Maslow, Abraham H. - măzˈlō, 1908–70, American psychologist, b. Brooklyn, New York, Ph.D. Univ. of Wisconsin (1934). He taught at Brooklyn College from 1937, then became head of the psychology department at Brandeis Univ. (1951–69). A leader in the school of humanistic psychology, Maslow is best known for his theory of human motivation, which led to a therapeutic technique known as self-actualization. His influential works include Motivation and Personality (1954) and Toward a Psychology of Being (1964). See also R. J. Lowry, ed., The Journals of A. H. Maslow (2 vol., 1979); E. Hoffman, The Right to be Human: A Biography of Abraham Maslow (1988). The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved. |
The book's title derives from an analogy de Waal draws between the way behavior is transmitted in ape society and the way sushi-making skills are passed down from sushi master to apprentice. Like the apprentice, young apes watch their group mates at close range, absorbing the methods and lessons of each of their elders' actions. Responses long thought to be instinctive are actually learned behavior, de Waal argues, and constitute ape culture.
A delightful mix of intriguing anecdote, rigorous clinical study, adventurous field work, and fascinating speculation, The Ape and the Sushi Master shows that apes are not human caricatures but members of our extended family with their own resourcefulness and dignity.
