SCHOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGY-HUMANISM

 

Welcome seekers!.. 

In our previous post, we seen about Behaviourism...in continuation of that we are going to see about HUMANISM, one of the schools of psychology.  

Prior to entering the topic of Humanism, let us have a quick view on schools of psychology.

            Psychology can be defined as the study of mind and behaviour. It has branched into many subfields such as clinical psychology, child, adult, social psychologies, etc..There are many approaches or schools of thought on the subject of psychology. There are mainly five important schools of psychology. 

• Structuralism
• Functionalism
• Behaviourism
• Humanism
• Psychoanalysis

HUMANISM

Humanistic psychology is a psychological movement that emerged in 1950s which believe each individual should be treated as a unique being. This movement had begin to oppose the principles of behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Humanistic psychologist states that the behaviorists are over concerned with scientific study and analysis of the actions of humans as organisms and that had neglected the feelings and thinking of humans which are the basic aspects of an individual. Humanists criticized that the behaviorist put too much effort and time in the laboratory research which reduced the human behavior into its elements.

The humanist are concerned with the fullest growth of of the individual in the area of love, fulfillment, self worth and autonomy. Humanistic psychology is a perspective that intensifies the whole individual and stresses the concepts such as free will, self efficacy and self actualization. The fundamental belief of humanistic psychology is that all humans are innately good but their mental and social problems result in deviations from this natural tendency. Humanistic psychology often called the "third force" in psychology. Two of the leading humanistic theorists who made advancements in the field of personality psychology were Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.

ABRAHAM MASLOW  was considered to be the leader and the father of the humanistic psychology. His humanistic theory of personality states that people achieve their full potential by moving from basic needs to self-actualization. He expanded the field of humanistic psychology to include an explanation of how human needs change throughout an individual's lifespan, and how these needs influence the development of personality. He was mainly concerned with an individual's innate drive toward self-actualization_ a state of fulfillment in which a person is achieving at his or her highest level of capability. 

In his research, Maslow studied the personalities of people who he considered to be healthy, creative and productive, such as Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and others. He found that those people share similar characteristics, such as being open, creative, loving, spontaneous, compassionate, concerned for others, and accepting of themselves.

MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

Maslow is very popular for his hierarchy of needs theory, in which he states that all human beings have certain needs in common and this needs must be met in a certain order. This needs starts from the very basic physiological needs for survival to the higher level of self actualization and transcendence needs. This Maslow's hierarchy of needs represented as a pyramid to show how people needs move from one to another. Maslow believe that the successful fulfillment of each needs was very important in the development of personality. The highest need for self-actualization constitutes the achievement of our fullest potential, and those individuals who finally achieved self-actualization were said to have the optimal psychological health and functioning. Maslow extended the field of psychological study to include fully-functional individuals instead of only those with psychoses, and he shed a more positive light on personality psychology.

CARL ROGERS was also a humanistic psychologist, who supported and followed the the theory of maslow. He said that an environment with geniusness, acceptance, and empathy is needed for a person to grow much better. Rogers personality development theory was formed to emphasize the free will and human potential for goodness. According to him, we all live in a world full of experience and these experiences shape our reactions that includes external objects and people, internal thoughts and emotions. This was known as their phenomenal field which means a person's reality, thoughts, objects and people. He believed that a person's behaviour is a factor motivated by self actualization tendencies to work can attain their highest level of potential and achievement.

Rodger divided the self into two categories that are the ideal self and the real self. The ideal self is the person we would like to be and the real self is the person we are actually be. The ideal self of a person was changed into the real self by various influences and experiences that he faced during his life.

The difference between the ideal self and the real self can be said as incongurence. When our thoughts about our real self and ideal self are similar, it is said as congurence. This similarity occurs when our self concept and thoughts are very strong and accurate.

POSITIVE REGARD 

Roger emphasized the importance of positive regard that also means the unconditional love.

The unconditional positive regard plays a vital role in developing the self concept. The fully actualized persons are raised in this manner, where no conditions were present. 

When we are raised in the environment of conditional positive regard in which the worth and love was given under certain conditions, our ideal self changes and leads to incongurence. Thus, the positive regard of unconditional and conditional determines one's self.

Roger's theory was criticised by many psychologists that it has less impact on the society. 

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