Abraham Maslow

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Abraham Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist. He is mostly noted today for his proposal of a hierarchy of human needs.

1 Biography
2 Four types of needs described by Maslow
3 Hierarchy of Human conative Needs
4 See also
5 Further reading and external links

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Biography

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Maslow was the first of seven children of Jewish immigrants from Russia. His parents were uneducated, but they insisted that he study law. At first, Abraham acceded to their wishes and enrolled in the City College of New York. However, after three semesters he transferred to Cornell, then back to CCNY. After he married, he moved to Wisconsin to attend the University of Wisconsin from which he received his B.A. (1930), his M.A. (1931), and his Ph.D. (1934) in psychology. While in Wisconsin, Maslow studied with Harry Harlow, who was known for his studies of rhesus monkeys and attachment behavior. A year after graduation, Maslow returned to New York to work with E. L. Thorndike at Columbia.

Maslow began teaching full time at Brooklyn College. During this time he met many leading European psychologists, including Alfred Adler and Erich Fromm. In 1951, Maslow became the chairman of the psychology department at Brandeis University, where he began his theoretical work. There, he met Kurt Goldstein, who introduced him to the idea of self-actualization.

He retired to California, where he died of a heart attack in 1970 after years of ill health.

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Four types of needs described by Maslow

Maslow described four categories of human needs, named as conative needs, cognitive needs, aesthetic needs and neurotic needs. All humans possess conative, cognitive needs and neurotic needs. Conative needs are described in details in the following session. Cognitive needs include two levels of needs which are presented as a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid are the knowledge needs, the needs to acquire information. Failure to satisfy these needs can lead to skeptism, paranoia, disillutionment and depression. At the top of the pyramid are understanding needs, the needs to understand acquired information. Cognitive needs must be partially satisfied in order to satisfy conative needs. Neurotic needs are the needs that are harmful to our health if satisfied. They are the needs to have a dysfuntional life and they will arise when conative needs are not satisfied.

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Hierarchy of Human conative Needs

Image:Maslowsneeds.png Maslow's primary contribution to psychology is his Hierarchy of Human Conative Needs, which he often presented as a pyramid, with self-actualization at the top as the highest of those needs (or conflicts or tensions) in ones life. The base of the pyramid is the physiological needs, which are necessary for survival. Once these are taken care of (resolved), an individual can concentrate on the second layer, the need for safety and security. The third layer is the need for love and belonging, followed by the need for esteem. Finally, self-actualization forms the apex of the pyramid. The idea of the pyramid came to his mind after an inspiration on visiting the Great Pyramids of Egypt.

In this scheme, the first four layers are what Maslow called deficiency needs or D-needs. If they are not filled, you feel anxiety and attempt to fill them. If they are filled, you feel nothing; you feel only the lack. Each layer also takes precedence over the layer above it; you do not feel the lack of safety and security until your physiological needs are taken care of, for example. In Maslow's terminology, a need does not become salient until the needs below it are met.

Needs beyond the D-needs are "growth needs", "being values" or B-needs. When fulfilled, they do not go away, rather, they motivate further. He outlines about 14 of these values or B-needs, including beauty, meaning, truth, wholeness, justice, order, simplicity, richness, etc.

Maslow also proposed that people who have reached self-actualization will sometimes experience a state he referred to as "transcendence," in which they become aware of not only their own fullest potential, but the fullest potential of human beings at large. He described this transcendence and its characteristics in an essay in the posthumously published The Farther Reaches in Human Nature. In the essay, he describes this experience as not always being transitory, but that certain individuals might have ready access to it, and spend more time in this state. He makes a point that these individuals experience not only ecstatic joy, but also profound, "cosmic-sadness," (Maslow, 1971) at the ability of humans to foil chances of transcendence in their own lives, and in the world at large.

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Abraham Maslow

From Free net encyclopedia

Contents

Biography

Four types of needs described by Maslow

Hierarchy of Human conative Needs

See also

Further reading and external links

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