Humanistic Theories of Personality

  1. Humanistic psychology rose to prominence in the mid-20th century in response to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory and B. F. Skinner's behaviorism. This approach emphasizes individuals' inherent drive towards self-actualization.
  2. Self-actualization is the process of realizing and expressing one's own capabilities and creativity.
  3. Phenomenology is the study of subjective experience.
    4. 
    Carl Rogers

    Kurt Lewin.

  4. Developed by Kurt Lewin, force field analysis provides a framework for looking at the factors that influence a situation, originally social situations, forces that are either driving movement toward a goal or blocking movement toward a goal.
  5. The Lewin's equation, B = f(P, E), is a psychological equation of behavior stating that behavior is a function of the person in their environment. It gives importance to a person's momentary situation in understanding his or her behavior, rather than relying entirely on the past.
    6. 
    Carl Rogers

    Carl Rogers.

  6. Client-centered therapy is a form of talk-psychotherapy developed by Carl Rogers in the 1940s and 1950s. The goal is to provide clients with an opportunity to develop a sense of self where they can realize how their attitudes, feelings and behavior are being negatively affected.
  7. Unconditional positive regard, a concept developed by the humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers, is the basic acceptance and support of a person regardless of what the person says or does, especially in the context of client-centered therapy.
  8. According to Carl Rogers, conditions of worth are standards laid down by others (within an environment of conditional positive regard) which inhibit a person's self-actualization. Incongruity is the gap between the real self and the ideal self. In pursuit of positive regard, this causes people to live lives that include falseness and to not realize their potential.
  9. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization.
  10. A peak experience is a moment accompanied by a euphoric mental state often achieved by self-actualizing individuals. The concept was originally developed by Abraham Maslow in 1964.