Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Born April 1, 1908 Abraham Maslow was the son of uneducated Jewish immigrants. Being uneducated themselves, his parents pushed him hard to have success in academics (Boeree). This was hard on a young boy and he became very lonely. Choosing books as his refuge he became interested in higher education. He began this education at the City College of New York studying law (Boeree). After three semesters at CCNY he transferred to Cornell and then eventually back to the City College of New York (Boeree). All of his young life he had done things to please his parents. Soon he would defy them and marry his first cousin Bertha Goodman. Soon after being married he and Bertha moved to Wisconsin where he would start his studies in psychology. After moving to Wisconsin, he became interested in psychology and would be affected by many great individuals in this field. The first of which was Harry Harlow; Harlow was known for his work with rhesus monkeys studying maternal deprivation (The Adoption History Project). The basis of these experiments was the nature and nurture debate. In Harlow’s experiments he showed that nurture was far more influential than nature. When these rhesus monkeys were born they were taken from their biological mothers (The Adoption History Project). In his Wisconsin laboratory he put these monkeys into situation with false maternal figures, these mothers would provide them with the milk they needed. This surrogate mother provided them with the least amount of care that was necessary. Soon they adopted the surrogate as their real mother. Of course, there were differences in the experimental situations. Some mothers were wrapped with terry cloth and others were simply mesh wire (The Adoption History Project). Naturally, the monkeys preferred the mothers with the terry cloth, but they still drank the same amount of food, and acted differently. When frightened the monkeys with the terry cloth mothers made contact with the surrogate mother. However, the

Cited: “Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory.” Envision Software. 13 Apr. 2008. <http://www.envisionsoftware.com/Management/Maslows_Needs_Hierarchy.htm Boeree, George. “Abraham Maslow.” Personality Theories. 24 Mar. 2008. <http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/maslow.html Edward L. Thorndike. 2007. 13 Apr. 2008. <http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/ethorndike.shtml “Harry Harlow, Monkey Love Experiments.” The Adoption History Project. 30 Mar. 2008. <http://www.uoregon.edu/~adoption/studies/HarlowMLE.htm Self Actualization. 13 Apr. 2008. <http://psikoloji.fiesk.com.tr/maslow/self.html