Humanistic Psychology Flashcards
What is the humanistic approach to free will?
Claims humans are self-determining and have free will. People are affected by internal and external influences, but are active agents who determine their own development. For this reason, humanistic psychologists concern themselves with an idiographic approach - one by one since general laws cannot be established.
What was Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?
Physiological needs, Safety and Security, Love and belongingness, Self-Esteem & Self-Actualisation.
What is self-actualisation?
A need for growth - the ability to fulfil their potential. They regard personal growth is concerned with developing and changing as a person to become fulfilled, satisfied and goal-oriented.
What is congruence?
Rogers argues that ones ‘perceived self’ must be broadly equivalent to, or congruent with, ones ‘ideal self’ in order to have happiness. If there is significant incongruence then self-actualisation is impossible due to negative feelings of self-worth which arise from it.
What is client-centred therapy?
Otherwise known as counselling, Rogers claimed that many of our issues stem from our childhood and can be explained by a lack of unconditional positive regard - parents put conditions of worth on their children to receive love. Thus, Rogers saw his role as being able to provide his clients with the unconditional positive regard they never received.
What is the strength - not reductionist?
It rejects attempts to deconstruct the person, and so it practices holism. The idea that subjective experience can only be understood by considering the whole person.
What is the limitation - short of empirical evidence?
It is not scientific - the ideal of science is to experiment and experiments reduce things to C+E. Humanistic psychology can not be broken down and measured.
What is the strength - Positive Approach?
It is optimistic. They have been praised for bringing ‘the person’ back into psychology. Freud saw human beings as prisoners of their past, but humanistic psychologists see all people as good, free to work towards the achievement of their potential.
What is the limitation - cultural bias?
The hierarchy of needs may be different in collectivist cultures - putting the collective above the individual so the strive for self-growth may be not encouraged in that society.
