Abraham Maslow
(1908-1970)
Carl Rogers
(1902-1987)
Chapter 13: Humanism
On Human Nature
 Believe in Free Will
 Emphasize the uniqueness of each individual
 Believe that humans strive for an upper level
of capabilities
 See people as basically good
 Though it does not deny the effect of the
environment, it sees human beings as able to
transcend it to some degree
 Overall optimistic about humanity and the
future
Biographical Background
 Born in Brooklyn, NY
 Eldest of seven children
 His parents were uneducated Jewish immigrants from
Russia
 Hoping for the best for their children – they pushed
them hard towards education
 Only Jewish boy in neighborhood and target of antiSemitism
 He became very lonely as a youth and found his refuge
in books
 Not close to either parent; fond of father but afraid of
him; admitted he hated his schizophrenic mother
 Very close to uncle
Biographical Background
 To satisfy his parents, he entered law school at CCNY
and then Cornell University
 He married his first cousin and moved with her to
Wisconsin where he became interested in psychology
and gets his BA in 1930, MA in 1931, and Ph.D. in
1934 at the Univ. of Wisconsin
 In 1935, he returns to NYC and works with Thorndike
at Columbia university and eventually begins teaching
full-time at Brooklyn College and then becomes chair
of psych department at Brandeis where he begins his
crusade for humanistic psychology

Maslow (1943, 1970)
◦ Proposed that there are five levels of motives, or needs,
arranged in a hierarchy
◦ We must satisfy needs or motives low on the hierarchy
before we are motivated to satisfy needs at the next
level

Physiological needs are
basic, instinctual needs
for air, food, water,
and sex, among others
◦ These needs must be
at least partially met
in order to ascend
the hierarchy
◦ These needs can also
be arranged in their
own hierarchy
Safety needs include things such as
shelter, security, and protection from
physical and emotional harm. Also,
considered as basic needs.

These needs are
met by having
meaningful
relationships, such
as significant
others, friends and
children

This level has two sublevels
◦ Low esteem needs
are the needs for the
respect of others –
need for recognition,
etc.
◦ High esteem needs
are the needs for self
respect –to achieve,
to be competent, to
be independent, etc.
Deprivation Motivation (D-Motivation)
 Maslow considered the first four steps as
needs that result form deficiencies in a
person’s life
 Behaviors related to the first four categories
are motivated by the deprivation of those
things needed for full development
Maslow (1970)
Self actualization
 These people fulfill themselves
and are doing the best they are
capable of doing
 Becoming the most complete
person that you can be –
reaching your full potential
Metamotivation
 Person is now motivated by a
new set of needs; growth
tendencies
 Being Needs (B-Motivation)
Maslow (1970)
Self-actualizers have 15 characteristics that are
grouped under four key dimensions:
 Awareness
See Table 13.1 on page 327 for full list
 Honesty
 Freedom
 Trust
Maslow (1970)
Maslow (1970)
 Peak Experience
 An intensification of any experience to the
degree that there is a loss or transcendence
of self
 An expansion of self but also a sense of
unity and meaningfulness with in life
 Not all self-actualizers experience this
See next slide 
Types of Self-Actualizers
 Transcenders (Peakers)
◦ Self-actualized individuals who
experienced peak experiences
 Nontranscenders (Nonpeakers)
◦ Self-actualized individuals who had not
experienced peak experiences
Maslow (1970)
Not perfect in several ways
1. Often have silly, wasteful, and thoughtless habits
2. Take too much pride in their accomplishments
3. Sometimes lose their tempers
4. Appear absentminded, humorless, or impolite
5. Their kindness allows them to be taken advantage
of by others
6. Can appear ruthless and inconsiderate
7. Can be boring or irritating to others
Maslow (1970)
Failure to Self-Actualize
1. Tendency towards growth is weaker than the
deficiency motives
 Many people can be stunted by poor
environment or poor education
2. Western culture has put a negative emphasis on
human motivation
3. Growth requires the taking of chances
4. People are afraid of their own abilities
 “Jonah Complex”
Maslow (1970)
Strengths
 Strong philosophical base; was not restricted
by rigors of science
 Felt he was able to answer “beyond science”
questions related to important human
questions
 Ideas led to broader definition of science
 Optimistic view of humanity
 Significant value in clinical area
Weaknesses

