Life and Theories of Abraham Maslow
Life Story of Maslow
Abraham Maslow, 20th century psychologist, known for his hierarchy of needs, has made important contributions to humanistic psychology. He was born in 1908 in Brooklyn, New York and he died because of a sudden heart attack when he was 62 years old (“Abraham Maslow/1908–1970”, 2015, para. 1). He had six siblings and his parents are very interested in him and his siblings to receive a good educaion ( Boeree, 2006, page.3). Abraham Maslow completed his high school education at the Boys High School in Brooklyn as a sociable student (“Abraham Maslow/1908–1970”, 2015, para. 1). According to Boeree, his father was planning to make him a lawyer so he started the City Collage at New York for realizing wish of his father. He married with Bertha Goodman, his cousin, because of the claim of his father again and the couple had two children from this marriage. Maslow got bachelor of psychology at University of Wisconsin in 1930 and then the married couple moved to Wisconsin ( Boeree, 2006, page. 3). He did a work with Harry Harlow, famous experimental psychology, in there. He finished his master in 1931 and his Phd in 1934 in the University of Wisconsin and then returned to New York (Boeree, 2006, page.3). He began as an academican at Brooklyn College and he met AlfredAdler and Karen Horney in New York (Boeree, 2006, page. 3). According to goodtherapy, between the years of 1951–1969, Maslow was the president of psychology department at Brandeis University. He layed a foundation for humanistic psychology in there and he is also known father of humanistic psychology. During the 1960s, Maslow has lived productive years of his carrier. He was considered worthy of the honor humanist of the year by the American Humanist Association in late of his life (“Abraham Maslow/1908–1970”, 2015, para. 2).
Humanistic Psychology
Appearance of Humanistic Psychology
Humanistic is term in psychology which is optimistic and it focuses on human capacity and overcoming difficulties (“Who is Abraham Maslow and What is His Contributions to Psychology”, 2017, para. 6). According to Maslow, psychoanalysis and behaviorism are not adequate for interpreting and describing of human and their potential. For examle, psychoanalysis set a sight on “ the sick half of psychology” and how behaviorism separate humans and animals in its studies. Therefore, he discovered third force of psychology which named as humanistic psychology with agreed psychologist (“Who is Abraham Maslow and What is His Contributions to Psychology”, 2017, para. 6). In 1961, the Journal of Humanistic Psychology was published by American Association for Humanistic Psychology and Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Karen Horney and some other psychologist worked in this journal (Sutich, 1961, page. 1).
Theories of Maslow
The Hierarchy of Needs Theory
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs consists of five human needs which is hierarchize and it is also called the theory of motivation (Mcleod, 2017, page. 1). Maslow asserted that some needs in the hierarchy are most important than others and the people are motivated for becoming reality of some needs. (Mcleod, 2017, page. 2) According to Mcleod, in theory, human needs are divided five categories and shown as a pyramid (see in appendix A). The lower needs fulfill before higher needs because the lower needs should be fulfilled for higher needs (Mcleod, 2017, page 2).
The physiological needs: The needs are related to “homeostasis” and appetite and these are first step of the hierarchy. It include sexual desire, sleepiness, shelter, nutrition (Maslow,1987, page. 16).
The safety needs. When the physiological needs fulfill, other need which is called safety need shows up. It includes security, stability, dependency, protection. (Maslow, 1987, page. 18)
The belongingness and love needs. If the physiological and safety needs are carried out, the belongingness and love needs come into play. It consists of affiliation. The point we need to pay attention in here is that love is not same things with sex (Maslow, 1987, page. 20).
The esteem needs. Most of the people have a need which is self respect and the esteem of others. This need can seperate two categories: esteem for oneself and respect from others. Esteem for oneself contains achievement, mastery and independence; respect from others contains prestige,status and fame (Maslow, 1987, page. 21).
