Theories of Personality
Rogers: Person-Centered Theory
Chapter 11
Outline
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Overview of Person-Centered Theory
Biography of Rogers
Person-Centered Theory
Psychotherapy
The Person of Tomorrow
Philosophy of Science
Outline
• The Chicago Studies
• Related Research
• Critique of Rogers
• Concept of Humanity
Overview of Person-Centered Theory
• Grew Out Experiences as a
Psychotherapist
• Called for Empirical Research to
Support Personality Theory
• Not Comfortable with Notion of Theory
• Never Systematically Reformulated
Theory of Personality
Biography of Rogers
• Born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1902
• Fourth of six children of upper-middle
class, devoutly religious parents
• Briefly attends seminary, intending to
become a minister in 1924
• Turned to psychology and earned his
Ph.D. from Columbia in 1931
Biography (cont’d)
• Influenced by Otto Rank
• Spent nearly a dozen years working as a clinician
in Rochester
• Published The Clinical Treatment of the Problem
Child in 1939.
• Took a position at Ohio State University in 1940,
where he elucidated his views on therapy
• President of American Psychological Association
in 1946-1947
• Published Client-Centered Therapy in 1951
• In 1964, moves to California and helps found
Center for Studies of the Person
• Died in 1987 following surgery on broken hip
Person-Centered Theory
• Basic Assumptions
– Formative Tendency
• From simple to complex
– Actualizing Tendency
• Moving toward the completion or fulfillment of
potention
• Involves whole person: physiological, intellectual,
rational, emotional, conscious and unconscious
• Organismic experiences of person
• Need for Maintenance: basic needs and
resisting to change
• Need for Enhancement: need to be more
develop and to achieve growth
Person-Centered Theory
• The Self and Self-Actualization
– Self-actualization is a subset of
actualization tendency
– Tendency to actualize the self as perceived
in awareness
• The Self-Concept
– All aspects of one’s being and experiences
that are perceived in awareness
• The Ideal Self
• Awareness
– Ignoring, denial, distorted
– Denial of Positive Experiences
Person-Centered Theory
• Becoming a Person
– Positive regard
– Positive self-regard
• Barriers to Psychological Health
– Conditions of Worth
– Incongruence (organism and self-concept)
– Vulnerability (greater incongruence leads to
vulnerability)
– Anxiety
– Defensiveness
– Disorganization
Psychotherapy
• Conditions
– Counselor congruence
– Unconditional positive regard
– Empathic listening
• Process
– Stages of therapeutic change
– Theoretical explanation for therapeutic
change
• Outcomes
The Person of Tomorrow
• Psychologically healthy people are:
– More adaptable
– Open to their experiences
– Live fully in the moment
• Existential living
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Harmonious relations with others
More Integrated (conscious and unconscious)
Basic trust of human nature
Greater richness in life
Philosophy of Science
• Science begins and ends with subjective
experience
• Scientists must be involved with
phenomena being studied
• Scientists perceive patterns among
phenomena
• Scientists communicate findings, but
this communication is subjective
The Chicago Study
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Hypotheses:
1. Clients will become more aware of their
feelings and experiences
2. The gap between the real self and the
ideal self will lessen as a consequence of
therapy
3. Clients’ behavior will become more
socialized, that is, more self-accepting and
more accepting of others
The Chicago Study (cont’d)
• Method
– To measure adjustment, they used the Q
sort technique (congruence between real &
ideal selves)
– Participants were adults who sought
therapy at the University of Chicago
counseling center
– Experimenters asked half the participants to
wait 60 days before receiving therapy. In
addition, they tested a control group of
“normals” who were matched with the
therapy group.
The Chicago Study (cont’d)
• Findings
– The therapy group—but not the control
group—showed a lessening of the gap
between real self and ideal self
– Clients who improved during therapy—but
not those rated as least improved—showed
changes in social behavior, as noted by
their friends
The Chicago Study (cont’d)
• Summary of Results
– Therapy group did demonstrate growth and
retained improvement during follow-up, but
they did not attain the level of psychological
health in the control group
Related Research
• Self-Discrepancy Theory
– Higgins (1987)
• Real-ideal discrepancy leads to dejection-related emotions;
real-ought discrepancy leads to agitation-related emotions
– Phillips & Silvia (2005)
• High self-awareness condition led to feeling negative emotion
at self-discrepancies
– Wolfe & Maisto (2000)
• Real-ideal self-discrepancy and negative mood were
negatively correlated with alcohol consumption
• Motivation and Pursuing one’s Goals
– Sheldon et al. (2003)
• Supports Rogers’ theory s that people do have an OVP
• Intrinsically fulfilling goals become more important over time
while materialistic goals become less important
Schwartz & Waterman (2013)
• The OVP directs us toward fulfilling pursuits
Critique of Rogers
• Rogers’ Theory Is:
– Very High on Practicality and Internal
Consistency
– High on Falsifiability, Parsimony, and
Organizing Knowledge
– Moderate on Generating Research
Concept of Humanity
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Free Choice over Determinism
Optimism over Pessimism
Teleology over Causality
Uniqueness over Similarity
Conscious over Unconscious
Social Influence over Biology