Humanistic theory

alright let's talk about another theory of personality called the humanistic theory but before I begin I have to give you a little caveat now all these theories of personality are not mutually exclusive one isn't more dominant over the other one isn't better than the other all these theories are just different ways to look at how personality develops in people and they've all come from different different branches you can say of psychology which is why they're from perspectives of different psychologists or theorists okay so the humanistic theory says that individuals have free will and that we can actively develop ourselves to a highest potential and reach self-actualization so free well is an important word and the term self-actualization is also another defining word in this theory so the primary difference between Freud's psychoanalytic theory and humanism is that Freud's theory was deterministic so what I mean by that is that his theory says our behavior is determined by our unconscious desires his theory also focuses on individuals who have these mental conflicts and not all people now the humanistic Theory focuses on the conscious as opposed to the unconscious and it also says that people are inherently good and that we are self-motivated to improve and we want to always improve because we want to reach self-actualization now the first major theorist of this theory was Abraham Maslow and he formed the hierarchy of needs which we can depict using a pyramid so all of our needs are built upon each other in this pyramid he says that we must first fulfill our physiological needs that form the base of the pyramid and then we can work our way up so after our physiological needs are met our need for safety must be fulfilled and then love and then self-esteem and lastly self-actualization can be met that sounds easy enough right we can all reach self-actualization well what are some characteristics of self actualizing people well they must be self-aware obviously they are carrying their wise and their interests are problem centered they focus their energies on a task that's the mission of their life and they have a higher purpose that's focused on larger causes and less about the basic aspects of life so they don't focus on the basic aspects of life they're always trying to strive and think broader and for larger causes well I hate to be the debbie downer here but self-actualization is rarely achieved Maslow believed that only 1% of people ever reach self-actualization the average person seeks to self actualize but may not ever get to that point geez well it looks like we all have something to work harder towards huh so are you going to be the Martin Luther King or the Mahatma Gandhi or mother Teresa of our time pretty sure they all reach self-actualization okay let's talk about the second major theorist of this theory and his name was Carl Rogers now Carl Rogers used Maslow's idea and the qualities he described and says that they are nurtured early in life he said that self-actualization is a constant growth process that is nurtured and a growth promoting climate so not that's another very important word growth promoting climate in this climate and in order for this climate to be to help someone reach self-actualization there's two conditions that need to be met and the first is that growth is nurtured when an individual is being genuine so one has to be open and revealing about themselves have to be genuine and true to who they are and this second condition that needs to be met is that growth is nurtured through acceptance an acceptance from others so one must receive acceptance and receive an unconditional positive regard from others so what does that mean for example a parent may get upset at their child and punish them for doing something wrong but they're going to still love their child and regard their child without any conditions no matter what so this allows us to be open and learn without fearing others are going to look at us differently if we do something wrong and genuine relationships with others and acceptance is what allows us to live up to the ideals of our true real self versus this ideal self that is bounded by conditions that people rarely can live up to and both Maslow and Roger said a central feature of our personality is self-concept and that's achieved when we bring genuine nests and acceptance together and achieve this growth promoting climate so as individuals we tend to act and perceive the world positively and we try to answer the question who am i and that is what the humanistic theory talks about