The Humanistic Perspective of

Personality

From Freud, to the Big 5, to Bandura, to the Ideal Self

Humanistic Psychologists…• Focus on conscious experiencesconscious experiences

• Focus on an individuals ownindividuals own ability to change attitudes and behavior (free will)(free will)

• Focus on personal responsibility and growth personal responsibility and growth (internal locus of control)(internal locus of control)

• Have an optimistic perspectiveoptimistic perspective on human nature

• Thought psychology should focus on human human strengths and virtuesstrengths and virtues

Abraham Maslow and Personality• Said personality comes from the pursuit of meeting

our Hierarchy of NeedsHierarchy 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 self-actualization – the pursuit of realizing one’s

potential that defines personalitypotential 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

Maslow developed his ideas by studying what he termed

“healthy people”“healthy people”

Maslow’sMaslow’sHierarchy of NeedsHierarchy of Needs

Self-Actualized PeopleThey 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

• Believed people are basically GOOD GOOD and are like seeds

•We are like seedsNeed Water, Sun and Need Water, Sun and Nutrients to Grow into Nutrients to Grow into a big healthy planta big healthy plant

We need acceptance,genuineness, and empathy for us to grow.

Humanistic psychologist who agreed with Maslow

AGEAGE

Acceptance• Unconditional Positive Regard:

An attitude of acceptance An attitude of acceptance regardless of circumstancesregardless of circumstances..

Accepting yourself or others completely regardless of behavior at that time.

Rogers believed that many parents display what he called conditional positive regardconditional positive regard

children only feel accepted when they are children only feel accepted when they are pleasing otherspleasing 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 beWhen your ideal self and your self-concept are alike -

you are generally happy.you are generally happy.

How did Rogersassess personality?

Assessing your Self-Concept

ME Or my self-concept My Ideal Self

Self-ConceptBoth Rogers and Maslow believed that your

self-conceptself-concept is at the center of your personality.

•If our self concept is positive….positive….We tend to act and perceive the world positively.

•If our self-concept is negative….negative….We fall short of our “ideal self” and feel dissatisfied and unhappy

Rogers said that often people’s self-concepts don’t exactly match realitydon’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 IncongruenceResults of Incongruence – can experience anxietyanxiety when self-concepts are

threatened – therefore people distortdistort their experiences to hold

on to their self-concept

Sometimes to hold on to our Self-concept we use a Self-Serving BiasSelf-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?Which is really better?

““the squeaky wheel gets the grease”the squeaky wheel gets the grease”

““the quaking duck gets shot”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??