Abraham Maslow was an American Psychologist and founder of the Humanistic School of thought. He is best known for his theory of basic needs for Human motivation. He was one of the most influential Psychologist of twenty century. He was influenced by famous psychologist Alfred Adler. Abraham Maslow gave a positive view of Human Nature.
According to him, every person has some good qualities and we should focus on his good qualities rather than bad qualities. His theories are based on the belief that every person is born with the desire to achieve their maximum potential or reach a point which Maslow termed as Self-actualization. Abraham Maslow is also one of the Contributor of American Humanistic Association. The humanistic Approach of Abraham Maslow is the 3rd largest force after psychoanalysis and Behaviorism. He received the reward honor of Humanist from the American Humanistic Association.
He is best known for
- Theory of Basic Needs
- Founder of Humanistic psychology
- Concept of Freewill
- Self- Actualization.
Early life of Abraham Maslow:
Abraham Maslow was born on April 1, 1908, in New York. Maslow's parents were migrated from the Russian federation. His parents have seven children and Maslow was the oldest one. Maslow describes his early life as unhappy and lonely. He spent much of his time in the school library. Maslow completed his early education from prestigious boy high school Brooklyn. He was a very Intelligent and active student of his school. After that Maslow studied law at City College of New York ( CCNY).
Then Maslow develop his interest in Psychology and take admission in Wisconsin university for psychology courses. In University, he worked under one of famous psychologist Harry Harlow . He learned a lot from Wisconsin university. He earned his bachelor degree in psychology from University of Wisconsin in 1930. He also received his MS and Ph.D. from the same university.
Maslow married Bertha Goodman in 1928. He has two children from this marriage. Maslow began teaching at Brooklyn college in 1937. Then Maslow became a chair of the Psychology Department at Brandeis University in Massachusetts from 1951 to 1969. He was heavily influenced by Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer and Anthropologist Benedict. They were not only best friend but later they also become a subject of his Research.
Famous Publication of Abraham Maslow:
Abraham Maslow was also a writer. He wrote many books on different topic of psychology. Some of his famous books includes
- Motivation and Personality (1954)
- A theory of Human Motivation. (1943)
- Toward a psychology of Being. (1962)
- Maslow Management. ((1965)
- Religions, Value and peak experience. (1964)
- The farther reaches of Human Nature. (1971)
- Personality and growth. (1963)
- The Psychology of Science, A Reconnaissance. (1966)
Humanistic Psychology:
Humanistic psychology is one of the major Approach in psychology. Humanistic psychologist studied person as a whole and they are in favor of finding people’s strength and Uniqueness of an individuals. Humanistic psychologist look at human behavior not only through the eyes of observer, but through the eyes of the person doing the behaving.
According to Humanistic psychology, People are Constantly striving to reach their full potential. The full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, potential are the main goals of humanistic psychology. Self- Actualization is the highest goal of every person where he can use our full potential.
Some of the characteristics of Self actualize are as follow
- Self- Acceptance
- Independence
- The ability to have peak experience.
Contribution in the field of Psychology:
- His theories focus on the positive aspect of Human nature. At that time, most of the psychologist focus on psychopathology and Abnormal behavior. Abraham Maslow was the first person who studies personal growth and Happiness.
- His theories still have major influence in the field of psychology especially in positive and Transpersonal psychology. Positive psychology emerged as a new branch of psychology from this idea.
Abraham Maslow died of Heat attack in California on June 8, 1970.
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