Abraham Maslow was born on April 1, 1908 in New York City to Jewish immigrant parents. He grew up in New York and attended the University of Wisconsin. He received his bachelor's degree in 1930, his master's degree in humanities in 1931, and his doctorate in 1934. While studying at Wisconsin, Maslow became deeply interested in the work of social anthropologists such as Malinowski, Mead, Benedict, and Linton. Maslow studied behaviorism under the guidance of the famous experimenter Clark Hull. Maslow studied the behavior of primates under the leadership of Haria Harlow. His dissertation concerns the relationship between dominance and sexual behavior in primates. After Wisconsin, Maslow began to study human sexual behavior on a large scale. Psychoanalytic ideas about the importance of sex for human behavior strongly supported his research. Maslow believed that a better understanding of sexual functioning would greatly improve human fitness. Psychoanalytic theory significantly influenced the life and thinking of Maslow himself. Psychoanalysis of one's own ego has shown a huge difference between intellectual knowledge and actual experience. “To oversimplify a little, we can say that Freud presents us with a sick part of psychology, and we must now supplement it with a healthy part,” Maslow noted. After receiving his doctorate, Maslow returned to New York, continued his research at Columbia, and then taught psychology at Brooklyn College. New York at this time was a very significant cultural center, hosting many German scientists who fled Nazi persecution. Maslow conducted joint research with various psychotherapists, including Alfred Adler, Erich Fromm, and Karen Horney, who were concerned with the application of psychoanalytic theories to the analysis of behavior in other cultures. Maslow also seriously studied Gestalt psychology. He greatly admired Max Wertheimer, whose work on productive thinking was extremely close to Maslow's own research on cognition and creativity. Also significantly influencing Maslow's thinking was the work of Kurt Goldstein, a neuropsychologist, which points out that the body is a single whole, and what happens in any part of it affects the whole organism. Maslow's work on self-actualization was to some extent inspired by Goldstein, who first used the term. In addition, Maslow was greatly impressed by Sumner's book The Ways of Nations, which analyzed how much human behavior is determined by cultural patterns and prescriptions. The impression of the book was so strong that Maslow decided to devote himself to this area of research. During World War II, Maslow saw how little abstract theoretical psychology meant in solving the world's major problems, and as a result of this "epiphany" his interests shifted from experimental psychology to social and personality psychology. Maslow's main achievement in psychology is considered to be his concept of a holistic approach to man and analysis of his highest essential manifestations - love, creativity, spiritual values, which influenced many branches of science, in particular the development of economic thought. Maslow created a hierarchical model of motivation (in Motivation and Personality, published in 1954), in which he argued that higher needs guide an individual's behavior only to the extent that lower needs are satisfied. The order of their satisfaction is as follows: 1) physiological needs; 2) need for security; 3) the need for love and affection; 4) the need for recognition and evaluation; 5) the need for self-actualization - the realization of a person’s potentials, abilities and talents. Self-actualization is defined as “full use of talents, abilities, opportunities, etc.” “I imagine a self-actualized person not as an ordinary person to whom something has been added, but as an ordinary person from whom nothing has been taken away. The average man is a complete human being, with stifled and suppressed abilities and gifts,” wrote Maslow. Maslow names the following characteristics of self-actualizing people: 1) a more effective perception of reality and a more comfortable relationship with it; 2) acceptance (of oneself, others, nature); 3) spontaneity, simplicity, naturalness; 4) task-centeredness (as opposed to self-centeredness); 5) some isolation and need for solitude; 6) autonomy, independence from culture and environment; 7) constant freshness of the assessment; 8) mysticism and experience of higher states, 9) feelings of belonging, unity with others, 10) deeper interpersonal relationships; 11) democratic character structure; 12) distinguishing between means and ends, good and evil; 13) philosophical, non-hostile sense of humor, 14) self-actualizing creativity; 15) resistance to acculturation, transcendence of any common culture. Maslow's latest book, The Further Advances of Human Nature, describes eight ways in which an individual can self-actualize, eight types of behavior leading to self-actualization 1. Self-actualization means experiencing it completely, vividly, wholeheartedly, with complete concentration and complete absorption. 2. To live by constant choice, self-actualization means: in every choice, decide in favor of development 3. To actualize means to become real, to exist in fact, and not just in possibility. Here Maslow introduces a new term - “self,” by which he understands the essence, the core of an individual’s nature, including temperament, unique tastes and values. Thus, self-actualization is learning to tune into one’s own inner nature. 4. Essential aspects of self-actualization are honesty and taking responsibility for one’s actions. 5. Man learns to trust and act on his judgments and instincts, which leads to better choices of what is right for each individual 6. Self-actualization also involves a constant process of developing not only one's actual abilities, but also one's potentialities. 7. Maslow also uses the concept of “peak experience.” These are transitional moments of self-actualization, in which a person is more holistic, more integrated, aware of himself and the world at the moments of “peak” much sharper, brighter and more colorful than during the period of his passive existence. 8. The further, but not the last stage of self-actualization is the discovery of one’s “protective fields” and the constant abandonment of them. A person must be aware of how he distorts his own image and the images of the outside world, and direct all his activities to overcome these protective obstacles. During a long illness, Maslow became involved in the affairs of the family business, and his experience of applying psychology to the family business found expression in Eupsychic Management, a collection of thoughts and articles related to management and industrial psychology. In 1951, Maslow moved to the newly organized Breide University, accepting the post of chairman of the psychological department; there he remained almost until his death. In 1967-1968 he was president of the American Psychological Association, 1968-1970. - Member of the board of the Laughlin Charitable Foundation in California. Maslow is rightly considered in the United States to be the second largest psychologist (after William James) and the founder of the humanistic movement (“third force” after behaviorism and Freudianism) in psychology. Maslow's main strength lies in his interest in areas of human life that have been ignored by most psychologists. He is one of the few psychologists to seriously explore the positive dimensions of human experience. He himself, remarkably, could not stand limiting labels: “There is no need to talk about “humanistic” psychology, there is no need for an adjective. Don't think I'm an anti-behaviourist. I am an anti-doctrinaire... I am against everything that closes doors and cuts off opportunities.” Abraham Maslow died on February 17, 1970.
