ABRAHAM H.

MASLOW
(1908-1970)
AN INTELLECTUAL
BIOGRAPHY

ROY JOSE DECARV ALHO

SOME PSYCHOLOGISTS DURING THE "GOLDEN AGE" OF BEHAVIORISM after

World War II, discontented with behaviorism's view of human nature and
method, drew upon a long tradition linking psychology with humanities and
in a rebellious manner institutionally founded humanistic psychology. They
believed they were a "third force," an alternative to the dominant behavioristic
and psychoanalytical orientation in psychology. Some of the best minds of
the psychological world of the 1960s, such as Gordon Allport, Carl Rogers,
Rollo May, and Henry Murray, adhered to the movement. Maslow was at
the forefront of this group of founders of humanistic psychology in the
mid-I960s. .

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Abraham H. Maslow was born on April 1, 1908 in New York City, the
first of seven children. Maslow's relationship with his parents, Russian-Jewish
immigrants from Kiev, was neither intimate nor loving. He attended New
York City public schools. At the age of nine he moved to a non-Jewish neigh-
borhood and, since he looked quite Jewish, discovered anti-semitism there.
He described himself during his first twenty years as extremely neurotic, shy,
nervous, depressed, lonely, and self-reflecting. He isolated himself at school

THOUGHT Vol. 66 No. 260 (March 1991)

ABRAHAM H. MASLOW 33
and, since he could not stand being at home, practically lived in the library.
At school he was an achiever. Later, upon the advice of his father he enrolled
in law school. He lost interest, and never finished the freshman year. At the
end of 1928, then twenty years old, he married Bertha, a cousin, whom he
had courted for a long time. They enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison, where he earned a BA (1930), MA (1931), and PhD (1934) in psy-
chology.1
In Madison, Maslow remained shy and timid, but well liked by his teachers.
Fascinated by Watson's behaviorism, which was then in vogue, Maslow con-
centrated on classical laboratory research with dogs and apes. His earliest
papers focused on the emotion of disgust in dogs and the learning process
among primates. In his doctoral dissertation he explored the role of dominance
in the social and sexual behavior of primates, arguing that dominance among
primates is usually established by visual contact rather than by fighting.
From 1934 to 1937, Maslow worked as a research assistant in Social Psy-
chology for Edward L. Thorndike at Teachers College, Columbia University.
His first teaching position was with Brooklyn College between 1937 and 1951.
During this period, exiled German psychologists made New York City an
intellectual capital. Maslow associated with Max Wertheimer, Erich Fromm,
Karen Horney, Kurt Goldstein, and Ruth Benedict.
In 1951 Maslow was invited to head the recently established department
of psychology at Brandeis University, a position he held for ten years. In 1969
he accepted a fellowship at the Laughlin Foundation in Menlo Park, California.
Soon after leaving Madison, Maslow became convinced that most of mod-
ern psychological research and theory relied too much on subjects who had
turned to psychologists for pathological reasons. The image of human nature
delineated by studies of these patients was inevitably pessimistic and distorted.
Trying to remedy the situation, Maslow began studying what he thought were
the finest examples of healthy people. He called them "self-actualizing" per-
sons, since they showed a high degree of need for meaningful work, respon-
sibility, creativity, fairness, and justice.
In his epoch-making article of 1943, "A Theory of Human Motivation,"
and more explicitly in Motivation and Personality (1954), Maslow argued
that there are higher and lower needs in human motivation. Both are "in-

I For an extensive discussion of the place of Maslow in the history of humanistic psychology
see Roy J. DeCarvalho, The Founders of Humanistic Psychology. Significant autobiographical
references for Abraham Maslow are: Motivation and Personality, ix; "Two Kinds of Cognition
and Their Integration"; "Eupsychia-The Good Society"; "Lessons From the Peak-experiences";
"A Dialogue With Abraham H. Maslow"; The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, xi-xxi, 41,3;
"Conversation With Abraham H. Maslow"; Willard B. Frick, Humanistic Psychology, 19-49;
Abraham H. Maslow: A Memorial Volume; The Journals of A. H. Maslow; "Interview." For
secondary sources see: Edward Hoffman, The Right To Be Human; Frank G. Goble, The Third
Force; Carroll Saussy, A Study of the Adequacy of Abraham Maslow's Concept of the Se(fto His
Theory olSe/fAclllalization; Richard Grossman, "Some Reflections on Abraham Maslow"; Misako
Miyamoto, "Professor Abraham H. Maslow"; Richard J. Lowry, A. H. Maslow; Thomas Robert,
"Beyond Self-Actualization"; Colin Wilson, New Pathways in Psychology.
34 THOUGHT

stinctoid" and arranged in a hierarchy. These needs are, in order: physiological

well-being, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. Each group of needs
relies on prior satisfaction of previous needs. Thus, in Maslow's reasoning,
human nature is the continuous fulfillment of inner needs, beginning with
basic physiological needs and progressing to meta-needs. Self-actualizers,
he argued, were persons who had satisfied the lower needs and sought to ful-
fill higher reaches of human nature by becoming all they were capable of
becoming.
In Religion, Values and Peak-Experiences (1964) Maslow argued that one
could find in self-actualizing persons the guiding or ultimate values by which
mankind should live. These values were meant to be the basis of a science of
ethics. In the same work Maslow concluded that self-actualizing persons have
had simple and natural experiences of ecstasy or bliss, moments of great awe
or intense experiences-"peak-experiences," as he named them.
In Eupsychian Management (1965) Maslow attempted to introduce his
thought into the new field of organizational psychology. In that work, under
the assumption that he could not improve the world via individual psycho-
therapy, he presented the idea of "Eupsychia" or good psychological man-
agement. He used the term "Eupsychia" originally to describe the culture
that would be generated by a thousand or so self-actualizing persons in a
sheltered environment free from external interference. In Eupsychian Man-
agement he maintained that workers could achieve the highest possible pro-
ductivity if their "humanness" and potential for self-actualization were given
the opportunity to grow so that their higher or meta-needs could be fulfilled.
Towards the end of his life, mainly in the posthumously published Farther
Reaches of Human Nature (1971), Maslow went a step further and argued
that there are needs beyond self-actualization-that is, transcendental or
transpersonal needs. According to Maslow, these are transhuman needs cen-
tered on the cosmos, religion, and the mystical realms of being.
Throughout the 1960s Maslow with the cooperation of Anthony Sutich
was instrumental in the institutionalization of humanistic psychology by es-
tablishing the Journal and Association for Humanistic Psychology. He sup-
ported in the late 1960s the emerging transpersonal psychology.2
Maslow died of a heart attack on June 8, 1970, at the age of 62.

