Abraham MASLOW

"Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be."

“I was awfully curious to find out why I didn't go insane”

Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow who was born in Brooklyn is one of the founders of the humanistic psychology.After his college years at Wisconsin where he conducted researches about primate doöinance and sexuality,continued his studies in similar area at Columbia University by taking Alfred Adler as a mentor.

During his years in Brooklyn, he found two mentors anthropologist Ruth Benedict and Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer who were admired by Maslow professionaly and personaly.Maslow started two take notes about both these two people and their behaviours.This would be the basis of his lonflife research.He developed his researches on concepts of a heirarchy of needs, metaneeds, self-actualizing persons, and peak experiences, by using other psychologists and making significant addings to them.

According to Maslow human being’s needs are arrenged by means of importance degree.Starting from the bottom,first part is physical needs (air, water, food ,sex) the secon part includes safety needs(security, stability) and the third and the fourth are pyschological and social needsrespectively.The top is invaded by the self-actualizing needs -- the need to fulfill oneself, to become all that one is capable of becoming.According to Maslow if a person can not obtaim all of his needs in the lower part. Then the person do not care about the needs which are located in the next part. To illustrate, Someone dying of thirst quickly forgets their thirst when they have no oxygen.Moreover people who deals with the higher needs are self-actuazing people who can focus on outside of themselves and can clearly understand what is true, are very creative and aren’t bounded by social conventions.Maslow thought that when a person made real all of his needs in the first importance degree then he would start to think of the other needs in higher degree and for a person to obtain the needs in the basic category would help him to develop his personal properties in a higher degree and as a result of this by improving his personality he would be get closer to the peak degree( self acturazing).

References:
1- tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow_teorisi
2- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhmasl.html
3-http://www.businessballs.com/images/maslow's_hierarchy_businessballs.jpg