MASLOW Abraham Harold
Maslow) Abraham Harold (1908-1970) - American psychologist, specialist in the field of personality psychology, motivation, abnormal psychology (pathopsychologists). One of the founders of humanistic psychology. He received his education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Bachelor, 1930; Master, 1931; Doctor of Philosophy, 1934). He began his professional career as a teacher at the psychology department of Columbia Teachers College (1935-1937) and Brooklyn College (1937-1951). From 1951 to 1969 M. - Professor at Brandeis University. In 1967 - President of the American Psychological Association (APA). Recipient of the American Humane Association's Humanist Award (1967). Honorary doctor of a number of universities. Founder of Eupsychian Management magazine. Having begun his scientific career with research into the social behavior of primates in the 1930s, already in the early 1940s. M. turned to the study of the highest essential manifestations of man, inherent in him alone - love, creativity, highest values, etc. The impetus for this was the empirically identified by M. type of so-called self-actualizing personalities, which most fully express human nature. Having put forward the demand for a holistic approach to man and an analysis of his specifically human properties in contrast to the biological reductionism and mechanism that reigned supreme in post-war American psychology, M. at the same time sees the source of these properties in the biological nature of man, accepting K. Goldstein’s view of development as the unfolding of inherent in the body of potency. M. speaks about the instinctoid nature of basic human needs, including the need he postulates for self-actualization - the disclosure of the potentials inherent in a person. In the 40s M. develops a theory of human motivation, which is still one of the most popular. M.'s theory is based on the idea of a hierarchy of satisfying needs, starting from the most pressing physiological ones and ending with the highest need for self-actualization. In total, M. identifies 5 hierarchical levels of needs (the so-called pyramid of M.). The lower needs are satisfied first; superiors begin to motivate behavior only when inferiors are satisfied. Most people's behavior is driven by lower needs because they fail to satisfy them and move to a higher level. In the mid-50s. M. abandoned a rigid hierarchy, identifying two large classes of needs that coexist with each other: deficit needs (needs) and development needs (self-actualization). Continuing the study of self-actualizing individuals, whose life problems are qualitatively different from the neurotic pseudo-problems facing an immature personality, M. comes to the conclusion about the need to create a new psychology - the psychology of the Being of a person as a full-fledged, developed personality, in contrast to the traditional psychology of the formation of a person as a person. In the 60s M. is developing such a psychology. In particular, he shows the fundamental differences between cognitive processes in cases where they are driven by need, and when they are based on the motivation of development and self-actualization. In the second case, we are dealing with knowledge at the level of Being (B-cognition). A specific phenomenon of B-cognition are the so-called peak experiences, characterized by a feeling of delight or ecstasy, enlightenment and depth of understanding. Brief episodes of peak experiences are given to all people; in them everyone for a moment becomes, as it were, self-actualizing. Religion, according to M., arose initially as a figurative and symbolic system for describing peak experiences, which subsequently acquired independent meaning and began to be perceived as a reflection of a certain supernatural reality. Ordinary motivation at the level of Being is replaced by the so-called meta-motivation. Metamotives are the values of Being (B-values): truth, goodness, beauty, justice, perfection, etc., which belong both to objective reality and to the personality structure of self-actualizing people. M. derives these values, like basic needs, from human biology, declaring them universal; the sociocultural environment plays only the role of a factor influencing their actualization, more often negatively than positively. In recent years, M. has moved even further, developing the problem of transcendence of self-actualization and transition to even higher levels of development. M. stood at the origins of transpersonal psychology and was one of the leaders of this movement in the initial period of its formation. M.'s ideas about the direction of human development led him to an ideal model of a eupsychic society, which creates and supports the possibilities for maximum self-actualization of its members. M.'s eupsychic ideology has found practical application in management, into which, thanks to M., ideas about self-actualization as a motivating force for people's behavior in the management of organizations have penetrated. In recent years, M. turned to the problems of education, devoting a number of original works to them. M. had a great influence on the development of Western psychology in the 1960s and 70s, giving a powerful impetus to the humanistic trend in it. At the end of the 1950s. M. became the initiator of uniting unconventionally thinking psychologists interested in specifically human manifestations of man into a new community, from which grew the American Association of Humanistic Psychology (1962) and the Journal of Humanistic Psychology (1961). M. was the main inspirer and until his death one of the leaders of the movement of humanistic psychology, in many ways its face. Main works M.: Motivation and Personality, N.Y., 1954; Toward a Psychology of Being, N.Y., 1962; Religions, Values, and Peak-experiences, Columbus, 1964; The Psychology of Science, N.Y., 1966; The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, N.Y., 1971. In Russian. lane Self-actualization / Personality psychology. Texts. M., Moscow State University, 1982; Motivation and personality, St. Petersburg, 1999. D.A. Leontiev
Abraham Maslow is a prominent American psychologist, founder of humanistic psychology.
