Maslow's Life and It's Influences

Maslow was born on 1st of April in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were uneducated Jewish immigrant from Russia. Thus they pushed Abraham to excel in his studies. As a consequence, Maslow had a lonely childhood.

To satisfy his parent’s demands, thus Maslow entered City College of New York (CCNY). After 3 semesters, he transferred to Cornell, and back to CCNY. Then Maslow, against the will of his parents, married his first cousin Bertha.

He and Bertha moved to study at the University of Wisconsin. There he went in to the field of psychology. His studies improved dramatically. He worked with Harry Harlow. (Monkey experimentation)

With experimenting on monkeys, he discovers that monkey will react to a more basic need that upper level need.

He received his BA in the 1930, MA in 1931, and PhD in 1934 all in psychology. The following year he moved back to New York and worked with E. L. Thorndike. He became interested in research on human sexuality.

Maslow began full-time teaching at Brooklyn College. During this time he came in contact with many famous psychologists like Adler, Fromm, Horney, and several Gestalt and Freudian psychologist.

This might be why Maslow’s theories striving to satisfy our needs are similar to the psychodynamic.

As Maslow seated as the chair of Brandeis psychology department, he met Kurt Goldstein. Kurt brought the ideas of self-actualization with his book The Organism (1934). It was then Maslow began his crusade for the humanistic psychology.

Influenced by “The Organism,” Maslow developed the concept of self-actualization.

He passed away on June 8, 1970 of a heart attack in semi-retirement in California.

Interesting Points:
· Maslow suggests that there are only 2 people who are fully self-actualized.
· Maslow married his own first cousin, Bertha Goodman
· Based his idea on self-actualization on Kurt Goldstein’s “The Organism.”
· The first child of 7 others
· Maslow died of a heart attack after years of ill-health
· Maslow doesn’t think self-actualizers are perfect beings.

SOURCE: www.wikipedia.com