11 Interesting Abraham Maslow Facts That You Probably Didn't Know

Abraham Harold Maslow, born on April 1, 1908, was an American psychologist best known for developing the hierarchy of needs of the human mind.

Maslow's thesis proposed that people have a set of basic wants that must be addressed before pursuing greater social, emotional, and self-actualization demands higher up in the hierarchy. Maslow became an officer in various academic clubs and Brooklyn College faculty and also served as the editor of the Latin Magazine there.

Abraham Maslow's wife, Bertha, was his first cousin, and the two had met in Brooklyn. Both of the parents had to urge Maslow until they both married in 1928.

Maslow taught psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, Columbia University, and the New School for Social Research. He emphasized the significance of focusing on a person's positive traits rather than considering them as a 'bag of symptoms'.

In a study conducted in 2002 by the Review of General Psychology, Maslow was named the 10th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Keep reading to learn more about Abraham Maslow in detail!

If you enjoyed reading this article, you must also check out our other articles about Barack Obama facts and Albert Einstein facts here at Kidadl.

Abraham Maslow Experiments

After high school, Maslow Abraham enrolled at the City College of New York. He was quite reality-centered and, in addition to his undergraduate studies, began studying for legal studies seminars at night in 1926.

He despised it and dropped out practically immediately. He transferred to Cornell in 1927, but he dropped out after only one semester due to bad grades and excessive tuition. He graduated from high school and went to the University of Wisconsin to study psychology after graduating from City College.

Maslow began conducting a field of research at Wisconsin that included monkey dominance behavior. As a result of his early exposure to behaviorism, Maslow had a strong positivist attitude.

On the advice of Professor Hulsey Cason, Maslow wrote his master's thesis on 'learning, retention, and reproduction of verbal material'. Maslow thought the research was embarrassingly trivial, yet he finished his thesis and received his psychology master's degree in the summer of 1931.

He deleted the thesis from the psychology library and tore out the catalog listing because he was embarrassed by his psychological ideas.

On the other hand, Professor Cason was so impressed with Maslow's models that he encouraged him to publish them. Maslow split this into two essays and published them in 1934.

Abraham Maslow Books

A few books written by Abraham Maslow include: 'Toward a Psychology of Being', 'The Farther Reaches of Human Nature', 'Motivation and Personality', 'A Theory of Human Motivation', 'Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences', 'Eupsychian Management', 'The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance', 'Future Visions: The Unpublished Papers of Abraham Maslow', and 'Personality and Growth: A Humanistic Psychologist in the Classroom'

Abraham Maslow Contribution To Psychology

Maslow made a number of significant contributions to psychology. He is now regarded as one of the 20th century's most significant psychologists. Two of his contributions include:

His own ideas emphasized the good parts of human nature. Especially at a time when most psychologists focused on abnormal parts of human nature, Abraham Maslow began to shift his focus to the positive aspects of the human mind, human potential, and innate human needs.

His work has affected how we think about mental illness. His interest in human potential, peak experiences, mental health development, and personal growth left an indelible mark on psychology. He was inspired by humanistic psychology and how we perceive good human beings.

His work still has an impact today. While Maslow's work has fallen out of favor, with many academic psychologists and others claiming that his hierarchy needs to be updated, his theories are gaining momentum thanks to a renewed interest in positive psychology.

What is Abraham Maslow's theory of needs?

Maslow characterized humans' basic needs as being organized into a prepotent hierarchy, with the most pressing need being met first before moving on to the next greatest need. He never incorporated a visual picture of the hierarchy into any of his published publications.

A psychology textbook publisher may have constructed the pyramidal diagram displaying Maslow's model of requirements hierarchy as an explanatory device. This now-iconic pyramid typically displays the spectrum of humanistic psychology and physical needs as an accompaniment to articles presenting Maslow's needs theory, giving the impression that the hierarchy of needs is a fixed and inflexible process.

Nonetheless, since the publication of the Abraham Maslow theory in 1943, he has defined human wants as being somewhat fluid, with multiple requirements present in a person at the same time.

Maslow defined the following hierarchy of needs:

The 'basic requirements or physiological needs' of a human being are at the bottom of the hierarchy: food, water, sleep, sex, homeostasis, and excretion.

'Safety needs security, order, and stability' is the next level. These two processes are critical to a person's physical survival. People try to achieve more after they have basic sustenance, housing, and safety.

The psychological wants of 'love and belonging' are the third degree of need. When people take care of themselves physically, they are ready to share themselves with others, such as family and friends.

Individuals reach the fourth level when they are satisfied with their achievements or their self-esteem. This is the 'esteem' level, which refers to the desire to be competent and recognized, for example, based on one's status and level of success.

Maslow believed there's a 'cognitive' level when people engage in intellectual stimulation, problem-centered exploration of their own ideas. The 'aesthetic' level follows, which is concerned with the demand for harmony, order, and beauty.

Maslow felt that the 'need for self-actualization' arises at the summit of the pyramid. By self-actualizing, people achieve a condition of harmony and understanding as a result of their efforts to fulfill their full potential.

When a person reaches self-actualization, they concentrate on themselves and try to create their own image by self-actualizing. They might think of it in terms of feeling self-assurance or achieving a specific objective.

Did You Know...

When the United States joined World War II in 1941, Maslow was a 33-year-old father with two children born to him. He was ruled ineligible for military service.

In the Abraham Maslow family, he was the oldest of seven children. He was intelligent yet introverted. For Abraham Maslow, childhood was a sad and lonely one. He disliked how his mother always commented on his physical appearance.

Maslow died on June 8, 1970, at the age of 62. Maslow suffered a serious heart attack while jogging in Menlo Park, California.

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