The so-called “Maslow Pyramid”, sometimes attributed to Maslow, is widely known - a diagram hierarchically representing human needs. However, there is no such scheme in any of his publications; on the contrary, he believed that the hierarchy of needs is not fixed and depends to the greatest extent on the individual characteristics of each person. The “Pyramid of Needs,” probably introduced to simplify the idea of a hierarchy of needs, is found for the first time in German-language literature in the 1970s, for example, in the first edition of the textbook by W. Stopp (1975). His theory of needs has found wide application in economics, occupying an important place in the construction of theories of motivation and consumer behavior.
Abraham Harold Maslow was born on April 1, 1908. We should probably pronounce such a strange-sounding surname for an American in the usual manner - Maslov. This surname was borne by the father of the future psychologist, a native of the southern provinces of the Russian Empire, who, like tens of thousands of his Jewish fellow tribesmen, shocked by the ruthless pogroms of the beginning of the century, moved to the New World. There he opened a workshop for making barrels, “got back on his feet” and sent his bride away from his homeland. So their first-born, who in other circumstances could have been our compatriot and called Abram Grigorievich Maslov, was already born in Brooklyn, not the most respectable area of New York. Maslow's childhood would make a wonderful subject for a psychoanalytic essay. His father turned out to be far from an ideal family man, more precisely, a drunkard and a womanizer. He disappeared from home for a long time, so his positive influence on the children (there were three of them in the family) was determined mainly by his absence. One can only be surprised that the family business developed quite successfully and allowed the family to exist quite prosperously. And subsequently Abraham himself, already a certified psychologist, took part in managing the production of barrels.
Abraham's relationship with his mother was bad and was tinged with mutual hostility. Mrs. Maslow was a quarrelsome person and severely punished children for the slightest offense. In addition, she openly gave preference to the two younger children, and did not like her firstborn. A scene was imprinted in the boy’s memory for the rest of his life: his mother smashes the heads of two cats that her son brought from the street against the wall.
He forgot nothing and did not forgive. When his mother died, Maslow didn't even show up to her funeral. In his notes you can find the following words: “My entire philosophy of life and my research have one common source - they are fueled by hatred and disgust for what she (mother) embodied.”
It is important to note that Abraham was not at all handsome. His puny physique and huge nose made him repulsively comical. He was so distressed by the shortcomings of his appearance that he even avoided riding the subway, waiting for a long time for an empty carriage, where he could not catch the eye of anyone. One could even say that in childhood and adolescence he was tormented by a severe inferiority complex in connection with his appearance. Perhaps this is why he was subsequently so interested in the theory of Alfred Adler, whom he even met personally when he moved to America. For Maslow himself was the living embodiment of this theory. In full accordance with Adler’s ideas (which, of course, he was not yet familiar with in his youth), he sought to compensate for his thinness and awkwardness by intense exercise. When he failed to realize himself in this field, he took up science with the same zeal.
At the age of 18, Abraham Maslow entered the City College of New York. The father wanted his son to become a lawyer, but the young man was absolutely not attracted to a legal career. When his father asked what he still intended to do, Abraham replied that he would like to “study everything.” His interest in psychology arose in his penultimate year of college, and the topic for his course work was purely psychological. This happened under the influence of the brilliant speeches of the father of American behaviorism, John Watson. For many years, Maslow remained committed to behavioral psychology and the belief that only a natural scientific approach to human behavior opens the way to solving all the world's problems. Only over time did the limitations of the mechanistic interpretation of behavior characteristic of behaviorism become not only obvious to him, but also unacceptable.
It is interesting that, unlike the handsome and bubbly Watson, who earned many reproaches for promiscuity, the unprepossessing Maslow was distinguished by rare constancy in intimate relationships. In his youth, he fell passionately in love with his cousin, but, tormented by complexes, for a long time he did not dare to open up to her, fearing to be rejected. When his timid expression of affection was unexpectedly reciprocated, he experienced the first peak experience of his life (this concept later became one of the cornerstones of his system). Mutual love became a huge boost to his fragile self-esteem. A year later, the young people got married (he was 20, she was 19) and, as they write in the novels, lived happily ever after.
