Maslow, Abraham H

Maslow, Abraham H(arold)

(born April 1, 1908, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died June 8, 1970, Menlo Park, Calif.) U.S. psychologist. He taught at Brooklyn College (1937–51) and Brandeis University (1951–69). A practitioner of humanistic psychology, he is known for his theory of “self-actualization.” In Motivation and Personality (1954) and Toward a Psychology of Being (1962), Maslow argued that each person has a hierarchy of needs that must be satisfied, ranging from basic physiological requirements to love, esteem, and, finally, self-actualization. As each need is satisfied, the next higher level in the emotional hierarchy dominates conscious functioning.