VIEWS ON BEHAVIORISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

The humanistic psychology advocated by the founding members of the

Association for Humanistic Psychology and by leading humanistic psychol-
ogists such as Gordon Allport, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, and James Bugental
was an outcry against what they thought was a mechanistic image of human
nature and an academic sterility in behaviorism. Thus the writing of human-

2 DeCarvalho, "A History of the 'Third Force' in Psychology."

ABRAHAM H. MASLOW 35
istic psychologists often contrasted behavioristic and humanistic views
of human nature, psychotherapy, method, and ethics. Maslow was not an
exception. 3
Maslow was nurtured in the best behavioristic tradition in the early and
mid 1930s in the primate lab of Harry Harlow in Madison, Wisconsin. Thus
great familiarity with behaviorism was often evident in his critique ofbehav-
iorism. His critique developed during the 1940s in the context of his theory
of motivation. It focused on the concept of behavior, the psychological im-
plications of behavioral prediction and control, the definition of scientific
method in the psychological sciences, and images of human nature implicit
in behaviorism.
Maslow had a romance with and a tragic divorce from behaviorism. Maslow
first encountered behaviorism as a philosophy student at Cornell. His dislike
of the speculative character of philosophical discourse attracted him to the
empirical and physiological nineteenth-century psychology advocated in
America by Titchener. It was, however, when reading Watson in his early
twenties that he realized the potential of behaviorism. The discovery ofWat-
son's behavioristic program, he wrote many years later, produced such "an
explosion of excitement" that he went "dancing down Fifth Avenue with
exuberance." All you needed, he thought, was to work hard and everything
could be changed and reconditioned. The techniques of conditioning seemed
to promise a solution to all psychological and social problems, and its easy-
to-understand positivistic, objective philosophy, protected him against re-
peating the philosophical mistakes of the past. With such ideas in mind, Mas-
low joined the graduate program of the department of psychology at the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin-Madison, where his entire training and education were
behavioristic.4
Maslow's MA thesis (1931), an experimental study ofthe effect of varying
simple external conditions on learning, initiated him into the science of pre-
diction and control of behavior. His doctoral dissertation, written under the
supervision of Harry Harlow, and dealing with the role of dominance among
primates, was behavioristic in concept. A year after graduation, however,
Maslow departed Wisconsin and left behind the behavioristic approach of his
teachers. In New York City, while teaching first at Teachers College and then
at Brooklyn College, Maslow read Freud, the Gestalt psychologists, and the
embryologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy. He then became disillusioned with En-
glish philosophy, particularly as represented by Bertrand Russell. In New
York he met Alfred Adler, Max Wertheimer, Kurt Goldstein, and Ruth Be-
nedict, and under their influence he replaced Harlow's primates with New
York college women in his experimental studies. Along with his research on

3DeCarvalho, The Founders of Humanistic Psychology, 66-96.

4Frick, Humanistic Psychology, 19-20; Maslow, The Psychology of Science, 7; "Conversation
With Abraham H. Maslow," 37, 55.
36 THOUGHT
dominance, Maslow developed the theory of motivation that made him
famous. s
Maslow's critique of behaviorism may be said to have three phases. The
first phase began with his arrival in New York City and lasted until the early
1940s, when he began publishing his need-hierarchy theory of motivation.
The second phase extended throughout the 1940s and was the period of the
key essays on human motivation compiled in Motivation and Personality
(1954). The last phase extended from the early 1950s until his death in 1970.
During the first phase Maslow regarded human behavior not merely as
result of a linear connection between a single and isolated stimulus and a
single response, but also as determined by all the feelings, attitudes, and wishes
that go into making a complete personality. These personality determinants
Maslow believed to result in great part from the introspection or interiorization
of social convictions and ethical norms of the group. During the second phase
Maslow made these ideas an integral part of his theory of motivation. He
repeatedly argued that the study of isolated single behaviors and the idea that
such behaviors are self-contained is a simplistic and misleading approach to
the understanding of human motivation. Maslow continued writing in the
1950s on method and theory in psychology, but his criticism addressed only
positivistic psychology in general.
Maslow's critique of the behavioristic concept of control and prediction
was argued within terms of the need-hierarchy theory of motivation. This
theory distinguished between expressive and coping behavior, and Maslow
blamed behaviorists for concentrating almost exclusively on the study of coping
behavior, which he argued was the least significant part of personality. Ex-
pressive behavior-artistic creation, play, wonder, and love-is part ofa person
and a reflection of personality even ifit is non-functional and persists without
reward. It is an epiphenomenon of inner character-structure, the study of
which should be the goal of psychology. On the other hand, coping behavior
is functional, instrumental, adaptive, and the product of an interaction of the
character-structure with the world. Since coping behavior is learned or acquired
in order to deal with specific environmental situations, it dies out if not re-
warded or continually bombarded with stimuli. Maslow concluded that one
should be cautious in extrapolating from coping behaviors to general conclu-
sions about human nature. The behaviorist, according to Maslow, sees only
the animal-like aspects of human nature, precisely because he focuses exclu-
sively upon coping behavior. Gordon Allport made a similar analysis, critique
and a distinction of expressive and coping behavior in 1961.6
In The Psychology of Science (1966) Maslow compared external scientific
control of the behavioristic type with the internal self-knowledge posited by