Maslow began systematic studies in psychology when he entered Cornell University, and this almost extinguished his nascent interest in this science. The fact is that the first psychology course he took at Cornell was taught by Wundt’s student, the structuralist Edward Titchener.
Against the background of Watson's irresistible charm and the growing popularity of his behaviorist ideas, Titchener's academic arguments sounded like a sad anachronism. According to Maslow, it was something “inexpressibly boring and completely lifeless, having nothing in common with the real world, and therefore I fled from there with a shudder.”
He transferred to the University of Wisconsin, where he became actively involved in experimental research on animal behavior. Here he received a bachelor's degree in 1930, a master's degree in 1931, and a Ph.D. in 1934, at the age of 26. His scientific supervisor was Harry Harlow, who became famous for his unique experiments on baby monkeys. Under his leadership, Maslow carried out research work on the problems of dominance and sexual behavior in primates.
In those years, the problem of sexuality, despite the rapid flowering of psychoanalysis, continued to remain frighteningly piquant for the public, and few scientists dared to approach it. Because of this, Maslow turned out to be one of the few who could, with a certain stretch, be called an expert on this problem. Therefore, it was to him that Alfred Kinsey subsequently turned, who was destined to revolutionize the American public consciousness by publishing the results of his sociological research on sexual topics.
Interestingly, Maslow rejected the offer of cooperation. Subsequently, he was repeatedly reproached for neglecting scientific methods and scientific criteria in general. But he did not get along with Kinsey precisely on the basis that he considered his research not to meet the scientific criteria. According to Maslow, the sample of Kinsey respondents cannot be considered representative, since only those who voluntarily agreed to participate in the surveys. Drawing conclusions on such a delicate issue as the characteristics of sexual behavior, according to Maslow, would be permissible only taking into account the opinions of those who reject the very possibility of discussing this topic. Since this is impossible, the conclusions are unlikely to be reliable.
Maslow's article on this issue appeared in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in 1951, but went virtually unnoticed and is not remembered by anyone today. But in vain! The idea is correct. After all, even today we mourn the sexual promiscuity of young people, observing the most “unhinged” of its representatives and forgetting about those who behave delicately and modestly.
Maslow, in fact, did not neglect scientific experimentation at all and approached this matter with all seriousness. It’s just that the results obtained were involuntarily lost against the background of his essentially philosophical reasoning. For example, few people know of his remarkable work, completed in the mid-sixties and devoted to the problem of social perception.
Maslow asked his subjects to evaluate the presented photographic portraits according to the parameter of attractiveness (it should be noted that the most ordinary faces are usually chosen for this purpose). This had to be done in different conditions, or more precisely, in differently decorated rooms - in a “beautiful and cozy” room, “ordinary” and “ugly”. The result turned out to be easily predictable: the more pleasant the environment is to perceive, the higher the rating on the attractiveness parameter of the perceived faces deserves. An interesting experiment, something to think about. At least for another psychologist, one such experience would be enough for lifetime fame. Maslow gained his fame in another area.
His first scientific publication was published in 1937 and was a chapter on cross-cultural research in the collection Personality Psychology, edited by Ross Stagner. This publication reflects the experience Maslow gained during research work on an Indian reservation. Even with the most careful analysis, no hints of his subsequent theoretical constructions can be discerned in this work, and only a few historians of science know about it today.
In the second half of the thirties, Maslow was able to personally meet many outstanding psychologists who were forced by historical cataclysms to move from Europe to America. From the enumeration of these brilliant names, one could compile a fairly representative table of contents for a textbook on the history of psychology of the twentieth century - in addition to the already mentioned Adler, these were Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, Kurt Koffka, Kurt Goldstein, Max Wertheimer.
The latter had a particularly great influence on Maslow - not only as a scientist, but also as a person. It was under the influence of a reverent admiration for Wertheimer that Maslow began studying mentally healthy people who managed to achieve self-actualization in life. It was Wertheimer, as well as another of Maslow’s acquaintances, the famous American anthropologist Ruth Benedict, who served as examples for him of the most complete embodiment of the best qualities of human nature. We have to admit, however, with regret that even Maslow, a true humanist and optimist, counted only a few such examples.
The beginnings of Maslow's theory, which served as the basis for an entire direction of scientific thought - humanistic psychology, were formulated by him in general form in two small articles published in Psychological Review in 1943 (their content in expanded form was later included in his famous book "Motivation and Personality") . Even then, Maslow made an attempt to formulate a new approach to human nature, radically different from traditional psychological views.
In his opinion, psychoanalysis impoverishes our understanding of man by focusing on sick people and painful manifestations of personality. Behaviorism actually reduces life activity to manipulation and thereby reduces a person to the level of a stimulus-reactive mechanism. Where is the actually human in a person? This is exactly what Maslow called for to be studied.
In 1951, he received an invitation to the newly opened Bradeis University near Boston. Maslow accepted the invitation and worked at this university until 1968, heading the department of psychology.