Lacked rigor; problems with replication
◦ Maslow used case studies who for the
most part were his friends or
acquaintances

Maslow’s hierarchy is too individualistic and
male

Maslow’s hierarchy is too simplistic in its
portrayal of self-actualized person; too
optimistic

Vagueness in language and concepts; selfactualization is descriptive, not functional
Biographical Background
 The son of prosperous businesspeople
 4th of 6 children
 He was reared in a strict religious environment
that placed great emphasis on the value of
hard work, the sharing of responsibility, and
education
 Strict upbringing led to Rogers being quite
isolated as a youth but also very selfdisciplined
 Started school in the second grade as even
before kindergarten he could read at this level
Biographical Background
 A superior student, Rogers enrolled in the University of
Wisconsin with the intention of studying agriculture;
however, he soon decided to prepare for the ministry
 Leaving Wisconsin in 1924, he entered the Union
Theological Seminary in New York
 He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia
University in 1931 and went to work at a guidance clinic in
Rochester, New York
Union Theological Seminary 
Biographical Background
 He later was professor at Ohio State University,
University of Chicago, and University of
Wisconsin, before settling at the Center for
Studies of the Person in La Jolla, California
 Throughout his career, Rogers continued to
work extensively with delinquent and
underprivileged children, gathering the
experience that led to his theory of
nondirective or person-centered therapy
 Died in 1987 of heart attack
The Phenomenology of the Individual
 The study of human awareness and
perception
 No one knows you better than yourself
Actualization
 The primary tendency of an organism is to maintain
and enhance itself
 More likely to occur when the person is open and
aware of all experiences
 Organismic Valuing Process is a key to actualization
◦ Subconscious process that guides us toward
productive growth experiences
◦ Intuitive living
 The ability to accept information from all bases
 Experience is the highest authority
 If it feels right, it probably is
Rogers (1964)
The Self
 From interaction of the organism and the
environment there gradually emerges a
structure of self
 Interaction with significant others is of
highest importance
 Self-concept is composed of conscious
perceptions and values of who someone is; an
object of perception
Congruence


When the self concept is in agreement with inherent
potentialities and there are minimal conditions of
worth
Leads to openness to experience and a fully
functioning person
Incongruence



One’s symbolized experiences do not match one’s
actual experiences
A lack of correspondence between the perceived self
and the real self
Can lead to maladjustment
Rogers did not posit specific stages of
personality development
 Concentrated on how the evaluations of
others could influence self-actualization
Rogers felt that the young child has two
basic needs:
1. Need for Positive Regard
◦ The universal need for acceptance, love,
and approval from others
◦ Particularly important during infancy
2. Need for Positive Self-Regard
◦ When acceptance and approval come from
within the individual and forms part of the
self-concept
Unconditional Positive Regard
 Ideal situation leading to fully functioning
self-actualized child
 The granting of love and approval regardless
of individual's behavior
Conditional Positive Regard
 The granting of love and approval only when
behaving in accordance with parent's wishes,
or when parents withdraw love if the child
misbehaves
 Leads to Conditions of Worth
◦ The individual's belief that he/she is worthy
of affection only when expressing desirable
behaviors


Openness to Experience
◦ opposite of defensiveness
◦ Is reflective and much emotional depth
(for both pleasure and pain)
Existential Living
◦ Living fully in each and every moment
◦ The absence of rigidity, is flexible,
adaptable, and spontaneous



Organismic Trusting
◦ Trust in one’s own experience; not
bound by other’s opinions
Experiential Freedom
◦ the freedom to choose among
alternatives
Creativity
◦ the ability to produce new and effective
ideas and things