5 Maslow. "Individual Psychology and Social Behavior"; The Effect a/Varying External Con-
ditions on Learning. Retention and Reproduction; "Conversation With Abraham H. Maslow."
6 For the first phase, see "Dominance-Feeling, Behavior and Status"; "Dominance, Personality
and Social Behavior in Women."
ABRAHAM H. MASLOW 37
humanistic science in their ability to predict behavior. He argued that people
resent and rebel against external scientific control, but they accept the increase
of self-knowledge that allows them to control their own behavior. Thus self-
knowledge of the humanistic type has much more predictive power. Carl
Rogers had written an almost identical argument in "The Role of Self-Un-
derstanding in the Prediction of Behavior. ,,7
Maslow argued, much as did Allport, that even if the behaviorists could
add up a collection of single behaviors, the behaviorists' picture of human
nature would still be incomplete; the human organism is more than just the
sum of each isolated and reduced part. The parts affect the whole and vice
versa in a continual process of mutual transformation. In reply he argued
that the person was a unit, self, gestalt, whole, or process. A behavioral act
has many components that cannot be studied in isolation from the self-con-
taining organism. For Maslow the self is a complex, internal patterning agent
that organizes the stimulus and emits a response that relates to the stimulus
through the organism. Human motivation is purposive, or choice-oriented,
proactive rather than reactive, self-motivated rather than restricted to "antic-
ipatory goal reaction." Every one of us, he argued, has a peculiar set of sub-
jective values that provides guidance and direction to life. An understanding
of such inner attitudes and motives is an absolute prerequisite to the under-
standing of human behavior and human nature. 8

VIEWS ON PSYCHOANALYSIS

When humanistic psychologists wrote about themselves as a "third force"

in psychology, they were thinking of behaviorism as the first dominant force;
the second force was psychoanalysis. Like most of his colleagues, Maslow set
his views in contrast to classical Freudian psychoanalysis, arguing that hu-
manistic psychology was a protest or outcry, not only against behaviorism
but also against the formalism, determinism, and dogma of psychoanalysis.
Perhaps ambivalently, Maslow also paid a tribute of reverence to Freud. Quite
often, he even referred to humanistic psychology as complementing rather
than replacing Freud's observations. 9 Maslow distinguished between facts and
theory in Freudian thought; he praised the facts or clinical experience but
despised Freud's metaphysics. In the late 1960s, he argued that Freud the
fact-finder, rather than Freud the metaphysician, is still required reading for
a humanistic psychologist. 10

7 Rogers, "The Role of Self-Understanding in the Prediction of Behavior"; Rogers, "Some

Issues Concerning the Control of Human Behavior"; Maslow, Farther Reaches o/Human Nature,
226-36.
8 Allport, "Scientific Models and Human Morals"; "The Psychologist's Frame of Reference";
"Fifty Years of Change in Amelican Psychology"; Motivation and Personality; The Psychology
0/ Science; "The Farther Reaches of Human Nature."
9 DeCarvalho, The Founders of Humanistic Psychology, 97-126.
10 Maslow, Motivation and Personality, xiii, 66-67, 103.
38 THOUGHT

Maslow was psychoanalyzed at least three times, in the late 1940s and early
1950s by Emil Oberholzer and Felix Deutsch respectively, and in the 1960s
by Harry Rand. He described his analysis as "the best of all learning experi-
ences" and he said it taught him about psychoanalysis "from the inside, by
experiencing it." II
A distinction must be made within the psychoanalytical movement between
Freud or classical psychoanalysis and the neo-Freudians. Maslow and most
humanistic psychologists were indebted, as noted above, to the neo-Freudians.
Maslow often acknowledged having been inspired by Alfred Adler, Erich
Fromm, Karen Horney, David Levy, Abram Kardiner, Sandor Rado, and
Franz Alexander. Most of Maslow's contacts with the neo-Freudians took
place during the post-doctoral years in New York in the 1940s, when the city
was flooded with learned emigres from Europe. I2
About this time Maslow met Heinz L. Ansbacher, who introduced him to
Alfred Adler's informal seminars held at the hotel where Adler lived. Adler
read Maslow's dissertation on the social behavior of primates, and encouraged
Maslow to present a summary of his conclusions in the Journal of Individual
Psychology. The results invited comparison between the behavior of humans
and primates. Adler's encouragement thus had an important role in causing
Maslow to replace primates with humans as experimental subjects in his studies
of dominance. Maslow and Adler remained friends, occasionally dining to-
gether until Adler's death in 1937. Heinz Ansbacher believes that as the hu-
manistic psychology Maslow advocated matured it came to resemble the In-
dividual Psychology of Adler ever more closely. 13
The encounters with Fromm and Horney also were important in Maslow's
intellectual development. Fromm and Horney were, along with Adler, Gold-
stein and Rogers, Maslow's most quoted authors. In the late 1930s and early
1940s, Maslow often discussed his ideas on motivation with Fromm and
Horney, and he subsequently acknowledged that he had learned psychoanalysis
from them and that his psychology was to a certain extent an effort to integrate
the partial truths he found in their theories. He also often juxtaposed their
ideas to those of Freud and defended them from criticism. 14
When Maslow arrived in Madison, for graduate school, he expressed some
interest in psychoanalysis. The behavioristic orientation of the faculty seems

II Maslow, Motivation and Personality, x; Toward a Psychology of Being, xi; The Psychology
of Science, xix.
12 Maslow wrote about New York City in this period as the center of the psychological universe
of that time, see his Motivation and Personality, ix.
13 Throughout Maslow's extensive list of writings, Adler was one of the most quoted authors
after Freud. He mentioned Adler by name at least 77 times, see Jenny Scheele, Register, 411. See
also, Maslow, "Individual Psychology and the Social Behavior of Monkeys and Apes"; Motivation
and Personality, "Was Adler a Disciple of Freud? A Note"; author's personal correspondence
with H. L. Ansbacher of October 29, 1985; Heinz L. Ansbacher, "Alfred Adler and Humanistic
Psychology. "
14 Maslow, Principles ofAbnormal Psychology, xii-xiii; "The Authoritarian Character Structure";
Motivation and Personality, x; Review of John Schaar; Farther Reaches of Human Nature, xi;
Frick, Humanistic Psychology, 20; Scheele, Register, 435, 444.
ABRAHAM H. MASLOW 39
to have eclipsed this interest, however. Maslow wrote in the 1940s that his
attitude towards Freud was one of reverence with reservations. Maslow accused
Freud and other classical psychoanalysts of studying only half of personality
and of being the "worst offenders" among all psychologists in their depiction
of human nature. According to Maslow, Freud was mistaken that all behavior
is determined by unconscious motives. Maslow rather distinguished between
neurotic motivation and healthy motivation, the latter being much less directed
by unconscious forces. This distinction suggested Maslow's study of self-ac-
tualization in healthy people. IS
In the 1950s and 1960s, Maslow criticized Freud for always considering
the unconscious and regression to be unhealthy processes needing to be con-
trolled and examined. Maslow argued that they could also be sources of cre-
ativity, art, love, humor, gaiety, and the like; they could be healthy aspects
of personality that should be accepted and nurtured. Towards the end of the
1960s Maslow blamed Freud for studying only the basic needs humans share
with the animals and neglecting the "higher human qualities" unique to
mankind. 16
Maslow distinguished between neurotic and non-neurotic motivation. He
thought that Freud's mechanisms explained the neurotic personality quite
well, but he argued that it was a mistake to extend the conclusions of such
studies to generalizations about all humankind. When developing his need-
hierarchy theory of human motivation in 1940, Maslow argued that the be-
havior of healthy persons is much less unconscious than that of neurotics.
Healthy behavior, he wrote, is not always directly related to an underlying
and ultimately unconscious aim. 17
As Maslow explored self-actualization and peak-experiences, he argued that
Freud was mistaken in describing the unconscious as irrational, dark, and
obscure. Id impulses, he suggested, need not be signs of sickness, regression,
and enslavement. The unconscious could be good, beautiful, and desirable.
In artistic creation, inspiration, humor, love, and the like, unconscious im-
pulses were indeed revelations of the inmost core of human nature. Growth
towards self-actualization, he argued, depends on this essential unconscious
core of the person, which needs to be accepted, respected, and loved. One
should use the unconscious rather than fear it, accept it rather than control
it. In self-actualizing people, Maslow argued, the Freudian id, ego, and su-
perego, the dichotomies of conscious and unconscious, and all internal con-
flicts are much less sharp than in unhealthy personalities. In peak experiences,
for example, these oppositions tend to dissolve. Healthy people have a sense

IS Maslow, "Dominance, Personality and Social Behavior in Women," 4-5; Motivation and
Personality, 66-67, 77-79, 90-91,101. 193-98.
16 Maslow, Toward a Psychology o/Being, 56-57, 141-42, 182-83, 196,60, 207-08: Religion.
Values and Peak Experiences. 6-8; The Psychology 0/ Science, 19; "The Farther Reaches of
Human Nature," 2-3.
17 Maslow, "Dominance, Personality and Social Behavior in Women," 4-5; Motivation and
Personality, 66-67, 77, 79. 90-91,101,193-98
40 THOUGHT
of themselves as conscious, active agents rather than as helpless victims of
unconscious forces. Their behavior is understandable without reference to
their unconscious life. IS

VIEWS ON EXISTENTIALISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY

Another important theme in the establishment of humanistic psychology

is its relations with European existential and phenomenological psychology.
The founders of humanistic psychology agreed that this idiosyncratic and ill-
defined European tradition of thought had an impact on the shaping of hu-
manistic psychology as a source of inspiration and was an important stream
within humanistic psychology.19
It is, however, historically inaccurate to see humanistic psychology as an
import of European existentialism. The idea of "Parallelism" is more accurate
than the "root analogy." In most cases when humanistic psychologists dis-
covered existentialism in the late 1950s, they had already formulated the core
of their psychological thought, although in Maslow, Rogers, and May, the
reading of Kierkegaard and Buber had a "loosening up effect. ,,20
In Maslow we find substantial discussion of existentialism only after the
late 1950s. Maslow was particularly impressed by Martin Buber, but he was
also critical of some trends in existentialism, in particular its anti-scientific
and anti-biological dimensions. He was as critical of the despairing nihilist
(Nietzsche), nothingness (Sartre), and absurd (Camus) style of existentialism
as he was of behaviorism's S-R philosophy and Freud's psychic determinism.
In this sense he was certainly closer to the Kierkegaardian and Buberian brand
of existentialism.
Maslow first encountered existentialism in the late 1950s when Adrian Van
Kaam, Rollo May, and James Klee introduced him to the literature of exis-
tentialism. In the early sixties he already acknowledged that existentialism
was a powerful influence in humanistic psychology. With the exception of
scarce references to Sartre and Buber, however, he rarely discussed in writing
the work of any existentialists. He referred to Sartre as "flat" wrong in his
views of human nature. As to Buber, he considered the "I-thou relationship"
an example of the emerging humanistic paradigm in psychology.21
Maslow complained that existentialism was difficult and inaccessible to
him. When he studied this literature he questioned "what's in it for me as a
psychologist?" Like Allport, Maslow thought that existentialism would enrich
American psychology, though he saw many of the existentialists' insights as
mere "stressing" confirmation of existing trends in humanistic psychology.