It should be noted that Maslow's attempts to humanize psychology were met with fierce rejection by most colleagues who adhered to a behaviorist orientation. Although Maslow was almost idolized by students, the editors of leading psychological journals for a number of years rejected any of his manuscripts without review.
In fact, it was the students who carried him into the chair of the president of the American Psychological Association. But this happened in a different era, in the late 60s - in the era of Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol, Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey. Perhaps when they say that the youth of the 60s changed the face of America, there is some truth in this. At least this is true for psychology.
Maslow’s first truly significant work, which now rightfully occupies an honorable place in the golden fund of world psychological thought, “Motivation and Personality”, was published in 1954. It was there that the hierarchical theory of needs was formulated, building a pyramid with the base of basic needs and the need for self-actualization at the top.
From Maslow’s point of view, every person has an innate desire for self-actualization, and this desire for the maximum disclosure of one’s abilities and inclinations is the highest human need. True, in order for this need to manifest itself, a person must satisfy the entire hierarchy of underlying needs.
The higher nature of man rests on his lower nature, needing it as a foundation, and collapses without this foundation. Thus, most of humanity cannot manifest their higher nature without satisfying the basic lower nature.
An extremely interesting aspect of Maslow’s theory is his postulation of the so-called Jonah complex, which is somehow less known even to professionals than, say, the notorious castration complex, although in real life it is much easier to notice the first than the second.
Maslow calls the Jonah complex a person’s reluctance to realize their natural abilities. Just as the biblical Jonah tried to avoid the responsibility of being a prophet, many people also avoid responsibility for fear of using their full potential. They prefer to set small, insignificant goals for themselves and do not strive for serious success in life. This “fear of grandeur” is perhaps the most dangerous barrier to self-actualization. A rich, full-blooded life seems unbearably difficult to many.
The roots of the Jonah complex can be seen in the fact that people are afraid to change their uninteresting, limited, but well-established existence, they are afraid to break away from everything familiar, to lose control over what they already have. A parallel with Fromm’s ideas, which he expressed in his famous book “Escape from Freedom,” involuntarily suggests itself. However, the explicit and implicit influence of European colleagues on the formation of Maslow’s ideology has already been discussed.
By the way, speaking about the term “self-actualization”, it should be noted that it was used by K.-G. Jung, although this is rarely noted by humanistic psychologists. According to Jung, self-actualization meant the ultimate goal of personality development, its achievement of unity on the basis of the most complete differentiation and integration of its various aspects. The concepts of “striving for superiority” and “creative self” by A. Adler are also very close in their content to the idea of self-actualization.
In the 50s and especially in the 60s, in an era of radical revaluation of many values, Maslow's theory gained considerable popularity and recognition. Although even then, reproaches against her continued to be heard in scientific circles.
From a scientific, or more precisely, from a natural scientific point of view, Maslow’s position is very vulnerable to criticism. His most important theoretical judgments were the result of everyday observations and reflections, not supported in any way by experiment. In Maslow’s works, the word subjects does not mean subjects, but simply people who came into the author’s field of vision and attracted his attention; At the same time, the author does not provide any statistical calculations; on the contrary, he constantly operates with vague formulas “probably”, “probably”, “apparently”...
However, Maslow himself seemed to be aware of this and emphasized that he considered his approach not an alternative to the mechanistic, natural scientific approach, but a complement to it.
In his later works, Towards a Psychology of Being (1962) and The Farthest Limits of Human Nature (published posthumously in 1971), Maslow significantly modified his concept of motivation and personality, effectively abandoning the multi-stage pyramid of needs that today's students continue to painstakingly memorize.
He divided all human needs into lower, “scarce”, dictated by the lack of something and therefore satiable, and higher, “existential”, oriented towards development and growth, and therefore unsatisfiable. (Again, one involuntarily recalls Fromm’s “To Have or to Be”). However, the author himself considered these works as preliminary, hoping that in the future they would receive some kind of confirmation.
He did not live to see his hopes come true - he died suddenly of a heart attack on June 8, 1970. True, it must be said that even if he lived to be a hundred years old, his aspirations were not destined to come true. For even today the verdict pronounced by the authors of the American “History of Modern Psychology” - the Schultz spouses - rings true: “The theory of self-actualization lends itself to laboratory research rather weakly, and in most cases it is not confirmed at all.”
Nevertheless, for several decades attempts have been made to use it in practice, in particular in management practice. And what’s most interesting is that these attempts are, for the most part, quite successful. How can one not recall the words of an out-of-fashion classic about the most reliable criterion of truth!
Thirty years ago, Abraham Maslow wrote: “If you deliberately set out to become less significant than your abilities allow you, I warn you that you will be deeply unhappy all your life.” He himself, apparently, was a happy man.
Abraham Maslow (April 1, 1908, New York - June 8, 1970, Menlo Park, California) - famous American psychologist, founder of humanistic psychology.
The widely known Maslow Pyramid is a diagram that hierarchically represents human needs. However, there is no such scheme in any of his publications; on the contrary, he believed that the hierarchy of needs is not fixed and depends to the greatest extent on the individual characteristics of each person.
