Week 5: Humanistic theories

Question 1

What were the three concepts Marcia focused on?

Answer 1

Committing, identity, and crises

Question 2

What is a crisis?

Answer 2

Experiencing conflicts, setbacks, and threats to the self that lead you to question your identity by exploring other pathways in life

Question 3

What are some limitations of Marcia’s model?

Answer 3

• criticised for lack of empirical support and not following a sequence
• difficult model to study objectively

Question 4

What is commitment?

Answer 4

Deciding on an identity as a framework for personality, roles, and values

Question 5

What are the four identity statuses?

Answer 5

• identity achievement
• foreclosure
• moratorium
• identity diffusion

Question 6

Commitment + crisis experienced

Answer 6

Identity achievement

Question 7

Commitment + no crisis

Answer 7

Foreclosure

Question 8

No commitment + crisis experienced

Answer 8

Moratorium

Question 9

No commitment + no crisis

Answer 9

Identity diffusion

Question 10

Identity diffusion

Answer 10

An attempt at an identity has not been made, or has failed. Associated with conflict, anxiety and depression.

Question 11

Foreclosure

Answer 11

Latching on to an identity before you have really thought about it or other options. Acceptance without sufficient questioning.

Question 12

Moratorium

Answer 12

The person is starting to question things and starting to experience things as a process of growth

Question 13

Identity achievement

Answer 13

You’ve set on the identity and personality that can be genuine for you

Question 14

List the assumptions of humanistic theories

Answer 14

• optimism, choice, creativity
• drive for self actualisation
• expressive needs
• free will
• people’s capacity to change themselves
• focus on present

Question 15

What are the characteristics of humanistic psychology?

Answer 15

• focus on higher human functions
• humans are active
• here and now
• idiographic
• self determination

Question 16

List Maslow’s needs

Answer 16

• physiological needs
• safety needs
• belongingness needs
• self esteem needs
• self actualisation

Question 17

Physiological needs

Answer 17

Directly related to survival, including hunger, thirst, elimination and sleep

Question 18

Safety needs

Answer 18

Need for structure, security and predictability

Question 19

Belongingness needs

Answer 19

Need for friends and companions, supportive group, intimate relationships

Question 20

Esteem needs

Answer 20

• recognition from other people: appreciation, prestige, reputation
• self esteem: desire for competency, mastery, achievement

Question 21

Self actualisation need

Answer 21

The desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming

Question 22

Characteristics of the self actualised

Answer 22

• acceptance of self
• admit weaknesses
• no excessive guilt
• feel good about self
• less restricted by social norms
• more peak experiences

Question 23

Criteria for self actualisation

Answer 23

• absence of psychological disorders
• motivated by values
• fully exploited talents
• more basic needs satisfied

Question 24

What is the consequence of having the need for self actualisation?

Answer 24

• devoid of values
• lack of fulfilment
• lose meaning in life

Question 25

What are Roger's core concepts?

Answer 25

- person centred approach - empathy, reflection, unconditional positive regard - people aim to fulfil potential - everyone born with actualising tendency

Question 26

Actual self

Answer 26

The way people actually see themselves

Question 27

Ideal self

Answer 27

How people would like to see themselves

Question 28

Self discrepancy theory

Answer 28

People with psychological problems see their actual selves as different from their ideal selves

Question 29

Peak experiences

Answer 29

- feelings of joy or ecstasy in being alive - realising that one is fully using their potential - insight and completeness

Question 30

Limitations of Maslow's approach

Answer 30

- unscientific - overly optimistic view of human nature - concepts biased towards Western culture

Question 31

Briefly describe Roger's early life

Answer 31

- grew up in financially successful, highly religious family - spent adolescent years on a farm which is where he became interested in science - a trip to asia in college was highly influential

Question 32

List Roger's main concepts

Answer 32

- person centred approach - empathy, unconditional positive regard and self actualisation - people aim to become fully functioning humans

Question 33

Describe the actualisation tendency

Answer 33

- we are all striving for self actualisation - helps us progress toward development - fosters personal growth - guides people toward autonomy and self sufficiency

Question 34

List some limitations to phenomenological approaches

Answer 34

- past relatively ignored - gaps in coverage - unconscious experienced is ignored - romantic vision - inadequate attention to nomothetic concerns

Question 35

Phenomenology

Answer 35

Less about symptomology, more about thinking about things from the client's perspective. Perception is interpretive and individuals move through the world according to their world view.

Question 36

Characteristics of humanistic psychology

Answer 36

- people can only be understood through their frame of reference - higher human function rather than biological drives - idiographic over nomothetic - human beings are seen as active

Question 37

What was Roger's approach to counselling?

Answer 37

Encouraging the client to take charge of the sessions, while the therapist responds to the client's statements in a non-directive supportive manner