Abraham Maslow
1) His Biography:
American psychologist Abraham Maslow created a hierarchy of needs to describe human motivation. His theory held that before moving up the hierarchy to pursue more social, emotional, and self-actualizing needs, people have a set of basic needs that must be satisfied.
Abraham Maslow was the first of his Jewish parents’ seven children to be born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where he was born on April 1, 1908. His parents had immigrated from Russia. Later, Maslow recalled his early years as being miserable and lonely. He was engrossed in books and spent a lot of time in the library. Maslow attended City College of New York to study law (CCNY). He transferred to the University of Wisconsin after becoming interested in psychology and met Harry Harlow, a mentor who acted as his PhD advisor. The University of Wisconsin is where Maslow obtained his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in psychology.
Brooklyn College hired Abraham Maslow as a professor in 1937, and he remained on the faculty there until 1951. Max Wertheimer, a Gestalt psychologist, and Ruth Benedict, an anthropologist, had a significant impact on him during this time. Maslow emerged as one of the pioneers and main proponents of the humanistic psychology school of thinking in the 1950s. His theories, such as the need hierarchy, self-actualization, and peak experiences, were influential in the development of the humanism movement.
A lot of significant advancements in psychology were achieved by Maslow. He is now regarded as one of the 20th century’s most important psychologists. His beliefs emphasized the admirable traits of people. Abraham Maslow changed his attention to include the benefits of mental health at a period when the majority of psychologists concentrated on characteristics of human nature that were viewed as aberrant. His writings had an impact on how we see mental health. He had a long-lasting impact on psychology with his focus in peak experiences, human potential, bettering mental health, and personal development. Maslow passed away from a heart attack on June 8, 1970, in California.
2) Main Works:
Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences:
Maslow stated in his writing that a person’s perspective of their life as significant as being based on a sense of fulfillment and significance. William James’ “healthy-minded” religion has been compared to Maslow’s theory of “peak experiences.” Maslow proposed that the capacity for peak moments and devotion to traditional religious ideas are mutually exclusive. The peak experience is “felt as a self-validating, self-justifying moment which carries its own intrinsic value with it,” according to Maslow in Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences. The person is the “creative center of his (or her) own activities,” as well.
Maslow on Management:
Abraham Maslow’s 1965 book Maslow on Management is a treatise on industrial psychology. Maslow’s theories are regularly cited in an effort to understand and forecast workplace behavior. Maslow promoted eupsychian management, which is defined as moving toward psychological health or self-actualization, as the ideal model for industrial companies in his writings. Maslow was particularly interested in the application of humanistic psychology to larger projects in businesses and educational settings, where it could have a greater positive impact on a larger number of individuals.
Motivation and Personality:
The most well-known current study on human wants is perhaps Maslow’s book. Maslow proposed a hierarchical pyramid of human needs, with the most fundamental physical requirements at the base and the most transcendental or spiritual demands at the summit. In Motivation and Personality, Maslow makes the case that in order for people to prosper and achieve their full potential, a culture that promotes health must be established. Maslow is one of the psychologists who holds the view that children will experience profound feelings of insecurity when parents fail to provide a secure, nurturing environment. Maslow thinks that when people are happy, they can freely express their innate potential.
3) Main Themes in his Writings:
Humanistic Psychology:
Maslow’s theories were distinct from other prevalent notions at the time. Maslow believed that Skinner’s behavioral theory and Freud’s psychoanalytic theory both placed too much emphasis on the negative or disordered aspects of existence. Additionally, he believed that these views disregarded the whole range of human potential and inventiveness. Maslow’s views placed a greater emphasis on maximizing happiness and realizing one’s potential.
Self-Actualization:
In Maslow’s idea, the process of self-actualization was crucial. The “full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, potentialities, etc.” was how he described this tendency. In other words, everyone is always working to realize their maximum potential. Self-actualization is not a goal or a place to get there. People are always pushing themselves to reach new levels of fulfillment, creativity, and well-being in this continual process. Maslow thought that those who are selfactualizing had a number of essential traits. Self-acceptance, spontaneity, independence, and the capacity for peak experiences are a few of them.
Peak and Plateau experiences:
Beyond the mundane process of meeting needs, Maslow envisioned extraordinary experiences, or “peak moments,” which are profound moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, during which a person feels more complete, alive, self-sufficient, and yet a part of the world, and more aware of truth, justice, harmony, goodness, and other such ideals. Peak experiences are more likely to occur in self-actualizing individuals. The realization of one’s human potential is reflected in these “peak experiences” or “states of flow,” which constitute the pinnacle of personality development.
