humanistic approach

• humanistic approach - 


  approach to understanding behaviour that emphasises the importance of subjective experience and each persons capacity for self-determination
• free will -

  • humans can make choices and their behaviour/ thoughts are not determined by internal biological or external forces
  • people still affected by external and internal influences but are also active agents who can determine their own development
  • psychologists Roger and Maslow - reject more scientific models
  • as active agents we are all unique and psychology should concern itself with the study of subjective experience rather than general laws
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs -

  • main interests was in what motivates people - hierarchy of needs
  • to achieve primary goal of self actualisation a number of other deficiency needs must first be met
  • bottom: physiological needs such as food and water
  • middle: safety and security - love and belongingness - self esteem
  • top: self actualisation
  • only able to progress through hierarchy once current need in sequence has been met
• self-actualisation -

  • most people have innate desire to achieve full potential
  • all 4 lower levels of hierarchy (deficiency needs) must be met before the individual can work towards self-actualisation (growth need)
  • psychologists regard personal growth as an essential part of what it is to be human
  • personal growth is concerned with developing and changing as a person to become fulfilled, satisfied and goal oriented
  • important psychological barriers may prevent a person from reaching their potential
• the self, congruence and conditions of worth -

  • Rogers - for personal growth to be achieved individuals concept of self must be broadly equivalent to or have congruence with their ideal self
  • if too big a gap exists between the 2 'selves' the person will experience a state of incongruence and self actualisation will not be possible due to negative feelings of self worth that arise from incongruence
  • to reduce gap Rogers developed client-centred therapy - many issues explained by lack of unconditional love from parents in childhood - parents who set conditions of worth cause issues in future
• evaluation of humanistic approach: not reductionist (strength) -

  • P: rejects attempts to break up behaviour and experience into smaller components (reductionism)
  • E: supporters of cognitive approach see human beings as little more than information-processing machines, biological reduce behaviour to basic physiological processes
  • E: humanistic psychologists advocate holism - idea that subjective experience can only be understood by considering whole person
  • L: may have more validity than its alternatives by considering meaningful human behaviour within real world context
• evaluation of humanistic approach: not reductionist counterpoint (limitation) -

  • P: however reductionist approaches may be more scientific
  • E: because ideal of science is the experiment and experiments reduce behaviour to independent and dependent variables
  • E: issue with humanistic psychology is that unlike behaviourism there's relatively few concepts that can be broken down to single variables and measured
  • L: means humanistic psychology in general is short on empirical evidence to support its claims