The self-actualization need. According to Maslow, dissatisfaction comes to exist in individual when all other needs fulfill but it can not become reality. At this instant, people want to discover their own potential. This processes can change person to person. In this step, ‘What humans can be, they must be’ (Maslow, 1987, page. 22). The self- actualization contains personal potential and self-fulfillment (Maslow, 1987, page. 22)
The order of this needs are not same each people because of personality. For instance, the self-esteem needs are more important than love and belongingness needs for some person who lack love (Maslow, 1987, page. 26). According the Maslow, similarly, the higher needs such as esteem needs become more important instead of basic needs such as hungry. For example, some person can not come face to face chronic hunger thus the higher needs can become more significant for this person (Maslow, 1987, page.26). Maslow thinks about the needs that it is required for human life and health (Boeree, 2006, page.6)
Self-actualization
Maslow interested in positive behaviours of humans before looking at psychopathology and he surveyed about how human realize herself. (Mcleod, 2017, page. 5) According to Maslow, the formation of self-actualization signal personal growth throughout life and a person who is self-fulfilling seeks the importance of life (Mcleod, 2017, page. 5). In addition, Maslow believed that self-actualization is measurable. Namely,it could be measured with peak expreinces (Mcleod, 2017, page. 5). The type of self-actualization could change from person to person. For example, refers being a perfect mom for some persons while it is painting pictures or making inventions for some others (Mcleod, 2017, page. 5). Most of people could not realize oneself or they could do it limitedly even Maslow pointed that only two percent of people achieve it and studied about feature of self-realized individuals (Mcleod, 2017, page. 5). Maslow determined by studying 15 trait which are related to self-actualized people (including Abraham Lincoln and Albert Einstein) (Mcleod, 2017, page. 6). According to Mcleod, this features are perceiving reality and tolerating uncertainty, espousing of environment, spontaneous in action, not selfish, different sense of humor, objectivity, extreme creativity, resistant to enculturation, concerned about human well being, relationship with a few people, peak experiences, requiring of privacy, democrat, strong ethic standarts (Mcleod, 2017, page. 6)
The Criticism of Maslow’s Theories
According to Mcleod, Maslow is generally criticized from the point of his methodology generally. He used biographical analysis method to determine characteristics of self-actualized persons. There are a lot of issues in this method based on scientific perspective (Mcleod, 2017, page. 8). To make it clear, this method is nominative and the researcher affects the results of the research. Therefore the validity of search decreases and it is not scientific fact (Mcleod, 2017, page. 8). Furthermore, it is hard to test Maslow’s theory in terms of emprical data. Another criticism is related to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Mcleod, 2017, page. 8). According to Mcleod, Maslow stated that the lower needs must be fullfilled before the person realize her own potential. But it is not true in all circumstances. For example, some authors or artists (e.g., Van Gogh, Vermeer) maintained their life within extreme poverty but they also realized theirselves(Mcleod, 2017, page. 8). In addition, there are contemporary research which did between 2010–2015 by Tay & Diener. According to research, there are universal human needs irrespective from cultural differences but the ordering of needs is not true in every time and every condition ( Mcleod, 2017, page.9).
My Reactions About Abraham Maslow
According to me, Maslow contributed significantly to humanistic psychology because he played an important role to established Journal of humanistic psychology. In addition, he brought new perspective to psychology with his humanistic approach. I think that, the hierarchy of needs theory is true in terms of the fulfilment of basic needs. For example, newborn baby needs nutrition at first step and then they want to feel safe yourself and are loved .I support that, the characteristics of self-realized individuals are not valid every people but these are realistic.
References
Abraham Maslow/1908–1970. (2015, June, 07). Retrieved from https://www.goodtherapy.org/famous-psychologists/abraham-maslow.html
Boeree, G. C. (2006). Abraham Maslow/1908–1970. (2006). Retrived from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download? doi=10.1.1.467.890
Maslow, A. H. (1987). A theory of human motivation. Motivation and personality(pp. 15-31). NewYork:Longman McLeod, S. A. (2017). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
Sutich, J. A. (1961). Introduction. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 1, vii–ix. Retrived from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/002216786100100101
Who is Abraham Maslow and what are his contributions to psychology. (2017, September,17). Retrieved from https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/abraham-maslow/