18 Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being 56-57. 141-42, 182-83,56-57,207-10; Religion,

Values and Peak Experiences, 6-8.
19 DeCarvalho, The Founders of Humanistic Psychology, 127-58.
20 DeCarvalho, Founders, \36-38.
21 Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being, ix, xi.
ABRAHAM H. MASLOW 41
Maslow identified himself with existentialists' interest in the concept of identity
and in sUbjective experiential knowledge. He praised the existentialists for
studying unique characteristics of human nature. He was impressed by their
discussion of existential dilemmas, human aspirations and limitations, and
the mystery, paradox, and tragic aspects oflife. 22
After Sartre, Martin Buber was the existentialist most often mentioned by
Maslow. Maslow, like Rogers, thought that Buber's description of the I-Thou
relationship constituted a new paradigm in psychotherapy. Following Buber,
Maslow argued that the I-thou knowledge that emerges in the experience of
deep communication between two people is more valid than "objective" I-It
knowledge. The latter, he argued, belongs to the medical paradigm, where
the physician treats the patient as an object. The I-Thou paradigm, on the
other hand, is based on the intimacy of the encounter between two equal
persons and is much more therapeutic. 23
As to Kierkegaard, Maslow agreed with Rogers's favorite quote from Kier-
kegaard that the aim oflife is "to be that self which one truly is." Like Rogers,
Maslow thought that if people are free to grow and to actualize their inner
potential, they make the right choices. Self-actualizers, argued Maslow, choose
what is good for them, primarily because the inner core of their real self is
good, trustworthy, and ethical. 24
Maslow praised the existentialist attack on abstract systems of philosophy
that have nothing to do with actual experience. There was no place to turn,
Maslow agreed with the existentialists, except for the inner self as the source
of all validation. In this sense he thought, existentialism, would supply psy-
chology with the underlying experiential and phenomenological basis it des-
perately needed. 25
He often juxtaposed the phenomenological world of the self with the physical
world of the scientist and argued that external validation of the positivistic
and atomistic type was no more real than the subjective phenomenological
world of the experiential self. He believed that phenomenological studies were
more truthful to the person, because they focused on how it feels from the
internal point of view of the self.26

22 Maslow explicitly stated his views on existentialism in a paper he presented at the Symposium
on Existential Psychology at the 1959 convention of the APA. Rogers and May also presented
papers at this symposium. The enthusiastic interest it attracted led Random House to invite Rollo
May to edit the papers published under the title Existential Psychology in 1961. Maslow's paper,
"Existential Psychology-What's in it For Us?" was further published in the first pages of Existential
Inquiries, under the title "Remarks on existentialism and psychology," which was reprinted twice,
translated into Japanese and revised for the Psychology oj Being. In the Eupsychian Management
127-32, he wrote five additional pages to be added to the original essay. These notes were also
reprinted in the Journal oj Humanistic Psychology 4 (1964): 45-58. See also Maslow, Toward a
Psychology oj Being 59, 174.
23 Maslow, Eupsychian Management 128-29; The Psychology oj Science 52, 102-07.
24 Maslow, Toward a Psychology oj Being 168; Farther Reaches oj Human Nature 186.
25 Maslow, Toward a Psychology oj Being 52-60.
26 Maslow, Toward a Psychology oj Being 99; Religion, Values and Peak Experiences 26, 41;
The Psychology oj Science, 76.
42 THOUGHT
Throughout the 1960s Maslow often rejected what he called Sartrean "ar-
bitrary existentialism." More specifically he addressed Sartre's famous state-
ment that "freedom is existence, and in it existence precedes essence." Sartre
argued that there are no essences or reality in human nature. Humans ("being-
for-itself') are a "nothingness," a "non-substantial absolute" that exists merely
by virtue of the relation towards "being-in-itself." In this sense, argued Sartre,
human existence is defined primarily by its freedom and the result of our
"project" in life. Like most humanistic psychologists, Maslow agreed with
Sartre that "man is his own project." It is commitment and determination,
will and responsibility that make oneself. But he thought that Sartre had gone
too far in assuming that we are "nothingness" and that the process of becoming
had no biological basisY
He agreed with Sartre that one is ultimately responsible for one's decisions
and life project, but he thought that there is also a biological or "instinctoid"
basis of human nature. According to Maslow, there is potential in human
nature pressing towards actualization. It is a potential that desires by nature
to be actualized in the same way that an acorn desires by nature to become
an oak tree. These potentialities, however, are dormant and require a culture
in order to awaken. "Culture permits or fosters or encourages or helps," wrote
Maslow, "what exists in embryo to become real and actual."28
Unlike Sartre, Maslow argued that one's life project is not created at random
by psychological and life paradoxes but primarily by trends, bents, and ten-
dencies intrinsic to human nature. "To discover" one's nature was for Maslow
a much better term than "to create." He thus thought that humanistic psy-
chology was closer to psychodynamics than to Sartre's existentialism. The
"uncovering" therapies of the former were meant to help the person to discover
true identity rather than to create a self in the Sartrean existentialist sense. 29

OTHER SOURCES OF INSPIRATION

The revolt against behaviorism and psychoanalysis and the inspiration of

the neo-Freudians and existentialists were key forces in the making of hu-
manistic psychology. But the founding fathers of humanistic psychology such
as Allport, Rogers, and May found inspiration for the development of their
psychological thinking also in Kurt Goldstein, the personality theorists, Gestalt

