humanistic psychology

• P: research suggests that Maslow's hierarchy may have relevance on a much larger stage than individual growth

  E: Hagerty looked at the relationship between economic growth and measures of Maslow's levels in 88 countries over a 34 year period. countries in the early stages of economic development was characterised by lower level needs

  L: as would be predicted by Maslow's model, it was only in advanced stages of economic development that self-actualisation became important
• P: research with adolescents has shown evidence consistent with Roger's view

  E: individuals who experience conditional positive regard are likely to display more 'false self behaviour' - doing things to meet other's expectations even when they clash with their own values. Harter discovered that teenagers who feel that they have to fulfil certain conditions in order to gain their parents' approval end p not liking themselves
• link for conditions of worth

  L: consistent rogers' predictions, adolescents who created a 'false self' pretending to be the kind of person his or her parents would love, were more likely to develop depression and a tendency to lose touch with their true self
• P: evaluating the humanistic approach scientifically is difficult because most of the evidence used to support this approach fails to establish a causal relationship between variables

  E: rogers in particular was an advocate of non-experimental research methods, arguing that the requirements of experimental methods make it impossible to verify the results of counselling. Most psychologists would argue that, without experimental evidence, evaluation of a therapy becomes very difficult.
• link for not establishing causality

  L: although some studies have shown personal growth as a result of receiving humanistic counselling, these do not show that the therapy caused the changes, a fundamental requirement of scientific psychology.