Abraham Maslow
On April fool’s day in
1908, Two Russian Jewish immigrants gave birth to their first of seven
children. They named their newborn
son Abraham Harold Maslow. Wanting
Maslow to have a better life than they did, they began to push their oldest
child academically. Their
long-term goal was for him to get his law degree. This academic push led Maslow to feel isolated and lonely as
a child. Wanting to be a good son,
Maslow went along with his parents’ wish. He did well in primary school
and after graduation went to City College of New York to study law. He had a hard time while there. He only completed three semesters
before he quit. He later
returned. While at the City
College, Maslow got married. His
bride was his cousin, Bertha Goodman.
This decision shocked and upset his parents. Maslow and Bertha decided
to go through with the marriage despite their parents’ wishes. Maslow and Bertha then moved to
Wisconsin, in order for Maslow to attend the University of Wisconsin. It was here at the university that
Maslow’s love affair with psychology began. He studied behavior psychology under Harry Harlow. Maslow had a renewed interest in his
academics and graduated in 1930 with his Bachelor of Arts. He and Bertha stayed in Wisconsin so
that Maslow could continue his studies.
He went on to acquire his Masters of Arts from the University of
Wisconsin a year later. Three
years later, in 1934, Maslow completed his Doctorate in psychology. Shortly
after graduation, Maslow and Bertha returned to New York. Maslow began to work
with E. L. Thorndike at Columbia University. While here, he found a new mentor in Adler. In 1937, he got a job teaching at
Brooklyn College. He remained at
Brooklyn College for fourteen years.
He left in 1951 to become the head of the psychology department of
Brandeis University. In his years
at Brandeis, Maslow had contact with many great minds in the field of
psychology, including but not limited to Adler, Fromm and Horney. It was also here that he met Kurt
Goldstein. Goldstein introduced
Maslow to the theory of Self-actualization. Maslow continued his life long work in psychology. He took
this newly found insight and began to form his own theories. Maslow called his
new way of thinking about behavioral psychology the third force, also known as
Humanistic Psychology. These new theories, based on mental health and human
personality, started to pick up speed within the psychology world. The theories focused on personal
experience, stressing understanding
of oneself and one’s full potential. Maslow formulated his theory of human motivation, best known
as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
In 1968, Maslow wrote the first of his two books, ‘Towards a
psychology of being’. He
also became the President of the American Psychological association. Maslow passed away on June 8, 1970 from
a heart attack in Menlo Park, California.
One of Maslow’s most
influential works was his theory on human motivation. Today, this theory of a person’s ‘hierarchy of
needs’ is used throughout our society. Not only is it taught in psychology classes but his theory
can also be found throughout the business world. Managers are taught his theory. A better understanding of behaviors will help managers
relate and supervise their employees.
The marketing field is another field of business that uses
Maslow’s theory. Marketing
mostly consists of being able to target a certain person and get them to buy
your product. If you understand
what needs certain individuals are trying to satisfy, you will be more able to
provide them reasons to purchase your produce. Maslow’s theory provides marketers with this
understanding.
Maslow established that all
human behavior is derived from specific needs. Maslow said that all humans have five levels of needs that
guide their behaviors. The first
need, the very basic human need is physiological needs. Physiological needs refers to actions
humans participate in for their basic survival. The most obvious examples of these needs are food, water, air,
sleep, sex, etc. Everybody must do
or have these things in order to live.
According to Maslow, a person without one of these items within this
need category will have all their behaviors focused on trying to obtain this
item. A person will not move onto
the next level until and only until they have satisfied the need they are
currently working towards obtaining. If a person is hungry, thirsty, or tired,
etc. their only motivation will be to satisfy this need. Let us say there is a man who is wondering
around in the desert for days and days.
This man stumbles across a cheeseburger and a cell-phone. This starving
man will first eat the cheeseburger and then call for help, according to
Maslow’s theory.
Once a person satisfied his/her
need for physical survival, they will move onto the next need. The next need a person tries to satisfy
is for the need for physical safety.
This means that a person will work on feeling physically safe in their
environment. If a person has
his/her physiological needs meet but feel unsafe in his/her environment, the
person’s behavior will be focused on achieving physical safety. An example of this need is a woman
living alone in a big city. In
order to feel safe while walking alone on the dark deserted streets, this woman
may feel the need to carry mace in her pocketbook. If this does not make the
woman feel safe, she might talk self-defense classes. These actions demonstrate how a person who feels unsafe goes
about satisfying the need to change the unsafe feeling into a safe one.
Both Physiological and Safety
needs are lower-level needs. Once
these two needs are met, people move onto satisfying their upper level
needs. The first upper level need
is belonging and love needs. In
general, this level is the social level, where people focus on extending their
relationships with others. People
try to form relationships with both same-sex and opposite sex people. Friendships help people feel as if they
belong in the world. When college
students join fraternities and sororities, they do this in order to feel that
they belong. Outside of the
college experience, people are members of other kinds of clubs and
organizations. These clubs extend from quilting to bicycling to Automotive to
music clubs. Each of these groups
helps a person feel as if they belong to something.
The second part of this level of
need is love. This need is
self-explanatory. To understand
how important this need is, look at the art around you. Notice how many songs are sung, how
many poets are written, how many movies are watched whose main theme is
love. Marketing often focuses
their tactics to target people working on this need, both belonging and
love. Marketing executives
realize how important and how much time people send on this need.
The next need is esteem
needs. There are two parts to this
need. The first part is esteem
from within a person. This is
mostly referred to as self-esteem.
High self-esteem is associated with feelings of ability, competence and
independence. If a student does
well on a test, then this grade with reinforce their feelings of ability and
thus contribute to a higher self-esteem.
The second part of esteem needs is the need for recognition and respect
from others. An audience
applauding a performer is an example of how others can recognize a
person’s accomplishments.
One way people try to earn esteem from others is to buy expensive,
flashy items. Money in our society
is associated with working hard and achieving great things. The more money you have, the more you
have achieved and the more esteem you believe that you will get from
others.
The last need and the most
important one, according to Maslow, is self-actualization. Self-actualization is when people
maximize their full potential.
This is the highest level of functioning a person can have in this
life. People who are
self-actualized behave according to their own morals and values. Maslow felt that few people reached
this stage.
Maslow felt that each of these
needs were for the most part unconscious.
If you asked a person why they behaved in a certain way, they would most
likely not be able to contribute their behavior to one of these needs. Maslow set up these needs in a
particular order but he acknowledged that not every human act along this particular
line of motivation. This hierarchy
is more of a loose outline for understanding people’s basic behaviors.
Today, some people within the psychology world believe that there is more
hierarchy needs. They have added
more levels other than Maslow’s basic five. The most common addition is spiritual, which people place
above self-actuation. Overall,
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory is still widely accepted.
Maslow was a revolutionary
figure in the field of psychology.
His humanistic approach was a change from the previous work by other
psychologists who focused more on the biological aspect of human nature. 30 years after Maslow published his
works, students still learn about his theories. From a lonely, poor boy in Brooklyn to a world-known theorist,
Maslow left behind a much richer understand of human nature. These ideas will no doubt continue
through out the next 30 years.
Bibliography:
Etzel, Michael. Marketing. New
York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.
Frager, Robert. Motivation and
Personality: Abraham Harold Maslow.
Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, Inc., 1976.
Lowry, Richard. A. H. Maslow: an intellectual portrait.
Monterey, Calif: Brooks/Cole Pub. Co., 1973.
Myers, David. Psychology. Michigan: Worth
Publishers, 1998.