12. Personality and Transcending the Self Flashcards
Historical account of understanding who we are as humans:
Freud: pessimistic view
Behaviourism: human beings as a species controlled by the environment
Humanism: (Carl Rogers and Maslow) put emphasis on the nature of our humanity, what is the potential for human beings>
4th Force: Transpersonal Psychology: looking beyond the self - psychology of spirituality
What are the 2 approaches to transpersonal psychology>
Hedonic approach: optimizing pleasurable experiences like happiness (promoting wellbeing)
Eudemonic approach: does not deny a role for happiness, but links happiness to having a sense of meaning and purpose in life
Outline the elements of positive human experiences:
- peak experiences: intense joy, awe, rapture (short lived)
- plateau experiences: serenity, calmness (longer)
- peak performance: superior functioning
- flow states: absolute absorption in an activity
- religious experience
Outline mindfulness
Non-judgemental focus on the present moment
- derived from Buddhism, Yogic practices
- open, non-defensive awareness
- mindfulness based cognitive therapy
- intervention for anxiety and depression
Outline the experience of awe:
- transformative self-expansive state: narrow boundaries of separate self are ascended
- elicited by stimuli perceived to be greater than the self
- associated with prosocial behavioural effects
What is the relationship between awe and the small self
- one’s sense of self shrinks to become part of a greater whole (from egocentricity to interconnectedness)
- enhances prosociality via social connectedness (tend to be more generous and ethical in decision making) - with the mechanism of a reduction in self
Outline self-transcendent experiences
where your sense of self and sense of separateness disappears
- decreased self-salience
- increased feelings of connectedness
Can differ in intensities
- routine (getting absorbed in music or a book)
- intense (feeling one with the universe)
Outline William James and his relevance
- reports feeling these intense experiences
- wrote the first english textbook for psychology
- very interested in religion: found anecdotes of people describing religious experiences where a sense of self-transcendence is common
Relation to Maslow’s Hierarchy
Self-actualization isn’t the endpoint
Self-transcendence is the holistic and highest level of consciousness, behaving as ends rather than means
What are the components of self-transcendent experiences?
- Annihilation component: dissolution of bodily sense of self/reduction of self-boundaries/self-salience
- relational component: sense of connectedness - giving up of individuality
Both can occur to varying degrees
How common are STEs
1/3 of people have reported it
Different triggers: meditation, prayer, yoga, music, dancing, psychoactive substances
What is the overview effect?
Reported by astronauts who go into space and look down onto earth (experience of awe and losing themselves)
What is the long-term personality alteration?
Selflessness
- reduction to self-centredness and selfishness
- possibility to be an antidote to narcissism
What are the associations between STE and wellbeing
- perceived social connection
- wellbeing
- prosocial behaviours
- meaning in life
- reduces excessive self-focus
- negative correlation between interpersonal ST and depression
Haugen et al Meta-analysis found: ST and wellbeing in later life
- decreased depression
- increased meaning in life, resilience and sense of coherence (how well you feel aspects of your life work together)
