Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIII. Humanistic/Existential
Theories- Maslow: Holistic
Dynamic Theory
(^284) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
In 1934, Maslow received his doctorate, but he could not find an academic po-
sition, partly because of the Great Depression and partly because of an anti-Semitic
prejudice still strong on many American campuses in those years. Consequently, he
continued to teach at Wisconsin for a short time and even enrolled in medical school
there. However, he was repulsed by the cold and dispassionate attitude of surgeons
who could cut off diseased body parts with no discernible emotion. To Maslow, med-
ical school—like law school—reflected an unemotional and negative view of people,
and he was both disturbed and bored by his experiences in medical school. When-
ever Maslow became bored with something, he usually quit it, and medical school
was no exception (Hoffman, 1988).
The following year he returned to New York to become E. L. Thorndike’s re-
search assistant at Teachers College, Columbia University. Maslow, a mediocre stu-
dent during his days at City College and Cornell, scored 195 on Thorndike’s intelli-
gence test, prompting Thorndike to give his assistant free rein to do as he wished.
Maslow’s fertile mind thrived in this situation; but after a year and a half of doing re-
search on human dominance and sexuality, he left Columbia to join the faculty of
Brooklyn College, a newly established school whose students were mostly bright,
young adolescents from working-class homes, much like Maslow himself 10 years
earlier (Hoffman, 1988).
Living in New York during the 1930s and 1940s afforded Maslow an opportu-
nity to come into contact with many of the European psychologists who had escaped
Nazi rule. In fact, Maslow surmised that, of all the people who had ever lived, he had
the best teachers (Goble, 1970). Among others, he met and learned from Erich
Fromm, Karen Horney, Max Wertheimer, and Kurt Goldstein. He was influenced
by each of these people, most of whom conducted lectures at the New School for
Social Research. Maslow also became associated with Alfred Adler, who was living
in New York at that time. Adler held seminars in his home on Friday nights,
and Maslow was a frequent visitor to these sessions, as was Julian Rotter (see
Chapter 17).
Another of Maslow’s mentors was Ruth Benedict, an anthropologist at Co-
lumbia University. In 1938, Benedict encouraged Maslow to conduct anthropologi-
cal studies among the Northern Blackfoot Indians of Alberta, Canada. His work
among these Native Americans taught him that differences among cultures were su-
perficial and that the Northern Blackfoot were first people and only second were they
Blackfoot Indians. This insight helped Maslow in later years to see that his famous
hierarchy of needs applied equally to everyone.
During the mid-1940s, Maslow’s health began to deteriorate. In 1946, at age
38, he suffered a strange illness that left him weak, faint, and exhausted. The next
year he took a medical leave and, with Bertha and their two daughters, moved to
Pleasanton, California, where, in name only, he was plant manager of a branch of
the Maslow Cooperage Corporation. His light work schedule enabled him to read
biographies and histories in a search for information on self-actualizing people.
After a year, his health had improved and he went back to teaching at Brooklyn
College.
In 1951, Maslow took a position as chairman of the psychology department at
the recently established Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. During his
Brandeis years, he began writing extensively in his journals, jotting down at irregu-
278 Part III Humanistic/Existential Theories