Person-Centered Therapy
◦ Carl Rogers came to the conclusion that Freudian
techniques did not work and that the less he tried to
manipulate the therapy, the more likely was
improvement in his patients
◦ Out of this experience he developed his notion of
client-centered therapy
◦ He called it 'client-centered' because it is the
intention that the patient should arrive at the
insights rather than the therapist
◦ It is non-directive because the therapist does not try
to direct the patient's attention to particular topics,
such as early childhood experiences
Attitudes Necessary for Therapeutic Change
Rogers felt that there were three attitudes on the part of therapists
that were necessary and sufficient for change

Empathy
◦ The ability to experience another person’s feeling

Acceptance
◦ Unconditional positive regard; no conditions of worth

Genuineness
◦ Must be real; even if it means admitting shortcomings
Click on pictures for videos 
Supportive vs. Reconstructive Psychotherapy
 Reconstructive
◦ Reorganize basic personality structure; remove
defenses, etc.

Supportive
◦ Seek to strengthen adaptive responses without
tampering with basic personality structure
Q-Sort Technique
 Research method used to study a patient’s
viewpoint
 Based on the assumption the client knows
oneself better than anyone else
Stephenson (1953)
Q-Sort Technique
 100 cards containing descriptive statements or
words
 Patient is asked to sort into categories according
their self-perception; which ones describe them
 Gives a profile of the client; measures changes
that occur throughout therapy
Strengths
 Nice blend of philosophical ideas mixed with scientific
method
 A welcomed positive alternative to the disease model
 Introspective self-reports have gained wider
acceptance with social and cognitive behavior theorists
who are now putting a greater emphasis on cognition
 Emphasis on human potentiality and freedom is
attractive alternative to being controlled by
environment or unconscious forces
 Rogerian therapy seems effective both for individual
therapy and encounter groups (group therapy)
 Art of being a non-judgmental listener is now utilized
by many practitioners
Weaknesses
 Introspective reports are much more difficult to
validate; overuse of self-reports
 Simplistic concept of phenomenology falls short in
understanding complexity of the processes underlying
human awareness
 View of development and self-actualization may not be
relevant in non-western cultures where emphasis is
not so much on the individual
 Critics say Rogers didn’t appreciate human capacity for
evil
 Religion is not a science therefore should not be
included in therapy
Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi (2000)
 Feel that psychology had become dominated by
attempts to treat disease and has not focused
enough on nurturing healthy individuals to avoid
disorders and to grow to their full potential
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
( 80 years old)
Martin Seligman
(71 years old )
Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi (2000)
 Felt it is just as important to study healthy
development as it is to study disease
◦ It is important to learn the processes that
control positive growth so that it can be
nurtured
◦ Much more can be learned about disorders if
we understand how they differ from healthy
development
Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi (2000)
 Positive psychology focuses on:
◦ Research on experience related to contentment and
satisfaction
◦ Understanding traits by identifying positive virtues for
individual growth
◦ Studying institutions’ positive strengths to promote
better communities
Csikzentmihalyi (1990)
 Flow: the optimal state of intrinsic motivation
Theoretical Criticism

Positive Psychology has adopted many core principles
without proper recognition of the roots of those ideas
and have used a reductionist research methodology
which is the opposite to the holistic approaches that
humanistic psychology promotes
Practical Criticism


Positive Psychology is prescriptive when it should be
descriptive
Rather than trying to understand optimism and
happiness, they tell us that we should be optimistic and
happy
A branch of psychology that studies the
transcendent or spiritual dimensions of
individuals
 Concerned with the states and processes in
which people experience a greater
connectedness with others, nature, and the
“spiritual” dimension
 Higher mode of consciousness with
transcends the ordinary self and ego
 Holistic; spirit, mind, and body approach

Some slides prepared with the help of the following websites:
◦ http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/maslow.html
◦ www.socsci.uci.edu/~szhang/TA/personality/discussion5.ppt
◦ www.ccsr.ac.uk/methods/festival/programme/wita/.../stenner.p..
.