Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist born in 1908 who developed the theory of a hierarchy of needs and the concept of self-actualization. He received his bachelor's, master's and PhD from the University of Wisconsin and was a professor at Brooklyn College and Brandeis University. Maslow's hierarchy of needs proposes that people are motivated to fulfill basic physiological needs before moving on to more advanced needs for safety, love, esteem and ultimately self-actualization.