Case Study Applying Humanistic Theory of Personality

The Humanistic Perspective focuses on how people can achieve their fullest potential as individuals who make choices and who take control of responsibility for their mental, social, and personal experiences.   It also emphasizes free will and individuals' control of their own behavior. Andrea fulfilled her dreams when in high school by being valedictorian. She also had a home to shelter with her family. She was loved very much by her kid’s husband, and parents.

Maslow’s theory of motivation is called the “hierarchy of needs”. Maslow believes that people have five main needs in the following order of importance;

Despite its limitations, Maslow’s model leads us to recognize that human behavior is motivated by higher pursuits as well as satisfaction of basic needs.

Humanistic perspective is a psychological perspective popularized by Carlo Rogers and Abraham Maslow that emphasizes the human capacity for choice and growth. This perspective offers a very positive viewpoint of human nature and potential. It suggests that we are each responsible for our own happiness and well-being as humans. “The humanistic approach emphasizes the personal worth of the individual, the centrality of human

As it was mentioned before, the key idea of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory relates to the existence of several sets of motivation and needs that govern human behavior. Hence, the major concepts of this theory include certain needs that are grouped into sets based on their place within the hierarchy of all the needs. The first version of the theory has five needs, which are divided into

This perspective examines the patient’s motivation behind their thoughts and actions, emphasizing the individuality of the patient. Instead of using medication to treat a patient, the humanistic perspective in psychology would encourage the patient to seek out their own happiness by examining their own individual needs and focus on the positive aspects of their life rather than the negative parts.

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who introduced the concept of the motivational needs in his paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” written in 1943. He explains that humans have certain needs that need to be fulfilled and when

Some noteworthy Humanistic theorists include Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. Maslow created the “hierarchy of needs”, which suggested that certain needs had to be met before self-actualization was possible. These other needs include: physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness/love needs and esteem needs (McLeod). Once these needs are fulfilled then it’s possible to reach self-actualization. Rogers, also a remarkable humanist, is well known for his theory of personality and client-centered therapy. These theorists believed that symptoms and psychological problems develop when an individual acquires conditions of worth or has discrepancies within their current/true self vs. their ideal self (McLeod). The client may feel an incongruence between how smart she is and how smart she wants to be, which can make her feel threatened or stressed.

This perspective assumes that we all thrive for personality growth, through mental processes and behaviors.. This perspective is different in its methodology compare to the biological approach, and the psychodynamic approach. Both these perspectives assume that human beings are controlled by internal or external forces. There are deterministic in nature. The humanistic perspective, promotes free will, and people can be, whatever, they envision themselves. This perspective was influence by humanists such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, who emphasizes on the importance of individual potentials.

The humanistic perspective on personality deals exclusively with human behavior. Humanistic psychologists believe that human nature includes a natural drive towards personal growth, that humans have the freedom to choose what they do regardless of environmental factors, and humans are mostly conscious beings and are not controlled by unconscious needs and conflicts. They also believe that a person's subjective view of the world is more important than objective reality. Two of the humanistic theorists that have made an impact of humanism are Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.

Theorists have invested years of research into learning the dynamics of one’s personality. Humanistic and Existential Personality Theories offered perspectives that have proved to be valuable to those researching and exploring how one’s personality develops and expands throughout life. From Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to Carl Rogers’s development of the formative tendency and the actualizing tendency, the range of perspectives is diverse. In this paper, we will analyze how humanistic and existential theories affect individual personalities and give explanation to how these

The humanistic approach to psychology is an organization of different thoughts in which the interests of humans and their values and/or beliefs are of main importance (Schultz & Schultz, 2009). The term humanistic relays the notion that all human beings have the potential for growth and that no one is purposely bad or unworthy (Carver & Scheier, 2012). In contrast to psychoanalytical psychologists, humanistic psychologists tend to focus on the strengths of human behavior and not the aspects that make an individual’s

Abraham Maslow (1908–1970), some-time President of the American Psychological Association, is best known for his work on human motivation and in particular for his Hierarchy of Needs, which was first defined in a paper of 1943. Five basic needs are defined, all of which he considered to be hard-wired in the human species. They are arranged hierarchically, with self-actualization referring to people’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely, the tendency for them to become actualized in what they are potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one idiosyncratically is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming (Maslow, 1943, p.22). Maslow’s 1943 paper mentions cognitive needs such as the desire to know and to understand, and also aesthetics, but does not place them within the hierarchy of five.

Maslow (1943) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs. When one need is fulfilled a person seeks to fulfil the next one, and so on. The earliest and most widespread version of Maslow's (1943, 1954) hierarchy of needs includes five motivational needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.

It is said that humanistic psychology was developed upon the limitations of behaviourism. The humanistic approach is often referred to as the “third force” in psychology coming after psychoanalysis and behaviourism; it is an alternative approach to psychology (Maslow, 1968). It offered a more wholesome approach to psychology at the time in comparison to behaviourism and psychoanalysis. This essay will compare and contrast behaviourism and humanistic psychology; it will focus on their contributions to psychological theory and their applications in the real world.