In later writings, Maslow shifted to a more all-encompassing model that permitted not only prolonged periods of tranquil Being-cognition, which he called plateau experiences, but also intense peak experiences. The Indian scholar and yoga practitioner U. A. Asrani, with whom he corresponded, is credited with teaching him this phrase. According to Maslow, the transition from the peak to the plateau experience is connected to aging naturally, which causes a change in one’s perspective on what is genuinely significant in life and what is not. Despite the personal relevance of the plateau experience, Maslow’s health issues that started to worsen at the end of his life prevented him from doing a thorough investigation of this phenomena.
Metamotivation:
In order to discover and realize their entire human potential, self-actualized persons are motivated by inner forces that go beyond their basic needs. Maslow used the word “metamotivation” to express this. According to Maslow’s theory of motivation, people can be inspired by a calling, mission, or life purpose. It has been highlighted that metamotivation may also be linked to what Maslow termed B-(being) creativity, or creativity that results from being inspired by a higher level of development. Maslow also identified another sort of creativity, which he called D-(deficiency) creativity. This type of creativity is said to be the outcome of a person’s urge to fill a vacuum created by an unmet primary need or their want for approval and assurance.
Positive Psychology:
Maslow referred to his research as positive psychology. Since 1968, his work has had an impact on the growth of Positive Psychotherapy, a transcultural, humanistic-based psychodynamic psychotherapy technique developed by Nossrat Peseschkian for the treatment of mental illness and psychosomatic disorders. Since 1999, positive psychology pioneers like Martin Seligman have renewed interest in and influence over Maslow’s ideas. This movement is solely concerned with improving human nature. Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of life, positive psychology studies the positive aspects and how things go right.
4) Maslow’s Hierarchy:
A theory of human motivation, written by Abraham Maslow in 1943, and his later work, Motivation and Personality, both reintroduced the idea of a hierarchy of needs. According to this hierarchy, people are driven to take care of their basic requirements before focusing on other, more complex needs. Maslow was more interested in discovering what makes individuals happy and what they do to reach that goal than any other of the prevalent schools of thought at the time, such as psychoanalysis and behaviourism, which tended to concentrate on problematic behaviours.
Maslow was a humanist who thought that everyone has the innate drive to realise their full potential and become themselves. However, a number of more fundamental demands must be satisfied in order to reach this ultimate goal. Among them are the requirements for food, safety, love, and self-worth. Maslow thought that these requirements resemble instincts and are very important in driving behaviour. Maslow’s hierarchy of requirements consists of five levels, with physiological needs being the first level.
The necessities for survival are among the physiological demands. Food, water, breathing, and other necessities are some examples of physiological demands. Physiological demands also include the need for shelter and clothes in addition to the fundamental needs of food, air, and temperature control. Maslow also included sexual reproduction at this level since it is crucial to the survival and genetic diversity of the species.
In Maslow’s hierarchy, the needs begin to get a little more complicated at level two. At this point, security and safety requirements take precedence. People desire order and control in their life. Financial security, overall wellness, and protection from harm are a few of the fundamental requirements for security and safety. Examples of acts driven by a need for security or safety include looking for a job, getting health insurance and medical care, putting money in a savings account, and moving to a safer area.
What are frequently referred to as “basic needs” are the safety and physiological levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs taken together. Maslow’s hierarchy of requirements lists love, acceptance, and belonging as social needs. Human conduct is driven by the need for emotional connections at this level. Friendships, romantic attachments, family ties, and other relationships are some of the things that fulfil this need. People need to feel loved and accepted by others in order to prevent loneliness, depression, and anxiety. Relationships with friends, family, and romantic partners, as well as participation in groups like sports teams, reading clubs, and other group activities, all play significant roles in one’s life.
The need for esteem and respect is located at level four of Maslow’s hierarchy. As soon as the demands at the lowest three levels are met, the esteem needs take centre stage in driving behaviour. At this point, winning the respect and admiration of others becomes more crucial than ever. People have a desire to work hard and then be rewarded for it. Along with the need for feelings of success and prestige, esteem needs also encompass things like self-worth and personal value.
