Personality:

Humanistic Theory
• 1. Define the Person-centered Theory terms of
congruence and incongruence, the Ideal Self and Self-
Concept.
• 2. List Roger’s three core conditions necessary for
psychological growth.
• 3. Explain Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
• 4. Discuss the main differences between Rogers’ and
Maslow’s definitions of the term Self-Actualization.

Learning Objectives
• Humanism
• Theoretical orientation that emphasizes the
unique qualities of humans, especially their
free will and their potential for personal
growth (self-actualization)
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• Rogers’ Person-Centered Theory

Humanistic Theory
• Human nature
• Humans are innately GOOD
• An innate drive toward personal growth
• Individuals have the freedom to choose their course
of action and are not hostages of their environment
• Humans are largely conscious and rational beings
who are not dominated by unconscious, irrational
needs and conflicts

Humanistic Theory
• Hierarchy of needs  a systematic
arrangement of needs, according to
priority, in which basic needs must be met
before less basic needs are activated
• Need for self-actualization  the need to
fulfill one’s potential
• People progress upward in the hierarchy
when lower needs are satisfied reasonably
well, but they may regress back to lower
levels if basic needs are not satisfied

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Only 1% of the population achieved
self-actualization
• Characteristics of self-actualizing persons
• Accurately tuned into reality
• At peace with themselves
• Problem-centering
• Open & spontaneous - While they can conform to rules and social
expectations, they also tend to be open and unconventional
• Retained a fresh appreciation of the world around them
• Sensitive to others’ needs
• Enjoy rewarding interpersonal relations
• Unhostile sense of humor
• Do not depend on others for approval
• Autonomy and solitude
• Balance between polarities in personality

Maslow’s view on Personality

• “What a man can be, he must be.” - Maslow
• People will be frustrated if they are unable to fully utilize
their talents or pursue their true interests.
• For example, if you have great musical talent but must work as
an accountant, or if you have scholarly interests but must work
as a sales person, your need for self-actualization will be
blocked.
• Individuals who are self-actualized often have peak
experiences  moments of intense joy, wonder, awe and
ecstasy. After these experiences, people feel inspired,
strengthened, renewed or transformed.

Maslow’s view on Personality

• Focus on the constructive side of
human.
• Human will move forward in a
constructive manner if conditions foster
growth is present (growth-promoting
climate)
• Actualizing tendency  a directional
process of striving towards realization,
fulfilment, autonomy, self-
determination, and perfection

Person-centered Theory
Carl Rogers
• Roger’s three core conditions necessary for psychological
growth

Person-centered Theory – Growth-promoting climate

• Rogers identified four characteristics of the fully
functioning person:
• Openness to experience
• Trust in themselves
• An internal source of evaluation
• A willingness to continue growing
• For Rogers, fully functioning people are well
adjusted, well balanced and interesting to know.
Often such people are high achievers in society.

Person-centered Theory
• Rogerian (client-centered
therapy)
• non-directive form of
humanistic psychotherapy
developed by Carl Rogers that
emphasizes unconditional
positive regard and self-
acceptance

Person-centered Theory
How would you respond to the question,

Activity
 Find a friend and ask them,

What do you think about me?

Activity
• Self concept  our thoughts and feelings about
ourselves.
• Two Categories of self  the ideal self and the real self
• The ideal self is the person that you would like to be
• The real self is the person you actually are

Rogers’ view on Personality

• We need to achieve consistency between these two
selves. We experience congruence when our thoughts
about our real self and ideal self are very similar  in
other words, when our self-concept is accurate.
• High congruence leads to a greater sense of self-worth
and a healthy, productive life.
• Parents can help their children achieve this by giving them
unconditional positive regard, or unconditional love.

Rogers’ view on Personality

• According to Rogers, “As persons are accepted
and prized, they tend to develop a more caring
attitude towards themselves”.
• Conversely, when there is a great discrepancy
between our ideal and actual selves, we
experience a state Rogers called incongruence,
which can lead to maladjustment.

Rogers’ view on Personality

 Real Real Ideal
Ideal self
Self Self self

Congruence Incongruence
Real self blends well with Real self does not blend well
ideal self with ideal self
(Some incongruence is
probably unavoidable)

Rogers’ view on Personality

• Psychological health is rooted in a congruent self-concept. In
turn, congruence is rooted in a sense of personal worth.
• Personal worth develops from a childhood saturated with
unconditional affection from parents and others.
• For example, some parents make their affection conditional by
depending it on their children’s behaviors and whether they live
up to their own expectations.
• When parental love seems conditional, children often distort and
block out those experiences that make them feel unworthy of love
from their self-concept

Rogers’ view on Personality

Belief that Need to distort Relatively
affection from shortcomings incongruent Recurrent
others is to feel worthy self- anxiety
conditional of affection concept

Defensive behavior
to protect
inaccurate self-
concept

Rogers’ view on Personality

development & dynamics
• A young women who, like most of us, considers herself a “nice
person.” But in reality, she is rather conceited and selfish, and she gets
feedback from both boyfriends and girlfriends that she is a self-
centered person.
• How might she react in order to protect her self-concept?
• She might ignore or block out those occasions when she behaved
selfishly and then deny the accusations by her friends that she is self-
centered. She might also attribute her girlfriends’ negative comments to
their jealousy of her good looks and blame the boyfriends’ negative
remarks on their disappointment because she won’t get more serious
with them.
• Meanwhile, she might start doing some kind of charity work to show
everyone (including herself) that she really is a nice person.
• People often go to great lengths to defend their self-concept.

Example
 Both Rogers’s and Maslow’s theories focus
on individual choices and do not believe that
PERSONALITY is deterministic.

Conclusion
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=litXW91UauE
• Discuss the content of the video from a humanistic point
of view and what have you learned after watching the
video?

Class discussion