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).

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