Maslow

Born	Abraham Harold Maslow
April 1, 1908
Brooklyn, New York
Died	June 8, 1970 (aged 62)
Menlo Park, California
Nationality	American
Fields	Psychology
Institutions	Cornell University
Brooklyn College
Brandeis University
Alma mater	University of Wisconsin–Madison
Doctoral advisor	Harry Harlow
Known for	Maslow's hierarchy of needs
Influences	Alfred Adler, Kurt Goldstein, Henry Murray
Influenced	Douglas McGregor, Roberto Assagioli,[1] Colin Wilson, Abbie Hoffman, Wayne Dyer, Elliot Aronson
Abraham Harold Maslow (/ˈmæzloʊ/[citation needed]; April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization.[2] Maslow was a psychology professor at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University. He stressed the importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people, as opposed to treating them as a "bag of symptoms."[3]

BiographyEdit

YouthEdit
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Maslow was the oldest of seven children and was classed as "mentally unstable" by a psychologist. His parents were first generation Jewish immigrants from Russia who fled from Czarist persecution in the early 20th century.[4] They had decided to live in New York City and in a multiethnic, working-class neighborhood.[5] His parents were poor and not intellectually oriented, but they valued education.[5] It was a tough time for Maslow, as he experienced anti-Semitism from his teachers and from other children around the neighborhood. He had various encounters with anti-Semitic gangs who would chase and throw rocks at him.[6] Maslow and other young people at the time with his background were struggling to overcome such acts of racism and ethnic prejudice in the attempt to establish an idealistic world based on widespread education and monetary justice.[7] The tension outside his home was also felt within it, he rarely got along with his mother, and eventually developed a strong revulsion to her. He is quoted as saying, "What I had reacted to was not only her physical appearance, but also her values and world view, her stinginess, her total selfishness, her lack of love for anyone else in the world – even her own husband and children – her narcissism, her Negro prejudice, her exploitation of everyone, her assumption that anyone was wrong who disagreed with her, her lack of friends, her sloppiness and dirtiness..." He also grew up with few friends other than his cousin Will, and as a result "...[He] grew up in libraries and among books."[8] It was here that he developed his love for reading and learning. He went to Boys High School, one of the top high schools in Brooklyn.[9] Here, he served as the officer to many academic clubs, and became editor of the Latin Magazine. He also edited Principia, the school's Physics paper, for a year.[10] He developed other strengths as well:

As a young boy, Maslow believed physical strength to be the single most defining characteristic of a true male; hence, he exercised often and took up weight lifting in hopes of being transformed into a more muscular, tough-looking guy, however, he was unable to achieve this due to his humble-looking and chaste figure as well as his studiousness.[11]

College and universityEdit
Maslow attended the City College of New York after high school. In 1926 he began taking legal studies classes at night in addition to his undergraduate course load. He hated it and almost immediately dropped out. In 1927 he transferred to Cornell, but he left after just one semester due to poor grades and high costs.[12] He later graduated from City College and went to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin to study psychology. In 1928, he married his first cousin Bertha, who was still in high school at the time. The pair had met in Brooklyn years earlier.[13] Maslow's psychology tra