3. Humanistic

• Assumptions

  • Free will - the notion that humans can make choices and are not determined by internal biological or external forces
  • Claims humans are self-determining and have free will
  • Active agents who can determine their own development
  • Reject more scientific models that attempt to establish general principles of human behaviour
  • Person-centred approach and should not focus on general laws
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs

  • A five-levelled hierarchal sequence in which basic physiological needs must be satisfied before higher psychological needs can be achieved
  • These motivate our behaviour
  • In order to meet the primary goal of self-actualisation a number of other deficiency needs must be met first
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs

  • At the bottom is food and water
  • Safety and security
  • Love and belongingness
  • Self esteem
  • A person is only able to progress through the hierarchy once the current need in the sequence has been met
  • Self actualisation is above self esteem
• Self-actualisation

  • The desire to grow psychologically and fulfil ones full potential - becoming what you are capable of
  • Humanists regard personal growth as essential in being a human
  • Not everyone manages personal growth and there are important psychological barriers preventing a person from doing this
• The self, congruence and conditions of worth

  • Self - the ideas and values that characterise 'I' and 'me' and includes perception and valuing of 'what I am'
  • Congruence - the aim of Rogerian therapy, when the self concept and ideal self are seen to broadly accord or match
  • Conditions of worth - when a parent places limits or boundaries on their love for their children
• Rogerian therapy

  • For personal growth to be achieved, an individual's concept of the self must be broadly equivalent to or have congruence with their ideal self
  • If there is too big of a gap, self actualisation will not be possible due to negative feelings of self worth
  • Counselling or client-centered therapy reduces this gap
  • Many issues we experience in adulthood such as self-esteem stem from childhood and can be explained by a lack of unconditional positive regard from our parents
  • Conditions of worth
• AO3 - Strength of advocating holism

  • It is not reductionist unlike other approaches, the idea that subjective experience can only be understood by considering the whole person
  • Behaviourists - explain behaviour in simplified stimulus-response connections
  • Cognitive - see human beings as little more than information-processing machines
  • Biological - reduce behaviour to basic physiological processes
  • Has high validity compared to alternatives and has real world context
• AO3 Counterpoint - Limitation that reductionist approaches are more scientific

  • The ideal of science is the experiment and experiments reduce behaviour to independent and dependent variables
  • An issue with humanistic psychology is that there are relatively few concepts that can be broken down to single variables and be measured eg. free will
  • Lacks empirical evidence to support its claims
• AO3 - Strength of optimism

  • Promote a positive image of the human condition such as counselling and support
  • Freud saw human beings as prisoners of their past and claimed that all of us existed somewhere between 'common unhappiness and absolute despair'
  • Humanists see all people as good and free to work towards achievement of their potential
  • Refreshing alternative
• AO3 - Limitation of cultural bias

  • Many ideas central to humanist psychology such as individual freedom, autonomy and personal growth would be much more readily associated with countries with individualist tendencies
  • Countries with collectivist tendencies emphasise more about the needs of a group
  • Concepts such as self actualisation cannot be generalised everywhere - it is not universal
  • This approach is a product of the cultural context within which it was developed