Humanistic Approach

• What is a key assumption of the Humanistic Approach regarding people?

  All people are unique
• How does the Humanistic Approach view the perception of the world by individuals?

  Every person has their own unique way of perceiving and understanding the world
• What is the aim of the Humanistic Approach compared to other psychological approaches?

  The aim is to understand people subjectively, not objectively
• What does the Humanistic Approach assert about free will?

  Every individual can assert free will and consciously control their own destiny
• What are the key components of Maslow's hierarchy of needs?

  • Personal growth involves developing and changing to become fulfilled and goal-oriented
  • Important psychological barriers may prevent reaching potential
• What is the focus of personal growth in the Humanistic Approach?

  It is concerned with developing and changing as a person to become fulfilled
• What is self-actualization in the context of the Humanistic Approach?


  It is the process by which an individual reaches their full potential
• What must be met before working towards self-actualization according to the Humanistic Approach?

  All four levels of Maslow's hierarchy must be met
• How does the Humanistic Approach regard personal growth?

  It regards personal growth as essential for becoming satisfied and goal-oriented
• What is congruence according to Rogers in the Humanistic Approach?

  It is when an individual's actual self-image is broadly equivalent to their ideal self-image
• What happens if there is too big a gap between the actual self-image and ideal self-image?

  The person will experience perceptions of inadequacy and poor psychological health
• What is the concept of 'Conditions of Worth' in Rogers' theory?

  It refers to the boundaries or limits on love set by parents that can cause future psychological problems
• How does Rogers' client-centered therapy help individuals?

  It helps reduce the gap between self-concept and ideal self through unconditional positive regard
• What is the role of the therapist in Rogers' client-centered therapy?

  The therapist provides unconditional positive regard that the client failed to receive as a child
• What are the goals of Rogers' client-centered therapy (CCT)?

  • Revolves around genuineness, acceptance, and empathy
  • Provides unconditional positive regard
  • Studies the whole person in their environmental context
  • Creates a supportive environment for self-actualization
• AO3 Humanistic - Not reductionist

  • Rejects any attempt to break up behaviour and experiences into smaller components
  • Where as other psychological approaches such as the cognitive approach sees humans as info processing 'machines'
  • Humanistic approach advocate holism, the idea that subjective experience can only be understood by considering the whole person
  • This approach therefore may have more validity than other approaches than its alternatives by considering meaningful human behaviour within a real life context
• AO3 Humanistic - Not reductionist counterpoint

  • However reductionist approaches may be more scientific
  • This is because the idea of science is the experiment and experiments reduce behaviour to independent and dependent variables
  • One issue with humanistic psychology is that there are relatively few concepts that can be broken down to single variables and measured
  • This means that humanistic psychology in general is short on empirical evidence to support its calms
• AO3 Humanistic - Not deterministic

  • Approach is less deterministic
  • So it claims that human beings are self-determining and have free will and that we are active agents who have the ability to determine our own development
  • This is optimistic and has led to the development of client-centred therapies to help individuals with conditions such as depression and low self-esteem increase the congruence between their ideal and actual selves; alleviating the emotional problems from these mild psychological conditions
  • Increases the value of the approach as it has real world applications
• AO3 Humanistic - Cultural bias

  • The concepts of individual freedom, autonomy and personal growth are more readily associated with individualist cultures
  • Nevis conducted a study in China which showed that self-actualisation was defined more in terms of contributions to the community rather than individual development
  • Many studies have confirmed this trend and that Europeans and Americans focus more on personal identity, but Chinese and Japanese focus more on interdependence
  • This means that this approach cannot be generalised to all people worldwide and is a product of its cultural context