Abraham Maslow

American psychologist (1908-1970) · United States · Academics · Died at 62

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He turned psychology away from pathology and toward potential - arguing that human beings aren't problems to diagnose but creatures climbing toward something higher, with needs stacked like rungs on a ladder.

Academics Academic Psychology United States Americas 20th Century

A life in dates

1970Died8 June 19701967Humanist of the YearAward1956“I am deliberately rejecting our present easy distinction between sickness and health, at least as far as surface symptoms are concerned. Does sickness mean having symptoms?”In their words"Personality Problems and Personality Growth", in Clark E. Moustakas (ed.) The Self: Explorations in Personal Growth (1956), pp. 236-37;Read the whole statement

“It seems quite clear that personality problems may sometimes be loud protests against the crushing of one's psychological bones, of one's true inner nature.”In their words"Personality Problems and Personality Growth" (1956), p. 237Read the whole statement

1954“For our chronically and extremely hungry man, Utopia can be defined simply as a place where there is plenty of food.”In their wordsp. 17Read the whole statement

“The good or healthy society would then be defined as one that permitted people's highest purposes to emerge by satisfying all their basic needs.”In their wordsp. 31Read the whole statement

“Love, safety, belongingness and respect from other people are almost panaceas for the situational disturbances and even for some of the mild character disturbances.”In their wordsp. 103Read the whole statement

1943“It is too often not realized that culture itself is an adaptive tool, one of whose main functions is to make the physiological emergencies come less and less often.”In their words"A Theory of Human Motivation", in Psychological Review, vol. 50, no. 4 (1943), p. 374Read the whole statement

1908Born1 April 1908

Also in Deutsch

Photos 4

Photo of Abraham Harold Maslow by William Carter (cropped)

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory's chinese translation

MaslowHierarchy

Photo of Abraham Harold Maslow by William Carter

In their own words 10

Abraham Maslow

10 statements, newest first

I am deliberately rejecting our present easy distinction between sickness and health, at least as far as surface symptoms are concerned. Does sickness mean having symptoms?
1956, "Personality Problems and Personality Growth", in Clark E. Moustakas (ed.) The Self: Explorations in Personal Growth (1956), pp. 236-37;, Own words
If you tell me you have a personality problem, I am not certain until I know you better whether to say "Good" or "I'm sorry".
1956, "Personality Problems and Personality Growth" (1956), p. 237, Own words
It seems quite clear that personality problems may sometimes be loud protests against the crushing of one's psychological bones, of one's true inner nature.
1956, "Personality Problems and Personality Growth" (1956), p. 237, Own words

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Awards

Humanist of the Year1967

In their orbit

Spouse: Bertha Goodman Maslow

About this person

Abraham Harold Maslow was born April 1, 1908, and spent his career teaching at Cornell, Brooklyn College, Brandeis, The New School, and Columbia. He built his reputation on a reversal: instead of cataloging what breaks in people, he mapped what pulls them forward. That approach produced the hierarchy of needs - a pyramid model where survival needs anchor the bottom and self-actualization crowns the top, each tier a prerequisite for the next. He called it a theory of psychological health, not illness. The framework made him the tenth most cited psychologist of the 20th century in a 2002 Review of General Psychology survey. He died June 8, 1970, having spent decades insisting people were more than a bag of symptoms.

Country

United States

Academics from the United States 6

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