The Humanistic Approach Flashcards
What are the key assumptions of this approach?
- Rejects scientific methods as a way of gaining insight on the human behaviour
- Humans have free will and not all behaviour is determined.
- Sees humans as unique and are motivated to achieve their potential.
- A proper understanding of human behaviour can only be achieved by studying humans - not animals.
- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
- Rogers ideas of focusing on the self and having congruence between the two selves (concept of self and the ideal self).
- Favours idiographic methods (scientific fact)
Define “concept of self”.
How they view themselves.
Define “congruence”.
Agreement or harmony
Define “ideal self”.
The person they want to be
Ideal self and actual self.
What did Rogers believe about the two selves?
Rogers argues that for personal growth to be achieved an individual’s concept of self must be broadly equivalent or have congruence with their ideal self. If the gap between the two ‘selves’ is too big then the person will experience a state of incongruence and self-actualisation will not be possible due to the negative feelings of self-worth coming from the incongruence.
What did Rogers develop?
Client-centred therapy- to help people with the problems they face everyday.
What issues did Client-centred therapy help with? (limits/boundaries of a parents love)
- Low self-esteem
- Worthlessness
- In adults these issues have roots to their childhood and can often be explained by a lack of unconditional positive regard from our parents.
- Rogers states that parents who put limits or boundaries on their love for their child (I will only love you if…) is storing up psychological problems for the child in the future.
What were psychologists to offer their clients?
- Empathy
- Genuineness
- Unconditional positive regard
What were Rogers clients encouraged to do?
-Discover their of their own solution inside.
What are the 5 stages of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?
Psychological needs- water, air, shelter, reproduction, clothing
Safety needs- personal security, employment, health
Love and belonging- friendship, intimacy, family
Esteem- respect, self-esteem, strength, freedom, recognition
Self-actualisation- the dear to become the most one can be.
What are the strengths of the humanistic approach?
- It promotes the idea of personal responsibility.
- It’s the only approach in psychology which places the individual’s subjective experience and meanings at the centre
- States thatthe subjective experiencesare of importance and value
- Evidence supporting Maslow - Holistic Viewpoint - they reject any attempt to break up behaviours and experience into smaller components, the approach has more ecological validity by considering meaningful human behaviours within its real life context.
- It is not reductionist- Individual is not seen as the product of neurons firing or stimulus-response links
- Emphasises autonomy and free will when choosing behaviour
What are the limitations of the humanistic approach?
- Lacks empirical support
- Client-Centred Therapy is of limited help for individuals with complex problems
- There is too much emphasis on subjective experience- Hard to study
- Ethnocentricity of Humanistic Approach This type of approach can be biased and centred on the Western culture only. For this matter, it can be said that it will influence those who have diverse cultures to follow and adopt even if it contradicts to their beliefs.
- Humanism is unable to break down a person into simple parts of cause and effect. This means that the meaningful causal conclusions of the scientific method are not possible and so instead only theories that do not necessarily hold much meaning are produced
- Cultural Differences - Maslow focused on the positive value of high self esteem and personal achievement. Collectivist cultures (China), the emphasis is on co-operation and working for the benefit of the group.