His model of the hierarchy of needs has found wide application in economics, occupying an important place in the construction of theories of motivation and consumer behavior.
Maslow was the eldest of seven children of the cooper Samuil Maslov and Rosa Shilovskaya, who emigrated from the Kyiv province to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. He was born in the Jewish neighborhood of Brooklyn. My father worked as a cooper; parents often quarreled. When he was nine years old, the family moved from a Jewish area of the city to another, non-Jewish one, and because Maslow had a distinctly Jewish appearance, he learned about anti-Semitism. Abraham was a lonely, shy and depressed young man.
Maslow was one of the best students in school. After graduating in 1926, on the advice of his father, he entered City College of Law in New York, but did not even complete his first year. Maslow first became acquainted with psychology at Cornell University, where E.B. was a professor of psychology. Titchener.
In 1928, Maslow transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Harry Harlow, a famous primate researcher, became his supervisor.
At the University of Wisconsin, he received a bachelor's degree (1930), master's degree (1931), and doctorate (1934). Maslow received a classical behavioral education, and his first scientific work, which promised him a bright future, was devoted to the relationship between sexuality and social behavior in primates.
In 1934, he began working at Columbia University as a research assistant for Edward Thorndike, a famous behaviorist and learning theorist. At first, Maslow was an adherent of the behaviorist approach; he admired the work of John B. Watson, but gradually became interested in other ideas.
In 1937, Maslow accepted an offer to become a professor at Brooklyn College, where he worked for 14 years. At this time, he met a galaxy of the most famous European psychologists who took refuge in the United States from Nazi persecution, including Alfred Adler, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, Margaret Mead, as well as the founder of Gestalt psychology Max Wertheimer and anthropologist Ruth Benedict. The last two became not only teachers and friends of Maslow, but also those people thanks to whom the idea of researching self-actualizing individuals arose.
In the 1960s, Maslow became popular, and in 1967 he was elected president of the American Psychological Association, to his own surprise.
A. Maslow died suddenly from acute myocardial infarction at the age of 62 years.
Sister - anthropologist and ethnographer Ruth Maslow Lewis (1916-2008), wife of anthropologist Oscar Lewis.
Books (4)
The far reaches of the human psyche
This book is the second, revised edition of the final work of A.G. Maslow, dedicated to his theory of self-actualization. This theory is based on the difference between lower (imperfect) and higher (growing) needs.
The book is addressed to a wide range of readers interested in the history and theory of psychology, human sciences.
Motivation and personality
Many years after its original publication, Motivation and Personality continues to offer unique and influential theories that remain relevant to modern psychology.
This third edition represents a reworking of the classic text by a team of authors, preserving Maslow's original style. The purpose of the revision of the text was to give it greater clarity and structure, thus making it suitable for use in psychology courses.
The third edition also includes an extensive biography of Maslow, an afterword by the editors in which they outline the practical and theoretical aspects of Maslow's belief system as reflected in our lives and society, and a complete bibliography of Maslow's works.
New frontiers of human nature
The latest book by Abraham Maslow, the founder and leader of humanistic psychology, who opened new perspectives for the psychological understanding of man and had a huge impact on changing the face of psychological science in the second half of our century.
Towards the psychology of being
In his book, he continues the work he has begun to create the foundations for “the formation of a unified psychology and philosophy, including both the depths and heights of human nature.” It is an attempt to connect 'developmental and growth psychology' with psychopathology, psychoanalytic dynamics and the movement towards wholeness.
Reader comments
Konstantin/ 06/20/2018 A. Maslow, of course, did not take into account everything in human behavior and did not describe everything, since we would be pleased to share, update or even read. He himself said that “perfection simply does not exist in the world.” Mr. “father” of Russian education, Leontiev noticed this, but the practice of life has shown that the educational system built by these “father” of Russian psychology led to the collapse of education itself, but Maslow’s works are striking in their relevance today. Despite the fact that I personally do not agree with all of the author’s conclusions, especially regarding personal motivation, Maslow’s work should nevertheless be studied. because in their basic versions they not only work, but prove their viability. I recommend it to everyone as a pill for the psychology of “achievement” and the psychology of improvement. And also for those who are sincerely interested in personality psychology.
Alexander the Resurrected/ 10.25.2016 This is where modern psychologists should start - forward, not back, to Freud and from him...
Guest/ 01/25/2014 “Placing in a single, quantifiable space of humanity all the diseases with which psychiatrists and therapists are concerned, all disorders that provide food for thought to existentialists, philosophers, religious thinkers and social reformers, provides enormous theoretical and scientific advantages. Moreover, we can place in the same continuum the various types of health that we already know about, in the full palette of their manifestations, both within the boundaries of health and beyond it - we mean here manifestations of self-transcendence, mystical merging with the absolute and other manifestations the highest possibilities of human nature that the future will reveal to us.”
A.H. Maslow (1908-1970), founder of humanistic psychology, one of the founders of transpersonal psychology.
