Week 3 (Humanistic Approaches)

Question 1

What did Maslow call the innate human tendencies that we have to strive towards healthy growth and development.

Answer 1

instinctoid

Question 2

What are the personality traits of people who DO foster insinctoid tendencies and the people who don’t.

Answer 2

People who do: Honest, kind, loving, generous
People who don’t: Weak, easily overcome by environments, destructive, aggressive, unloving, self-destructive.

Question 3

What are Maslow’s two distinct types of motivation?

Answer 3

-Deficiency motives
-Growth/Being motives

Question 4

What is a deficiency (d) motive?

Answer 4

Negative motivational state
-E.g., hunger, thirst, need for safety/love
-Things we lack: motivated to acquire
-Lessen in intensity as met
-Drew on examples from the U.S depression of the 1930s

Question 5

What is a growth/being (B) motive?

Answer 5

Positive motivational state
-E.g., giving love unselfishly. drive, curiosity, thirst for knowledge, skill development
-Unique to individuals
-Gain in intensity as met.

Question 6

What are the five stages of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Answer 6

Bottom to top:
-Physiological needs
-Safety needs
-Love and belonging
-Esteem
-Self-actualisation

Question 7

What is the Physiological needs level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Answer 7

Air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing reproduction.

Question 8

What is the safety needs level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Answer 8

Personal security, employment, resources, health, property

Question 9

What is the Love and belonging level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Answer 9

Friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection

Question 10

What is the esteem level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Answer 10

Respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength, freedom

Question 11

What is self-actualisation level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Answer 11

Desire to be the most that one can be

Question 12

How to identify a self actualiser?

Answer 12

-The frequency they have “peak experiences”, which are feelings of ecstasy, usually experienced at times of great achievement or when viewing things like sunsets or stars.
-Moments that lack wants, deficiencies, or needs.

Question 13

B cognition

Answer 13

-Non judgemental, transient thinking
-Occurs at moments of “peak experience”

Question 14

What did Carl Rogers theorise?

Answer 14

Self actualisation and self concept

Question 15

What does Carl Rogers say about self-actualisation

Answer 15

-Each person has a natural tendency towards growth and self-actualisation
-As long as actualising potential is not blocked , we remain psychologically healthy
-Blocks are the cause of all problems
-For Rogers, unlike Maslow, the drive to self-actualise is our only motivator.

Question 16

What does Carl Rogers say about self-concept?

Answer 16

-Roger distinguished between our real (organismic) self and our self-concept
-The real self is our “real organismic self”, the genetic blueprint for the person we are capable of becoming, if our developmental circumstances are favourable.
-According to rogers, we develop conditions of worth - criteria for what we must or must not do in order to gain approval.
-BUT rogers also argued that conditions of worth may interfere with personal development if our sole objective is to gain approval from others.
-Our self concept is socially constructed

Question 17

Self-concept development

Answer 17

-Rogers believed in the importance of parent’s self-concepts, and the provision of unconditional positive regard.
-If we do not get enough, it creates conditions of worth
-Individuals with fewer “CoWs” are high functioning, more accepting and impose fewer “CoWs” on their children.
-More accepting and less judgemental.
-There are no stages or development to self actualisation, only good or bad environments to facilitate or restrict it.

Question 18

Traits of a fully functioning person

Answer 18

-Highly conscientious
-Highly agreeable
-High in openness
-Low in neuroticism
-Extraverted?

Question 19

Person-centred therapy

Answer 19

-Rogers therapeutic approach in which the therapist has unconditional positive regard for the client
-Helps individual recognise and untangle their feelings and return to an actualising state
-Rogers encouraged tackling incongruence which should help realisation of self.

Question 20

How did Rogers measure the person-centred therapy approach?

Answer 20

Q sort, a list of around 100 adjectives/ short statements describing personality attributes, asked to group into 9 categories. They do this for self-concept and ideal self.

Question 21

Pros of Rogers theories

Answer 21

-Reasonable, if simplified description of behaviours
-Concept of conditions of worth are a valuable way of describing mechanisms we use to evaluate our own behaviours
-Description of the self is innovative, and comparison of self/ideal self is valuable
-Concepts are intuitive and have high face validity.
-Attempts to engage with the world as individuals
-Much info has been taken on since than supports his theories
-His approach became more comprehensible over time
-Controversy and debate generated by his work is good for science
-Led to reflection on therapy and counselling

Question 22

Cons of Rogers theories

Answer 22

-Not a total description of human behaviour
-Excludes what could be called “the richness of the unconscious”
-Ignores social, historical and political factors, only interested in societal and global problems.
-Reliant on individual observations and not objective measurement
-Limited support for the idea that humans know what’s best for them.
-Concepts like unconditional positive regard are difficult to measure
-Claims of non-directiveness in relation to therapy may be overstated.
-Could be said to have fundamentally too many concepts and assumptions

Question 23

Pros of Maslow’s theories

Answer 23

-Reasonable, if simplified description of behaviour
-Good face validity
-Creative approach seeking to explain complex human behaviours
-Widely used in organisational / work psychology and other disciplines e.g. nursing, education, and management.
-Widespread acceptance amongst psychologists and others
-Lays the foundations for positive psychology
-Makes the self-concept an important construct
-Stressed the need to ask meaningful questions vs. pursuing trivial research
-Applicable to health and healthy people

Question 24

Cons of Maslow’s theories

Answer 24

-Overly positive?
-Some inconsistencies in accepting Freudian defence mechanisms
-Little evidence of scientific value, needs (e.g, esteem, confidence) not well defined
-No discussion of genetic contributions to, e.g., disorders
-Over simplification of human needs and behaviour; lacks specifics about behaviour and rewards that satisfy needs
-Middle-class doctrine neglects the impact of social context on people’s interpretation on their needs
-Not personality ‘theory’ but about psychological adjustments
-Descriptive rather than evaluative
-Does not detail, how self-actualisation can be achieved
-Peak experience may not relate to self-actualisation.

Question 25

What are the successive levels of human individuality

Answer 25

-Level 1: Dispositions / traits (Outline of the person)
-Level 2: Characteristic adaptations (Filling in specific details
-Level 3: Integrative life stories (What one’s life means”