27 Maslow, New Knowledge of Human Values 130-31; Toward a Psychology of Being 167,
174-75; Religion. Values and Peak-Experiences xvi; Farther Reaches of Human Nature 186,
315-16, 149; Motivation and Personality (revised edition. 1970) xvii-xviii; Frick, Humanistic
Psychology 22-23.
28 Maslow. New Knowledge 130-31; Toward a Psychology of Being 167, 174-75; ReliRion,
Values and Peak-Experiences xvi; Farther Reaches 186. 315-16, 149; Motivation and Personality
xvii-xviii; Frick, Humanistic Psychology 22-23.
29 Maslow, New Knowledge 130-31; Toward a Psychologv of Being 167, 174-75; Religion.
Values and Peak-Experiences xvi; Farther Reaches 186,315-16. 149; Motivation and Personality
xvii-xviii; Frick, Humanistic Psychology 22-23.
ABRAHAM H. MASLOW 43
psychology and, to a lesser degree, Eastern thought. Maslow was not an ex-
ception. 30
Maslow met Goldstein in the late 1930s in New York, an event that he
recognized many years later as fortunate. In gratitude for this intellectual
indebtedness Maslow dedicated The Psychology ofBeing (1962) to Goldstein.
According to Maslow, Goldstein influenced two important aspects of his
thought: Goldstein helped him to recognize that the "cool" aspects of Gestalt
psychology could be integrated with the psychodynamics psychologies, and
also to formulate the holistic-dynamic approach, which stemmed from Gold-
stein's organismic psychology in the sense that it was holistic, functional,
dynamic, and purposive, rather than atomistic, taxonomic, static, and me-
chanical. 31
Maslow became well known in psychological circles for his studies on self-
actualization. The term "self-actualization," however, was first coined by
Goldstein in his studies of brain-injured war veterans. Goldstein employed
the concept of self-actualization to explain the reorganization of a person's
capacities after injury. According to Goldstein, a damaged organism attempt-
ing to survive reorganizes itself into a new unit that incorporates the damages.
In this sense the organism is active, generates and recreates itself as it strives
towards self-actualization. "Organismic oughtiness" was Maslow's term for
this phenomenon. 32
Maslow acknowledged that he had adopted the concept of "self-actualiza-
tion" from Goldstein, though he used it in a broader sense. For Maslow "self-
actualization" meant the tendency to actualize inner potential. It was the
desire to become all one is capable of becoming, to achieve the fullest real-
ization of one's potentialities and intrinsic nature. Like Goldstein, Maslow
thought that specific gratification of basic needs helped the individual towards
self-actualization. 33
Maslow carried out a comparative analysis of Goldstein's studies of brain-
injured subjects and Skinner'S behavioristic psychology, examining in partic-
ular the reduction to the concrete and the ability to abstract. The brain-injured
do not think in terms of general categories and are unable to integrate separate
phenomena into a unity. When they see a color, for example, they see it in
isolation and are unable to compare it with any other color or category. This
phenomenon represents "selective attention" or "obsessional neurosis" at its

30 DeCarvalho, The Founders oiRumanistic Psychology 159-78.

31 Maslow's significant references to Goldstein are: Principles of Abnormal PsycholoRY xiii;
Motivation and Personality ix, 27,36,80,89,91,95, 109, 116, 124, 161, 166, 192,206,262,
286,287. 291, 296, 342, 383; Toward a Psychology o/BeinR ii, v, ix, xi, 118; Eupsychian Man-
agement 247; The Psychu/ORY of Science 23, 42, 69; "Conversation With Abraham Maslow," 55;
Farther Reaches o(Human Nature 119,252.
32 Maslow, Moiivation and Personality ix, 27, 36, 80, 89. 91. 95.109,116,124,161,166,192,
206. 262. 286. 287. 291, 296, 342, 383.
33 Maslow. Motivation and Personality ix, 27, 36, 80, 89. 91. 95, 109. 116, 124, 161, 166, 192,
206.262.286,287,291,296,342,383.
44 THOUGHT
best, wrote Maslow, comparing it to Skinner's stress on predictability, control,
lawfulness, and structure. In both cases the subjects maintain equilibrium by
avoiding what is strange and unfamiliar; they neatly arrange and order their
restricted world, so that they can count on it and guaranty that changes will
not occur. In other words, they narrow their worlds in order to avoid problems
they are unable to handle. 34
Furthermore, Maslow might easily be grouped with the personality theorists.
Maslow often complained of a lack of emphasis on the study of personality
in mainstream psychology. He believed that at the core of the self was a
positive growth tendency that strove toward fuller development. If the basic
needs are gratified, the self is then released for self-actualization and for the
gratification of higher needs. This idea would indeed justify including him
among the personality theorists. 35
Gestalt psychology Maslow learned from Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koftka
at the New School for Social Research in New York in the late 1930s. It was,
however, Max Wertheimer who had the greatest impact on Maslow. He de-
scribed Wertheimer as a loving person, who acted as a parent to Maslow,
allowed him to "hang around," and answered his questions. In the prefaces
to all his major publications, Maslow expressed his indebtedness to Gestalt
psychology and to Max Wertheimer in particular. 36
Maslow emphatically complained that the lessons of Gestalt psychology
had not been integrated into mainstream psychology. A person, to the Gestalt
psychologists, was an irreducible unit, where every aspect of personality is
part of an interrelated pattern based on varying relationships within the person
and between the person and the environment. Maslow's discussion of the
"syndrome"-a complex of symptoms occurring in an organism-in his ho-
listic dynamic theory in the study of personality is a good example of his
borrowings from the Gestalt psychologists. 37
But Maslow was not a mere follower of Gestalt psychology. He emphasized
that his health-and-growth psychology represented an attempt to integrate
Gestalt theory with the dynamic and functionalist psychologies. In the famous
"A Theory of Human Motivation" (1943), for example, Maslow argued that
his theory of motivation fused the functionalist tradition with the holism of
Gestalt and the dynamism of psychoanalysis. 38
34 Maslow, Motivation and Personality ix, 27. 36. 80. 89,91,95, 109, 116, 124, 161, 166, 192,
206.262,286,287, 291, 29~ 342, 383.
35 See for example, Maslow. Motivation and Personality 116; "Deficiency Motivation and Growth
Motivation" 1-30; "Personality," in Theoretical Foundations of Psychology 602-55.
36 Maslow, Principles ofAbnormal Psychology xii, xiii; Motivation and Personality 97,80; "The
Authoritarian Character Structure" 31-37; Toward a Psychology of Being 215; "A Dialogue With
Abraham Maslow" 23; Farther Reaches of Human Nature 42, 117-19; "Conversation With
Abraham Maslow" 55; Frick, Humanistic Psychology 21.
37 Maslow, Principles of Abnormal Psyehologr xii, xiii; Motivation and Personality 97, 80;
"Authoritarian Character" 31-37; Toward a Psychology o{Being 215; "A Dialogue With Abraham
Maslow" 23; Farther Reaches 42, 117-19; "Conversation" 55; Frick, Humanistic Psychology 21.
38 Maslow, Principles of Abnormal Psychology xii, xiii; Motivation and Personality 97. 80;
"Authoritarian Character" 31-37; Toward a Psychology ofBeing 215; "A Dialogue With Abraham
Maslow" 23; Farther Reaches 42, 117-19; "Conversation" 55; Frick, Humanistic Psychology 21.
ABRAHAM H. MASLOW 45
Eastern thought had a minor influence in the shaping of Maslow's psy-
chology. Maslow first heard of Taoism in Max Wertheimer's seminars in the
New School for Social Research. As early as 1949 he used Taoism to describe
purposeful spontaneity in the expressive component of behavior. Later he
often referred to Taoism as synonymous with passivity or resignation in the
understanding of nature and the self. He often wrote that Western psychologists
should learn from the "taoistic fashion" or "taoistic let-be" or "taoistic lis-
tening" when exploring human nature. He meant by this that the scientist
should be receptive, trustful, and relaxed and should let things happen without
interference in order to attain "experiential knowledge from the inside." He
also explored the similarities between the concepts of Satori, Nirvana, peak-
experiences, and self-actualization. 39
In The Psychology ofScience (1966) Maslow dedicated a chapter to "taoistic
science." He described it as an approach to learning meant to complement
Western science. He argued that the organization, classification, and concep-
tualization methods of Western science remove our perception of reality to
an abstract realm invented by the mind. This negative aspect of Western
science should be balanced against taoistic non-intruding receptivity and con-
templation of experience. In one of his last writings he referred to "taoistic
objectivity" as opposed to "classical objectivity.,,4o

