Abraham Maslow (April 1st 1908 - June 8th 1970) is a psychologist famous considered as the principal leader of the humanistic Approche, especially known for its explanation of the Motivation by the hierarchy of the needs, which is often represented, wrongly, by a pyramid of the needs.
Biography
Born with Brooklyn, New York, Maslow is the son of Jewish Russian immigrants who settled with the the United States. He studied at the University of Wisconsin where he obtained his doctorate of psychology in 1934.
He taught in several universities (Brooklyn College, Brandeis University) and chaired American Psychological Association at the end of his life. He wrote many articles. Its two principal books are Motivation and Personality (1e edition 1954, final edition 1970) and The Farther Reaches off Human Nature (1e posthumous edition 1970, translated into French in 2006 pennies the title Human being).
Work and the contribution of Maslow
Abraham Maslow remains a reference for many psychologists in the whole world. It is known in the occupational psychology for its studies on the motivation, often summarized wrongly with a simple pyramid of which it would be necessary to assemble the degrees the ones after the others to reach full satisfaction. For the psychotherapists, it is the initiator of humanistic psychology, with Carl Rogers in particular. Other psychologists still see in him the figurehead of transpersonnelle psychology - this branch of the psychology which exceeds what strictly relates to the personality to be interested in spiritual dimension of the man and the exceptional state of consciousnesses.
Abraham Maslow is all that at the same time. These fragmented visions give each one an outline right but incomplete. The first searchs for Maslow related to the behavior of the animals (dogs, monkeys) and the determinants of the human behavior in company. As from the years 1940, its interest went on the negative feelings (the fear, the deprivation, the insecurity), for then turning to their opposite, the motivation and satisfaction. As of the beginning of the year 1950, its studies on the motivation lead it to wonder on the achievement of oneself and, one decade later, about the mystical experiments.
Continuity is clear in this step which leads Maslow of the analysis of the psychological states most painful to the motivation study then feeling of plenitude, which it called the “paroxystic experiments”. It results from it an at the same time plentiful and original work, which opened many ways in research and in practice.
One owes in particular in Abraham Maslow the development of a precise lexicon, to approach the mystic and the exceptional state of consciousnesses in scientific terms, while respecting the specificity of these experiments.
The theory of the motivation and the needs, and its application to the world of the company
During its career, Maslow was interested mainly in the “higher” Motivation S of the man in his hierarchy (the Accomplissement of oneself) and in the states of plenitude (paroxystic experiments), like with the bases of psychic health.
Its hierarchy of the needs means that the man does not reach the full development of his psychism that if it is satisfied on all the plans: physiology, safety, love (membership), estimate (recognition) and achievement of oneself (Créativité)
This hierarchy is generally represented in the shape of a pyramid which, base at the top, distinguishes five levels from needs:
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At the base, physiological needs (such as the hunger, thirst);
- Then, needs for safety and protection (such as the desire of a roof or a good insurance);
- Then comes the needs for membership, needs social which reflect the will to belong to a family, a group, a tribe;
- Ensuite arrives the needs for regard of oneself (which make it possible to be looked in the mirror the morning);
- Lastly, appears at the top of the hierarchy, the needs for car-achievement (which return to the desire to be carried out oneself through a work, an engagement).
The pyramid which was allotted to Maslow badly represents the richness of its analysis, and especially betrays the dynamic vision which it had of the needs in the construction industry for the personality.
Moreover, if Maslow is very known in the field of management, its research related to general psychology, and they are its successors who applied his conclusions to the sphere of the company. Itself wrote only notes on this subject, where it is little question of motivation, but much more adequate company and of Eupsychie (or psychological health).
Maslow estimates that the elementary needs (physiological and of safety) being satisfied, the person then seeks to satisfy the other needs of a higher nature in order to feed the motivations unceasingly. A need of a higher nature can be satisfied only if the precedents are it. Thus, to apply this model to the professional world, anything is not used for to want to motivate the employees on the level of the regard and the achievement, so of the threats of dismissals carry breach of security and if the wages are not sufficient to satisfy the physiological needs fully.
Maslow holds finally an optimistic speech insofar as he considers that it is possible that the employees can, in their work, to achieve itself, to be carried out, provided that management is participative (cf theory of Douglas McGregor).
Maslow proposes a sociological study of the Spiritualité in which it classifies with much smoothness the various paroxystic demonstrations, such as the Révélation. Its step is that of a scientist who approaches a dimension of the religious fact overall in a macroscopic way, that is to say like a sociologist or even like an ethnologist, and who uses then of a psychological analysis to approach the microscopic scale of the paroxystic experiment. This step is not without pointing out that of Stanley Milgram.
Quotations
An often quoted matter and which is allotted to him is:
- “ If the only tool you cuts has hammer, you tightens to see every problem ace has nail ”
Works
He is the author of several books and much of articles. Most known are:
- Motivation and Personality (1954, republished 1970) (to be appeared in French at the beginning of 2008)
- Toward has off Psychology Being (1968)
- Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences . French translation: The achievement of oneself (with in appendix its article founder of 1943 on the motivation and the needs)
- The Farther Reaches off Human Natural (1971). French translation: Human being
Internal bonds
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