. Specifically, he met two more mentors, anthropologist Ruth Benedict and Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer, whom he admired both professionally and personally.
These were so accomplished in their respective fields, and such “wonderful human beings” to him, that he began to take notes about them and their behavior. This would be the foundation of his lifelong research and thinking on mental health and human potential. In 1951 Maslow moved to Boston and became Head of the Department of Psychology at Brandeis, staying there for ten years, having the opportunity to meet Kurt Goldstein (who introduced him to the concept of self-actualization) and began his own theoretical journey. It was here, too, that he began his crusade in favor of humanistic psychology (a current that later became more far-reaching than the theory of needs).
The central thesis of the pyramid of needs, which has had application in various fields even beyond psychology , expresses that human beings have needs structured in different strata, in such a way that secondary or higher needs arise as they the most basic ones are being satisfied. The application of Maslow’s theories in labor psychology sought to strengthen the esteem of workers, help them grow, self-fulfillment and innovate in the company .
He wrote extensively on the subject, borrowing ideas from other psychologists and adding his own input in a meaningful way, highlighting, in addition to the concepts of hierarchy of needs and self-actualization, those of metaneeds, metamotivation and sublime 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. In 1967, the American Humanist Association named him Humanist of the Year. In the last years of his life and already semi retired from teaching, Maslow dedicated himself to a great unfinished theoretical project: developing a philosophyand an ethics that agreed with the hypotheses of humanistic psychology. The 8 of June of 1970 died in California because of a myocardial infarction.
Humanistic theories of self-actualization
Abraham Maslow markedly influenced the worldview for society. It provided a new face to the study of human behavior. He called his new discipline “Humanistic Psychology.” His family life and experiences influenced his psychological ideas. After World War II, Maslow began to question the way psychologists arrive at their conclusions, and, although he did not totally disagree, he had his own ideas about how to understand the human mind.
Humanistic psychologists postulate that all people have an intense desire to fully realize their potential, to reach a level of “self-actualization.” To prove that human beings not only react blindly to situations, but try to perform a greater task, Maslow mentally studied healthy individuals rather than people with serious psychological problems. This provided him with information for his theory that people have “peak experiences,” sublime moments in life when the individual is in harmony with himself and with his environment. From Maslow’s perspective, self-actualized people may have many peak experiences during the day, while others have those experiences less frequently.
Hierarchy of needs
Interpretation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, represented as a pyramid with basic needs below
- Main article: Maslow’s Pyramid
Maslow devised a visual aid to explain his theory, which he called a “hierarchy of needs,” consisting of a pyramid containing human, psychological, and physical needs. Climbing step by step up the pyramid, one reaches self-realization. At the base of the pyramid are “basic needs” or “physiological needs”, which include food (eating and drinking), breathing, elimination (urinating, defecating, sweating, etc.), rest and sleep and, in general, the involuntary and instinctive maintenance of the bodily functions that make life possible.
The next level is that of “security and safety needs”: security, order and stability. These first two steps are important for the survival of the person. Once individuals are satisfied with their nutrition, shelter, and vital security, they try to meet other needs. The third level is the “need for love and belonging”, made up of psychological needs; When human beings have taken care of themselves physically, they are ready to share themselves with others.
The fourth level is reached when individuals feel comfortable with what they have achieved; This is the level of «need for esteem», which includes success and status, mainly in self-perception (self-esteem), but also in the perception that others transmit (heter-esteem). The top of the pyramid is the “need for self-realization,” and it is overcome when a state of harmony and understanding is reached.
Maslow based his study on the ideas of other psychologists, Albert Einstein, and people he knew who clearly met the standard for self-actualization. He used Einstein’s writings and accomplishments to exemplify the characteristics of the self-actualized person. He found that all the individuals he studied had similar personality traits. They were all “reality-centered,” capable of differentiating what was fraudulent from what was genuine. They were also “problem-centered,” in the sense that they treated life’s difficulties as problems requiring solution. These individuals were also comfortable when alone and had healthy personal relationships.
They had only a few close family and friends, rather than a large number of superficial relationships. [6] One historical figure who was helpful to Maslow on his way to understanding self-realization was Lao-tzu, the “father of Taoism.” One principle of Taoism is that people do not get personal meaning or pleasure by seeking material possessions.
When Maslow introduced these ideas, some were not prepared to understand them; others called him unscientific. Sometimes regarded as at odds with Freud and his psychoanalytic theory, Maslow actually positioned his work as a vital complement to Freud’s. In his book Toward a psychology of being (1968), he stated: “It is as if Freud gave us the sick half of psychology and now we must complete it with the healthy half.” Maslow finds two facets of human nature, the healthy and the sick, so he considers that there should be two faces in psychology.
Consequently, Maslow argued, the way in which essential needs are satisfied is as important as the needs themselves. Together these two elements define the human experience. To the extent that a person satisfies his urge for social cooperation, he establishes meaningful relationships with other people and expands his world. In other words, it makes meaningful connections to an external reality — an essential component of self-realization. On the contrary, to the extent that the vital needs find selfishness and satisfaction of the desire for competition / competition, the person acquires hostile emotions and limits his relations with external reality – his consciousness remains internally limited.
Ruth Benedict and Max Wertheimer were models of self-actualization for Maslow. From them, he generalized that, among other characteristics, self-actualized people tend to focus their problems outside of themselves; they have a clear sense of what is true and what is false; they are spontaneous and creative; and they are not too attached to social conventions. Beyond the routine of meeting needs, Maslow anticipated extraordinary experiences, called “peak experiences,” which are moments of deep love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, during which the person feels more complete, alive, and self-sufficient. , and even as the very continuation of the world, more aware of truth, justice, harmony, goodness, and those kinds of feelings.
Maslow used the term ‘metamotivation’ to describe self-actualizing people who act driven by innate forces that are beyond their basic needs so that they can explore and achieve their full human potential