VIEWS ON HUMAN NATURE

The image of human nature is the most striking feature of humanistic

psychology. Early humanistic psychologists often asserted that any psychology
deserving the name entailed a view of human nature. Psychologists' view of
human nature, they argued, determines psychological research, the gathering
and interpretation of psychological evidence, and above all the construction
of theories. In the long run it was that image of human nature that served as
a common ground and unifying element of the humanistic movement. 41
Humanistic psychologists shared a conviction that it was the nature of a
person to be a "being-in-the-process-of-becoming." A person at his or her

39 Maslow, The Psychology o/Science 96; Motivation and Personalify 182, 291; "Deficiency
Motivation and Growth Motivation" 25; Toward a Psychology o{Being 55, 78, 119. 136. 184;
"Lessons from the Peak-Experiences" 12, 14, 16; Eupsychian Management 6, 7, 105, 154; "A
Dialogue with Abraham Maslow" 23; Farther Reaches o/Human Nature 16-18. 115, 124, 189,
191; Religion, Values and Peak-E,periences x, xiii, 33. 80, 100; The Psychology (!f Science 95-
10 I. 124, 103,
40 Maslow, The Psychology a/Science 96; Motivation and Personality 182,291; "Deficiency
Motivation and Growth Motivation" 25; Toward a Psychology of Being 55,78, 119. 136. 184;
"Lessons from the Peak-Experiences" 12, 14. 16; Eupsychian Management 6. 7,105. 154; "A
Dialogue with Abraham Maslow" 23: Farther Reaches 16-18, 115. 124, 189, 191; Religion,
Values and Peak-Experiences x, xiii, 33. 80. 100; The Psychology oj'Science 95-101. 124, 103,
41 DeCarvalho, The Founders of Humanistic Psychology 179-82.
46 THOUGHT
best, they said, is proactive, autonomous, choice-oriented, adaptable, and
mutable, indeed continuously becoming. To reach the highest levels through
the process-of-becoming, a person must be "fully functioning" (Rogers) or
"functionally autonomous" (Allport); the self must be spontaneously inte-
grated and actualizing (Maslow); there must be a sense of self-awareness and
centeredness (May); there must exist an authenticity-of-being (Bugental). Hu-
manistic psychologists believed that the process-of-becoming was never simply
a matter of genetics and biology and they were convinced that the rejection
of becoming was a psychological illness that should be the main concern of
psychotherapy.42
Although they agreed that the process-of-becoming characterizes human
nature, humanistic psychologists disagreed regarding the exact causes of that
process. Maslow, Rogers, and to a lesser degree Allport, believed that the
process-of-becoming had a biological basis. They were nevertheless extremely
careful not to revert to simple biological determinism. Maslow thought that
humans had an "instinctoid" inner core that contained potentialities pressing
towards actualization. Rogers argued that the human organism had a direc-
tional and actualizing tendency toward the fulfillment of an inner potential.
Bugental and May regarded the biological assumptions of the growth hy-
pothesis as overly vague. They explained the process-of-becoming as a product
of self-awareness and affirmation-i.e., intentionality-in the face of existential
anxiety and contingencies. 43
Human nature, according to Abraham Maslow, depends upon both biology
and culture. It seemed obvious to Maslow that there could be no such thing
as human nature without the human body. But it seemed equally clear to
him that a simple biological determinism could not explain human nature.
Central to Maslow's view of human nature was the concept of an "instinc-
toid" inner core within the human organism. Innate human capacities, talents,
and idiosyncrasies, he thought, have a biological basis in that inner core.
However, the biological inner core exists merely as potential "raw material"
waiting to be subjectively developed or actualized by the person. The inner
core was nothing like an all-powerful animal instinct. It was rather an instinct-
remnant, very subtle and easily suppressed and repressed or developed and
actualized. There were, according to him, both cultural and psychological
dimensions in the process of actualization or suppression. The species-specific
potentialities of the human body were, on one hand, shaped by family, ed-
ucation, environment, and culture; on the other hand, they were determined
by the person, by his or her choices, will, and decisions, by all these things
that Sartre had called the "project. "44

