Chapter 17 - Humanistic
Psychologies
A History of Psychology:
Ideas and Context (4th edition)
D. Brett King, Wayne Viney, and
William Douglas Woody
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Humanistic Psychologies
• Humanistic psychologies are a third force.
– An alternative to behaviorism and psychoanalysis
• Nicolas of Cusa argued for the theological doctrine of
learned ignorance
– the “discipline of knowing how not to talk of God.”
– Humanistic psychologists find wisdom in negative psychology,.
• the discipline of knowing how not to talk about humans.
• Humanistic psychologists criticized behaviorism and
psychoanalysis.
– Humanistic psychologists argued that humans can be aware at a
metalevel and transcend their conditioning.
– The humanists also maintained that people are more than
unconscious motivations.
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Intellectual Traditions
• William James emphasized the foundational nature of
experience.
– He advocated a pluralistic approach to methods and content.
• Existentialism is a philosophical orientation marked by
concerns with daily issues in how humans live.
– Miguel de Unamuno lamented the failure of science and
philosophy to adequately address the problems of human life.
– Søren Aabye Kierkegaard rejected rationalism and investigated
human experience.
• He examined three modes of existence including the following.
– The aesthetic mode of existence, which may breed indifference
– The ethical mode of existence, which may collapse into emptiness
– The religious mode of existence, which may collapse into terror
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Intellectual Traditions
• Existentialism
– Martin Heidegger investigated ontological questions,
particularly the meaning of individual existence.
• He described the human sense finding ourselves in a world
we did not choose as Dasein, literally “being there.”
• He argues that three characteristics of the human condition
are factuality, existentiality, and fallennessess.
• Umwelt (the environment) and Mitwelt (the community) may
make authenticity more difficult.
• Heidegger’s method of understanding being-in-the-world was
Daseinsanalysis.
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Intellectual Traditions
• Phenomenology is a method seeking to discover what is
given in experience.
– Edmund Husserl argued that whatever is given is given in
consciousness.
– Husserl’s phenomenology opposed any psychology that
restricted the range of the field.
– He demonstrated that the phenomena of consciousness may not
be like anything else.
– He opposed reductionism.
– He encouraged research on new ways of exploring
consciousness.
• Franz Brentano directly influenced Husserl.
– Brentano also embraced
• a pluralistic methodology,
• applied psychology, and
• the study of the activities of human consciousness.
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Maslow
• The formal emergence of humanistic
psychologies occurred slowly.
– Abraham Maslow set forth a holistic, dynamic,
and purposive system of psychology.
– He attempted to maintain scientific integrity.
• Maslow focused on motivation.
• He arranged motives into a hierarchy that
culminates in self-actualization.
• Self-actualization is the self-fulfillment that comes
about by realizing or accomplishing the potentials
with which we were endowed.
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Maslow
• Maslow applied being and deficiency to a variety
of psychological functions.
• Maslow studied self-actualized people, including
Max Wertheimer, Ruth Benedict, and others.
• Maslow developed descriptions of common
characteristics of self-actualized persons.
– These included the occurrence of peak experiences
in their lives and
– a possible negative tendency toward surgical
coldness.
• Maslow investigated metalevel awareness in
humans, particularly healthy and successful
humans.
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Allport
• Gordon Allport investigated the psychology of
personality.
– Allport distinguished between the Leibnizian tradition and the
Lockean tradition.
• The Leibnizian tradition emphasizes the purposive nature of human
life
• The Lockean tradition highlights the mechanistic dimensions of life.
– Allport also distinguished between idiographic and nomothetic
approaches to psychology.
• Allport studied functional autonomy.
– Functional autonomy is the idea that an activity has become
independent of its original motivational source and is now
motivating in its own right.
• Allport also investigated the psychology of religion in his
classic book The Individual and his Religion.
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Rogers
• Carl R. Rogers founded person-centered therapy.
– He worked to challenge the established methods of therapy.
– He applied research techniques to the evaluation of therapy.
• Rogers’s psychology focused on the phenomenal field,
the entire range of experiences that are part of a
person’s life.
– He explored the tension between the self and the ideal self.
• Roger’s explored the distinctions between conditional
acceptance and unconditional positive regard.
– He advocated unconditional positive regard.
• Rogers emphasizes the positive aspects of human
nature.
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Frankl
• Viktor Frankl’s system is logotherapy.
– His classic work, Man’s Search for Meaning, outlines
the importance of meaning in human life,
– particularly in the context of his experiences in
concentration camps.
• Noogenic neuroses result from existential distress and the
inability to find meaning in life.
• Paradoxical intention is the ability to do the opposite of what
we most want to do.
• Frankl opposed the narrowness of other forms of psychology.
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Rychlak
• Joseph F. Rychlak advocates a rigorous
approach to humanistic psychology.
– He emphasizes the role of final cause in
human life.
– He argues for the capacity for oppositional
thinking, teleology (telesponsivity), and free
will.
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Overview
Generally, humanistic psychologies
• oppose reductionism,
• emphasize experience,
• embrace contextualism,
• advocate for free will,
• suggest that basic human nature is good, and
• place importance on the relevance of
psychological concepts, therapies, and
research.
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Criticisms
Criticisms of the system include
• difficulties in definition,
• a negative attitude toward science,
• a negative attitude toward basic research,
• the rejection of reductionism, and
• an acceptance of the scientifically
unverifiable notion of free will.
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