Strange/ 11/12/2013 According to D.A. Leontiev, one of the significant shortcomings of A. Maslow’s theory is the theoretical amorphism of the concept of “self-actualization”. Including the processes of self-realization, self-expression, self-affirmation and self-development, this concept
ignores significant differences between them, which complicates the possibility of its operationalization (Leontyev D.A., 1997, p. 171)
Leontyev D.A. Self-realization and essential human powers // Psychology with a human face: a humanistic perspective in post-Soviet psychology / Ed. YES. Leontyeva, V.G. Shchur. M.: Smysl, 1997. - pp. 156-176.
Alexander/ 06.06.2013 Very inspired by him as a scientist and as a Person.
His most important contribution to psychology was the significant expansion of the map and horizons of the territory of psychology. He paid very thorough and serious attention to the study of health, self-actualization, the highest in man. He was also one of the first scientists to work on the creation of an integral model of personality development, seeking to combine the approaches of other schools.
Maslow was the founder of two current trends in psychology - humanistic and transpersonal.
I would like to say about the general style of his works. One cannot find impeccable systematicity in them; his train of thought develops very vividly and freely, trying to capture and captivate the reader, pointing out to him the possibility of direct experience of the things in question. His words seem to sparkle and flare up.
I definitely recommend it to everyone who has at least some connection to psychology, and just everyone)
Guest/ 05/04/2013 you can learn a lot about yourself. Thank you
Roman T/ 9.11.2011 Great psychologist!!!
Guest/ 09/01/2011 I advise everyone to read it if they don’t know what they want in life!
Natalia/ 03/25/2010 Thank you for the wonderful selection of Maslow’s books! Writes excellently, just what is needed for work. Classic!
Faith/ 10.11.2009 He was the first to study healthy individuals. It is perhaps wiser to focus on healthy individuals.
Maxim/ 06/07/2009 A great psychologist who should be put on a par with Freud and Jung. He came up with a new theory and developed the concepts of humanistic psychology. Worth reading for anyone interested in personality psychology.
A visionary and revolutionary in the science of the past century, one of the brightest and most influential psychologists, Abraham Maslow, significantly changed our worldview on human nature and our capabilities, convincing us that we are...
Biography of Abraham Maslow deserves special attention.
“I am an anti-doctrinaire. I am against what closes doors in front of us and cuts off opportunities.”
A. Maslow
In the footsteps of childhood in Brooklyn
The outstanding psychologist and psychotherapist Abraham Harold Maslow was born on April 1, 1908 in Brooklyn, in a not very representative area of New York. His parents were uneducated Jews who emigrated from Russia. Maslow was the firstborn in a family of seven children. His parents had high hopes for him and really wanted him to become a literate and intelligent person.
Maslow, by his own admission, remembers his childhood years without any enthusiasm and admiration, because he was very lonely and unhappy: “It’s strange that with such a childhood I did not develop psychosis or neurosis. I was a little Jewish boy among non-Jewish people. This is reminiscent of a similar situation when the first black person attends a white school. I was miserable and lonely. I grew up surrounded by books in libraries, without companions or friends.” Maslow's years like these would make an excellent subject for a psychoanalytic essay.
The relationship between Maslow and his mother was quite tense and hostile. One of the authors describes in Maslow's biography that his hatred of his mother lasted until the end of her days, and he did not even come to her funeral.
She was a very strict religious woman and often threatened her children that God would punish them for all wrongdoings. This attitude caused Maslow to hate religion and not believe in God.
Maslow's father was far from an exemplary family man. A man who “loved whiskey, women and fighting,” Abraham recalls. Moreover, the father convinced his son that he was stupid and ugly.
Later, Maslow was able to forgive his father, unlike his mother, and often spoke about him with pride and love. Despite this paternal reputation, the family business developed successfully and provided for the family quite well.
Later, Maslow himself, who was already a certified psychologist, participated in the management of his father’s barrel production business.
Early years
It is worth noting that Maslow was far from handsome. In his youth, he was very complex about the shortcomings of his appearance. Attempts to improve my frail body through intense sports activities were unsuccessful. After that, he seriously delved into science.
At the age of 18, at the request of his father, Maslow entered City College in New York to study law. However, a legal career did not interest young Maslow and he began taking a more eclectic course at Cornell University.
In his penultimate year of college, Maslow became interested in psychology. As a result, this young man entered the University of Wisconsin. In 1931 he received the title of Master of Arts, and in 1934 - the degree of Doctor. Maslow devoted his doctoral dissertation to the study of dominance and sexual behavior in a colony of monkeys.
During his school years, he passionately loved his cousin Bertha Goodman. Parents did not bless this love, because they feared that children might be born with genetic defects.
But despite all family restrictions, they got married shortly before moving to Wisconsin (he was 20, and she was 19). Afterwards he said: “Life practically didn’t begin for me until I went to Wisconsin and got married.”
Mature years
After receiving his doctorate, Maslow returned to New York to collaborate with the famous learning theorist E. L. Thorndike of Columbia University. Over the next 14 years, Maslow moved to Brooklyn College.
He described his years in New York as the center of a psychological universe. Psychotherapist consultations, psychological counseling, and psychological services were sufficiently represented in New York at that time.