42 DeCarvalho, Founders 179-82.

43 DeCarvalho, Founders 179-82.
44 Maslow, Motivation and Personality 9, 139,382; Toward a Psychology o/Being 3-4, 138;
Religions, Values and Peak-Experiences xvi; Farther Reaches 0/ Human Nature 22-24, 186.
ABRAHAM H. MASLOW 47
Since Maslow believed that human biological potential is extremely malle-
able, he emphasized the importance of a proper cultural environment. A
synergetic society, argued Maslow, must create special conditions that en-
courage the free expression of instinctoid human nature; more important, it
must allow the human organism to actualize itself positively by means of
subjective choice. Subjective choice did not mean for Maslow what it meant
for Sartrean existentialism. Choices for Maslow were determined by the spe-
cies-specific biological core residing within the person. The person needed to
recognize the impulses (or instinct-remnants) of his or her own body, love
and respect his or her own biological organism, then actualize its potential.
In spite of the biological foundations of human nature, however, the person
as a sUbjective being is responsible for the manner in which he or she indi-
viduates and actualizes his or her own existence. Ultimately it is the person
who is the active agent, the mover and chooser, and the master of himself or
herself. 45
Signifying the importance of the person in the unfolding of his or her inner
potential, Maslow argued that the inner core developed only by a process of
self-discovery and "creation." Although the organism develops from within
by virtue of intrinsic growth tendencies, the manner in which this development
is accomplished depends upon the person. Maslow agreed with Carl Rogers
that there are "positive growth tendencies" that lie within the human organism
driving it to fuller and fuller development. He also agreed with Rogers that
a primary task of psychotherapy is to create an environment conducive to
self-discovery and to the conscious exercise of will. 46
Maslow was greatly interested in ethics, and he argued that it was possible
to make a scientific study of human values. Values, he thought, were deeply
embedded within the structure of human nature, and he believed that the
possession of wrong values was a kind of mental illness. Wrong values included
the suppression of one's inner biological core, the inhibition of growth, and
wanting "what-is-not-good-for-us." Mental health, on the other hand, was
synonymous with "good-growth-toward-self-actualization," or the develop-
ment and actualization to the fullest extent of the capacities latent within the
biological core. Maslow considered values leading to self-actualization to be
the right values. Actualization is always possible, argued Maslow, because
human nature is fundamentally trustworthy, self-governing, and self-protect-
ing. Provided with a synergetic environment and full freedom of self-expres-
sion, human nature will unfold and grow in the right direction. Maslow be-
lieved that Carl Rogers's ideal of a "fully functioning person" suggested the
ethical implications of his own concept of self-actualization. 47

45 Maslow, Motivation and Personality 9, 124, 145, 153, 349, 382; Farther Reaches of Human
Nature 101, 148,223.
46 Maslow, Motivation and Personality 116, 124; Toward a Psychology o( BeinR 138; Frick,
Humanistic PsycholoRY 22-24.
47 Maslow, Motivation and Personality 116; Toward a Psychology of Being 167-85, 81, 130;
Farther Reaches of Human Nature 28, 211.
48 THOUGHT
Maslow's most famous concept is that of a hierarchy of needs. The inner
core of human nature, argued Maslow, consists of urges and instinct-like
propensities that create basic needs within the person. These needs have to
be satisfied; otherwise frustration and sickness will result. The first and most
basic needs are physiological and are related to survival. If the physiological
needs are not satisfied, all other needs are temporarily pushed aside. Once
basic physiological needs are fulfilled, relatively higher and higher needs
emerge, such as those for safety, love, and esteem. When safety needs are
satisfied, love and esteem needs arise. Social needs stand at the top of Maslow's
hierarchy of needs. 48
According to Maslow the drive to gratify needs is instinctoid; needs must
be gratified or illness will ensue. Mental illness is manifested by the person
who compulsively seeks gratification of a particular need and does not move
on to higher needs. Maslow agreed with Gordon Allport that the satisfaction
of higher needs in healthy people is unrelated to the lower needs. Higher needs
are independent from lower needs and thus functionally autonomous. 49
At the very top of the hierarchy of needs Maslow placed the need for self-
actualization, or the desire to become all that one is capable of becoming. A
desire for self-actualization arose with the emergence of a need to know, a
need to satisfy our curiosity about nature, a need to understand the perplexities
of life; it was also a response to the needs for meaningful work, for respon-
sibility, for justice, for creativity, and for the appreciation of beauty. In The
Farther Reaches ofHuman Nature ( 1971) Maslow discussed a need yet higher
than self-actualization, one that was transcendental and centered on cosmic
rather than human awareness. All humans, said Maslow, possess an instinctoid
need to penetrate the cosmic mysteries and to live in a realm of symbols and
religion. 50
The desire to transcend one's own nature, said Maslow, was just as much
an aspect of human nature itself as were all lower needs. Denial of this ultimate
need could be just as pathological as a denial of one's need for vitamins and
proper nutrition. 5 I
In an age when many psychologists understood human nature as a mere
response to stimuli and studied psychologically maladjusted persons, Maslow
stood for human dignity and values; he advocated a humanistic psychology
that studied healthy people, trusted and placed the unique potential of each
person at the core of its concerns.

48 Maslow, Motivation and Personality 80, 106, 116, 154,345-47,379-90.

49 Gordon w. Allport, "A Unique and Open System" 12: 1-5.
~ Maslow, Motivation and Personality 183; "Eupsychia-The Good Society" 3; Religion, Values
and Peak-Experiences xvi; "The Farther Reaches of Human Nature"; Farther Reaches ofHuman
Nature 186.
51 Maslow, Motivation and Personality 146-51, 379-90; Toward a Psychology o/Being 222;
"The Farther Reaches of Human Nature" 3.
ABRAHAM H. MASLOW 49
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