Examining Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers Theories

Burger (2008), says that there are many theories of personality and psychologists try to explain it with their own approaches. Discussed here will be the psychoanalytic approach, the trait approach, the biological approach the humanistic approach, the behavioural/social learning approach and the cognitive approach. They were devised to search for specific patterns in behaviour and ways of thinking about these

Humanistic conceptions of personality focus on our own natural progression towards achieving one’s full potential, having a holistic approach. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) believes that growth and behaviour is motivated by a number of needs ranging from basic to psychological needs. He uses a hierarchy, commonly depicted as a five-tier pyramid in which the bottom 4 levels represent our deficit needs, shown in figure 1 below. Once the individual’s physiological needs are met, they may move to the next and so on. After all deficit needs have been met, an individual is capable of achieving self-actualisation. According to Maslow, fulfilling this need means reaching one’s highest potential and truly understanding one’s self.

Although the hierarchy of needs and Humanistic Psychology were innovative during it was and is still criticized today. One of such criticisms is self-actualization and that Maslow gave very ambiguous characteristics and examples of people he thought to be self-actualized. In addition, the hierarchy of needs is hard to prove scientifically. Self- actualization relies mostly on a person’s experience. Therefore, one can’t tell if an individual is self-actualized. However humanistic psychology changed the way human behavior was viewed during a time where behavioral psychology was more prevalent. This introduced a new way of

Humanistic theories emerged in 1950s. We have two types of humanistic theories, the first one is Person-centred theory by Carl Rogers which is based on how people see them-selves in relation to their personal experience and the second theory is Self-actualisation by Abraham Maslow which is based on the needs that motivate people. In this paper both theories will be described in detail and also they will be evaluated.

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

Brian Thorne in his book “Carl Rogers”, 2003 suggests: “Encouraged by his understanding of the work of John Dewey and his followers and by the influence of Otto Rank Rogers came to believe that what mattered was not some concept of objective reality, whatever it might be, but the way in which a given person perceives reality. In brief, the surest route to understanding a person’s behaviour is to come to knowledge of that person’s subjective awareness of himself or herself and of the world in which he or she exists.

Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers are two psychologists who developed theories on personalities. Sigmund Freud was known as the “Father of Psychoanalysis” and his well known theory stated that nearly all psychological issues went back to a sexual problem. Carl Rogers was a humanistic psychologist who researched the personality theory in the notion of the self or the self concept.

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.

Richard M.Ryckman , Theories of Personality, Ninth Edition. 2008, 2004 Thomson Wadsworth, a part of The Thomson Corporation

Maslow or Freud- I think when Jack didn’t keep the fire going he was showing one of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs which is esteem. I think he was showing this because he wanted to prove that he can kill the pig so that he can have respect in the other kids eyes and if he has respect, he also has power. Maslow says that esteem needs are to gain power and respect which is what I personally think Jack was trying to do. It is also proven when it took him some time to sorry even though he knew he was wrong because he didn’t want his self-esteem to go down.

Carl Rogers view the self-concept as a collection of beliefs about one’s nature, unique qualities, and typical behaviour. Rogers believed that people are aware of their self-concepts. Our self-concept is our mental image of our self. It is a collection of our self-perceptions. For example, a self-concept might include such beliefs as the case example suggests, Dan expresses “I’m such a failure!” or “I just can’t cope with this!” Rogers used the term incongruence to introduce the disparity between one’s self-concept and one’s actual experience. On the contrary, congruence is an adequate match between the self-concept and reality. Our self-concept is not completely constant with our actual experiences. Forthrightly, our self-concept may be imprecise. Most people are likely to misinterpret their experience to a certain degree in order to develop a positive self-concept. For example, you believe that you are brave enough to do a skydive but when the actual time arrives you intend to surrender. Rodgers advocated that a great deal of incongruence can weaken an individual’s psychological well-being. On the other hand, if a person’s self-concept is fairly

This paper is a comparison of three different viewpoints on the subject of personality. Carl Jung, B.F. Skinner, and Carl Rogers all had very different outlooks on what defined someone’s personality. As an added feature I have included myself as a theorist because my views are also different from the previous mentioned theorists. This paper will also look briefly into the background of each theorist because their views on life began in their childhood. Amazingly you will notice the all had similar backgrounds, but came up with completely different ways of looking at life.

In describing what personalities are like, Kelly abandons the classical threefold division of psychological phenomena: cognition, affection and conation (Kelly, 1955, p.130). Instead, he formulates his own personality theory with a single structure named "Construct". In this section, let's review the concept of construct and some of its features.

braham Harold Maslow (1908-1970), the 77th president of the American Psychological Association, was widely known for his Hierarchy of Needs, a theory of human needs that begins at the base with physiological needs that must first be satisfied before higher-level safety needs and then psychological needs become active. The first section of the research paper explores Abraham Maslow’s early life: his childhood experience, his college study, and his academic career. The second section examines some of Abraham Maslow’s key publications, in order to acquire a comprehensive understanding of his theory. And lastly, Maslow’s contribution to the psychology field is discussed, as his works signified the advancement of 1960’s humanistic psychology and served as a complement to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism.