The Humanistic Perspective of Personality From Freud, to the Big 5, to Bandura, to the Ideal Self

Humanistic Psychologists… conscious experiencesFocus on conscious experiences individuals own (free will)Focus on an individuals own ability to change attitudes and behavior (free will) personal responsibility and growth (internal locus of control)Focus on personal responsibility and growth (internal locus of control) optimistic perspectiveHave an optimistic perspective on human nature human strengths and virtuesThought psychology should focus on human strengths and virtues

Abraham Maslow and Personality Hierarchy of NeedsSaid personality comes from the pursuit of meeting our Hierarchy of Needs –The pyramid of physiological (food/water) and psychological (love/esteem) needs –Ultimately our goal is to obtain our full potential –self-actualization – the pursuit of realizing one’s potential that defines personality Said most people don’t reach full potential because they lose focus of the pursuit because they strive for materialistic, meaningless goals “healthy people” Maslow developed his ideas by studying what he termed “healthy people”

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Self-Actualized People They share certain characteristics : They are self aware and self accepting Open and spontaneous Loving and caring Not paralyzed by others’ opinions. They are secure in who they are. They enjoy work and see work as a mission to fulfill

Self-Actualized People Problem centered rather than self-centered. Focused their energies on a particular task. Few deep relationships, rather than many superficial ones.

Carl Rogers: The Importance of Self GOODBelieved people are basically GOOD and are like seeds We are like seeds Need Water, Sun and Nutrients to Grow into a big healthy plant We need acceptance,genuineness, and empathy for us to grow. Humanistic psychologist who agreed with Maslow AGE

Acceptance Unconditional Positive Regard: An attitude of acceptance regardless of circumstances. Accepting yourself or others completely regardless of behavior at that time. conditional positive regard Rogers believed that many parents display what he called conditional positive regard children only feel accepted when they are pleasing others

Genuineness Being open with your own feelings. Dropping your guard. Being transparent and self-disclosing.

Empathy Listening, sharing, understanding and mirroring feelings and reflecting their meanings.

Assessing Personality from a Humanistic Perspective Humanistic psychologists evaluate your personality by looking at your self-concept (or self-identity) –How YOU saw yourself and how you would personally answer the question… WHO AM I? #1 - ask clients to describe their self-concept #2 – ask them how they would ideally like to be you are generally happy. When your ideal self and your self-concept are alike - you are generally happy. How did Rogers assess personality?

Assessing your Self-Concept ME Or my self-concept My Ideal Self

Self-Concept self-concept Both Rogers and Maslow believed that your self-concept is at the center of your personality. positive….If our self concept is positive…. We tend to act and perceive the world positively. negative….If our self-concept is negative…. We fall short of our “ideal self” and feel dissatisfied and unhappy

don’t exactly match reality Rogers said that often people’s self- concepts don’t exactly match reality CongruenceCongruence –a fairly accurate match between the self-concept and reality IncongruenceIncongruence –the difference between the self-concept and reality Results of Incongruence anxiety –can experience anxiety when self-concepts are threatened distort –therefore people distort their experiences to hold on to their self-concept

Self-Serving Bias Sometimes to hold on to our Self- concept we use a Self-Serving Bias A readiness to perceive oneself favorable. People accept more responsibility for successes than failures. Most people see themselves as better than average. 79% thought Mother Teresa would go to heaven vs. 87% thought they would

Does culture play a part in our personality and our self-identity? (according to humanistic psychologists) Individualism: giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals. Defining your identity in terms of yourself. Collectivism: giving priority to the goals of a group and defining your identity as part of that group. Which is really better? “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” “the quaking duck gets shot”

Criticisms of Humanistic Theory Overly optimistic and unrealistic view of human nature –Maslow’s self-actualized people are almost perfect (had a hard time finding any self-actualized people) Like psychodynamic hard to test –Believers say this isn’t a problem – you can’t test people’s journey to ideal self “What is a healthy person?” –concept may just reflect Maslow’s own values and ideals –What is a loving and productive person??