Maslow’s hierarchy of requirements places the self-actualization needs at the very top. People who are self-actualizing are aware of themselves, interested in realising their potential, concerned with their own personal development, and less concerned with the opinions of others. Maslow stated, referring to the desire for humans to realise their full potential as human beings, “What a man can be, he must be.” Regarding self-actualization, Maslow said that it may be broadly characterised as making the most of one’s abilities, potential, and other assets. These people appear to be living their lives to the fullest and carrying out their potential. They are individuals who have reached their full potential or are in the process of doing so.
Many times, a pyramid is used to represent Maslow’s hierarchy of requirements. The most fundamental requirements are found at the base of the pyramid of wants, while the most complicated demands are found at the top. People can advance to the next level of wants once their lower-level demands have been satisfied. The psychological and social demands of humans increase as they go up the pyramid. The need for self-worth and a sense of success come first at the summit of the pyramid. Maslow highlighted the significance of self-actualization, which is a process of personal growth and development aimed at realising one’s potential, much like Carl Rogers.
5) His Relevance Today:
The Journal of Humanistic Psychology was established in the spring of 1961 by Maslow and Tony Sutich, with Miles Vich serving as editor from 1961 to 1971. The journal still publishes scholarly articles after printing its first issue in early 1961. At the founding meeting of the Association for Humanistic Psychology in 1963, Maslow renounced the position of president, stating that the new organisation should instead build an intellectual movement without a leader, which led to a useful strategy in the early years of the discipline. The American Humanist Association honoured Maslow Humanist of the Year in 1967.
His creations still have an impact today. Although many academic psychologists lost interest in Maslow’s work, and others have suggested that his hierarchy needs to be updated, his theories are currently enjoying a revival as a result of the growing popularity of positive psychology. The existence of universal human wants has been verified by recent research (Tay & Diener, 2011), yet the majority of psychologists concur that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that these needs are arranged in a hierarchy. One of several criticisms of Maslow’s hierarchy and work is the one just mentioned.
Other concerns raised by academics include the failure to take into account cultural differences resulting from one’s upbringing in an individualist versus a collective society, as these differences may affect how a person prioritises their needs (Wahba & Bridwell, 1976), the positioning of sex within the hierarchy, which Maslow claimed falls under physiological needs (Kenrick, Griskevicius, Neuberg, & Schaller, 2010), and the possibility that the ordering of needs in the hierarchy may for instance, during times of conflict, the hierarchy’s placement of demands for safety and physiological needs may vary (Tang & West, 1997).
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is still widely taught and an essential part of every introductory psychology course, notwithstanding these objections. In addition, the hierarchy has been modified for application in a variety of sectors, including policing, management, and urban planning. Maslow’s hierarchy has influenced modern psychology in ways he probably did not intend according to studies extending the theory to apply to communities rather than to individuals.
5) His Relevance Today:
The Journal of Humanistic Psychology was established in the spring of 1961 by Maslow and Tony Sutich, with Miles Vich serving as editor from 1961 to 1971. The journal still publishes scholarly articles after printing its first issue in early 1961. At the founding meeting of the Association for Humanistic Psychology in 1963, Maslow renounced the position of president, stating that the new organisation should instead build an intellectual movement without a leader, which led to a useful strategy in the early years of the discipline. The American Humanist Association honoured Maslow Humanist of the Year in 1967.
His creations still have an impact today. Although many academic psychologists lost interest in Maslow’s work, and others have suggested that his hierarchy needs to be updated, his theories are currently enjoying a revival as a result of the growing popularity of positive psychology. The existence of universal human wants has been verified by recent research (Tay & Diener, 2011), yet the majority of psychologists concur that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that these needs are arranged in a hierarchy. One of several criticisms of Maslow’s hierarchy and work is the one just mentioned.
Other concerns raised by academics include the failure to take into account cultural differences resulting from one’s upbringing in an individualist versus a collective society, as these differences may affect how a person prioritises their needs (Wahba & Bridwell, 1976), the positioning of sex within the hierarchy, which Maslow claimed falls under physiological needs (Kenrick, Griskevicius, Neuberg, & Schaller, 2010), and the possibility that the ordering of needs in the hierarchy may for instance, during times of conflict, the hierarchy’s placement of demands for safety and physiological needs may vary (Tang & West, 1997).
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is still widely taught and an essential part of every introductory psychology course, notwithstanding these objections. In addition, the hierarchy has been modified for application in a variety of sectors, including policing, management, and urban planning. Maslow’s hierarchy has influenced modern psychology in ways he probably did not intend according to studies extending the theory to apply to communities rather than to individuals.
