ABRAHAM MASLOW 

Abraham Maslow was a well known American psychologist born on the 1^st of April 1908 in New York, as the oldest son to his Jewish parents, who had migrated from Russia. Though his childhood was mostly filled with loneliness and unhappiness, later he was identified and agreed as a great psychologist.

In the college Abraham Maslow started studying law to fulfill his parent wishes, but later discontinued the same and shifted to psychology according to his won will and wish. He completed his MA Degree in 1931 and PhD in 1934, both in psychology from Wisconsin University. He did extensive research work on Animal motivation which led him to get shifted to do research on human behavior and produce valuable research papers.

Abraham Maslow began his career by teaching psychology in Brooklyn College and continued for fourteen years. He also served as Chairman of the psychology department in Brandeis University. He is widely remembered as a pioneer in the school of humanistic psychology. His theory of human motivation became a key to the therapeutic technique called self-actualization.’ Motivation and Personality’ is one of the most memorable works done by him. Acknowledging and praising his contributions to the world of psychology he was named the ‘Humanist of the year’ in 1967 by the American Humanist Association. Although his researches based on the findings of other psychologists, his findings never failed to explore the new faces of the human psychology. Maslow considered Ruth Benedict and Max Wertheimer as the models of his self-actualization theory. Maslow was the first psychologist to study and explore the positive aspects of mental health. The Hierarchy of needs is one of his famous inventions which he derived from the study of monkeys.

Abraham Maslow accepted the position of Resident Fellowship, offered by Laughlin Foundation, at the age of 61. He spent his final years on writing books. Some of his widely read books are 'Motivation and Personality', 'toward a psychology of being' and 'the further Reaches of Human Nature. After fighting ill-health for some time he died on June 8^th of 1970 as a crusader of Humanistic psychology.

Questions

• What makes Abraham Maslow’s observations unique?
• What is the hierarchy of needs?