HUMANISTIC APPROACH

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• HUMANISTIC APPROACH

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• Claims that people have the ability to shape
  their own destiny, and this is not driven by
  biological, instinctive influences.
• Emphasize the wholeness or completeness of
  personality, rather than focusing on its
  structural parts.
• What matters is how people view themselves.
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Themes of Humanistic Theories

• Emphasis on personal responsibility and free will
  each of us is responsible for what happens to
  us.
• The importance of the here and now rather than
  the past.
• Also emphasize personal growth and fulfillment
  moving towards bigger goals self-actualizing

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Humanistic Theorists

• Carl Rogers (1902-1986)
• Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)

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Carl Rogers (1902-1987)
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• Approach to psychology was based on self-
  concept. Each individual has a self- concept,
  which consists of his or her conscious thoughts
  and beliefs about himself or herself. View
  referred to as person-centered.
• Believed that the most powerful drives are the
  ones to become fully functioning.
• To be fully functioning is to achieve optimal
  psychological adjustment, to live in the
  present, getting the most from each experience.
• To help children become fully functioning
  requires that we offer them unconditional
  positive regard.

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• Unconditional Positive Regard means showing a
  child that they are loved, respected, and
  accepted (this is positive regard) with no
  conditions attached.
• This does NOT mean that parents must always agree
  with their childs behaviour choices. But they
  must never use love and acceptance as a means of
  pressuring the child into accepting their views.
• Rogers said we should separate the childs
  behaviors from the childs self. We punish a
  child for doing a bad thing, but never for being
  a bad child.
• Helping people achieve positive self-regard is
  one of the major goal of Rogers person-centered
  therapy.
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Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
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• Peoples needs are positive and our major goal is
  to realize and put into practice those needs, or
  to self-actualize
• We have to master our lower needs before we could
  move to the highest need.
• Our personality and subsequently behaviors are
  driven by or ability to master these needs.

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(No Transcript)
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• Biological and Physiological needs - air, food,
  drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.
• Safety needs - protection from elements,
  security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.
• Belongingness and Love needs - work group,
  family, affection, relationships, etc.
• Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery,
  independence, status, dominance, prestige,
  managerial responsibility, etc.
• Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal
  potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal
  growth and peak experiences.

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Self - Actualization

• A musician must make music, and artist must
  paint, a poet must write, if he is to ultimately
  be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he
  must be. This need we may call self-
  actualization (Maslow 1970)

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Evaluating the Humanistic-Phenomenological
Approach

• Critics argue against the humanist psychologist
  strong emphasis on personal responsibility or
  free will.
• This conflicts with the deterministic view that
  says that behavior and personality is influenced
  by many factors external factors.
• Also concepts are loosely defined. What is
  self-actualization, fully functioning? Hard to do
  systematic research b/c concepts cannot be
  defined or tested. How do you measure
  self-actualizing, self-concept etc?
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COGNITIVE APPROACH
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• Cognitive therapy is based on a theory of
  personality which maintains that how one thinks
  largely determines how one feels and behaves.
• What matters most are the clients beliefs,
  thoughts, perceptions and attitudes about
  him/herself and the environment.
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• They dont deny the importance of behavior
  (stimulus-response), but they argue that A
  (activating events stimulus) doesnt just lead
  to C (consequences or behavior response), but
  there is an intervening process B (beliefs).

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• These beliefs can be rational or irrational. The
  way a person processes stimulus events is
  critical in determining what responses are
  produced and subsequently ones personality.
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• In Cognitive therapy it is not the stimuli (A)
  activating events that are crucial, but rather
  the persons perceptions and interpretation of
  the events.
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• Individuals make themselves emotionally healthy
  or emotionally upset by the way they think, not
  by the environment.

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The Trait/Biological Approach 
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• Personality is the set of enduring
  characteristics that influences ones
  interactions with others and their environment.
• Individuals differ in the amount of each of these
  characteristics that they possess.
• Trait/ Biological approach describes ones
  characteristics using three concepts stability,
  consistency and generality and individual
  differences

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• 1). Stability the biological psychologists see
  these enduring characteristics as permanent,
  inherent elements of personality.
• 2). Consistency and Generality no trait is
  expected to appear all the time or in every
  situation. Different demands and circumstances
  can bring a somewhat different set of traits.
  However, some aspects of behavior are consistent
  across situations and time. introversion-
  extraversion.
• 3). Individual Differences individuals are
  unique individual differences come from
  differences in the strength or pervasiveness of
  particular dispositions.