It was during this period that he met the elite of European intellectuals - Erich Fromm, Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, Ruth Benedict and Max Wertheimer. These are just some of the people Maslow turned to to uncover and study human behavior.
Informal communication with such famous scientists made it possible to form the intellectual basis for the future humanistic views of Maslow, who was simultaneously studying psychoanalysis at that moment.
From 1951 to 1961, Maslow held the position of head of the psychology department at Brandeis University, after which he became a professor of psychology.
In 1969, Maslow left Brandeis and devoted himself to an academic post at the W. P. Loughlin Charitable Foundation in Menlow Park, California. This direction gives him the freedom to engage in the philosophy of democratic politics, ethics and economics.
1970 Maslow dies at the age of 62 from a heart attack resulting from chronic heart disease.
Maslow was a member of many honorary and professional societies. As a member of the American Psychological Association, Maslow was head of the Division of Aesthetics and the Division of Personality and Social Psychology, and was appointed president of the entire Association for the year 1967-1968.
Maslow was the founding editor of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. He was also a consulting editor for many scientific periodicals.
He studied developmental psychology, and in the latter part of his life he supported the Issalen Institute in California and similar groups that studied human performance.
In the last 10 years, Maslow wrote the bulk of his books.
The volume was compiled with the assistance of his wife and was published posthumously in 1972, called In Memory of Abraham Maslow. Biography of Abraham Maslow is quite capable of inspiring any person, because this great scientist actually made himself.
Of all the classics of psychology, Maslow most closely fits the definition of a genius due to his deep passion for his work. The now famous one is named in his honor, which personifies the distribution of human needs from base physiological to higher, spiritual.
The eldest of the seven children of Samuel and Rose Maslow, Abraham Maslow was born in New York City. His parents were Jews who immigrated to the United States from Russia.
The boy grew up in a multinational quarter. The family was poor, the parents were indifferent to the children and cared little about them.
The father offended and humiliated the boy so often that he sincerely believed in his worthlessness. His mother was a rude and selfish woman from whom the children saw neither love nor care.
On top of this, Abraham was the only Jew among the boys in the area, and therefore became a victim of virulent anti-Semitism, being constantly attacked for his religion.
All sorts of ups and downs in life force the boy to seek salvation in the library, where he discovers his love for books.
He studies at the Men's Secondary School, where he is a member of a number of thematic clubs. Also, for a whole year, he takes part in the publication of the Latin Journal and the school newspaper on physics topics.
After graduating from school, Maslow entered the New York City Lyceum, and took law classes in the evenings. However, soon realizing that studying law is not his business at all, he gives up additional classes.
Later, Abraham entered the University of Wisconsin to study psychology. There he conducts research in the field of experimental behaviorism. Thanks to this work, his positive worldview was strengthened. In 1931, Abraham Maslow received a master's degree in psychology.
Scientific activities
In 1937, Maslow became a member of the faculty of Brooklyn College, where he worked until 1951. When, in 1941, the United States entered World War II, Maslow was already too old and unfit for military service. However, the horrors of war inspire him to develop ideas for peace and influence his theories in psychology, helping to create the science of humanitarian psychology.
The lifestyle and actions of his two scientific mentors - psychologist Max Wertheimer and anthropologist Ruth Benedict - left a big mark on Maslow's soul, later laying the foundation for his research in the field of mental health and human potential.
In 1943, in his article “A Theory of Human Motivation,” which appeared in the journal Psychological Review, Maslow proposed his own system of hierarchy of needs. This theory was explained in detail in the 1954 book Motivation and Personality.
Maslow holds the view that every human being has a number of needs that must be satisfied in a certain order to achieve self-realization. According to his classification, human needs are arranged in the following order: physiological needs, the desire for security, the need to belong to a certain social group and to be loved, the tendency to respect, the need for self-realization and the desire for superiority. As a humanistic psychologist, Maslow truly believes that every individual needs to realize their full potential to achieve self-realization. He supports his theory by studying the personalities of Albert Einstein, Henry David Thoreau, Ruth Benedict, etc. – those who, in his opinion, have successfully achieved self-realization.
In 1951, Maslow became a professor at Brandeis University. He would teach there until 1969, when he joined the staff of the Laughlin Institute in California.
In 1961, Maslow, together with psychologist Tony Sutich, founded The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, which continues to publish scientific articles.
Main works
Maslow's greatest contribution to psychology is his theory of the hierarchy of needs, proposed by him in 1943. Numerous studies in the field of sociology, management, psychology, psychiatry, etc. are based on this classification of needs.
Personal life and legacy
In 1928, when he was barely 20 years old, Maslow married his cousin Bertha. And this marriage becomes for him the beginning of a happy family life. Their life of love and harmony continued until Abraham's death. From this union two daughters were born.
Maslow had heart problems for many years, and in 1967 suffered a serious attack. Three years later, in 1970, after a second blow, he dies.
The American Psychological Association annually awards the Abraham Maslow Award for significant contributions to advanced research in the field of further studies of the human soul.
