Reading Blog 4/19 10pm

Chapter 15 is our last reading blog for the semester and deals with growth motivation and positive psychology. Holism asserts that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than as a series of differentiated parts. It is a whole organism that is motivated, not a just part of the organism, such as the stomach or the brain. This shows me that our body is complex and all connected and depends on the entire body to function properly. Positive psychology is a newly emerging field in psychology and it seeks to articulate the vision of the good life, and it uses the empirical methods of psychology to understand what makes life worth living. In essence, positive psychology is the investigation of positive subjective experiences such as well-being, contentment, satisfaction, enjoyment, hope, optimism, meaning, flow, competence, love, passion for work, courage, etc. Positive psychology looks to reverse the negatives that accompany the daily struggles and devotes its attention to the “What could be” and the proactive building of personal strengths such as hope, optimism, skill, perseverance, intrinsic motivation and the capacity for flow. Together these skills help us to focus and develop one’s strengths, rather than focus on protecting people from their weaknesses.

Self-actualization is an inherent developmental striving. It is a process of leaving behind timidity, defensive appraisals, and a dependence on others that is paired with the parallel process of moving towards courage to create, make realistic appraisals, and achieve autonomous self-regulation. The two differing directions of self-actualization are autonomy and openness to experience. The openness allows one to no longer be timid, and the autonomy allows one to no longer depend on others and moves towards self-realization. Self-actualization is better explained through Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy. Self-actualization (Growth Motivation) is the ultimate goal that we have as humans but it cannot be reached until our deficiency motivational levels are reached first. Starting from the bottom and the more basic they include: physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, and esteem needs. Together these four need levels allow us to reach growth motivation and/or self-actualization.

Fast-forwarding a little bit through the chapter I want to talk about growth seeking versus validation seeking. Quasi-needs lead people to feeling the need for approval during social interaction. That is, valuing oneself along the lines of societal conditions of worth leads people into processes of validation-seeking. That is, for the people who need social acceptance and approval to feel good about one ’s self. In contrast to validation seeking individuals, growth seeking individuals center their personal strivings around learning, improving and reaching personal potential. Seeking growth rather than validation allows people to focus on self-improvement that they want, not what others view as great. Studies show that people who seek validation rather than growth suffer from anxiety during social interaction due to fear of failure. Depression can accompany this as well because of the added pressure of failure. Whereas growth seeking individuals are typically better off because they view themselves in a positive light already, and look to build upon or improve their already successful self.

The topic that I want to conclude this blog with is also something that I found most interesting; and that is the problem of evil. Are people in inherently good, or are people inherently evil? That is a question that may never be fully answered or have a definite answer. Evil is deliberate, voluntary, intentional infliction of painful suffering on another person without respect for his or her humanity or personhood. But other humanists believe that evil is a part of everyone, it just doesn’t always rear it “evil” head. I personally tend to agree with this train of thought. I believe everyone is evil from birth; most people just have the inner strength and external support to control the evil inside them. I won’t lie and say I haven’t had evil thoughts or opportunities to be “evil” but I have had the will-power to control myself and the conscious to know the difference between right and wrong. Desire is what I believe drives evil action. Desire makes people jealous, envious and just plain crazy sometimes, and if someone hasn’t had a “good” or healthy upbringing, evil may get the best of them. As long as there are classes and the “haves and have not’s,” the possibility remains that its members will internalize a pathological value system that makes possible the descent into evil and the forging of a malevolent personality.

Terms: Growth Motivation, Positive Psychology, Holism, Self-Actualization, Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy, Quasi Needs, Growth-Seeking, Validation Seeking, Conscious, Evil.

The first main part of chapter fifteen explains and then compares/contrasts ‘Humanistic Psychology’ and ‘Positive Psychology’. Humanistic psychology focuses on discovering human potential and encouraging its development. The chapter explains that the Humanistic Perspective concerns strivings: first toward growth and self-actualization, and second from façade, self-concealment, and the pleasing of the expectations of others. Positive Psychology is the investigation of positive subjective experiences such as well-being, hope, optimism, meaning, love, courage, talent, etc. The chapter explains that what sets positive psychology apart from humanistic psychology is that positive psychology is more scientifically rigorous in that it relies more on hypothesis-testing, data-based, empirical research. The chapter further explains that positive psychology realizes that people routinely fall short of their full-potential and also realizes that pathologies such as: depression, substance abuse, violence are ‘epidemic-like’, meaning that it further realizes the important role played by the effort to cure or reverse these human pathologies. The section concludes by describing that positive psychology seeks to actualize the human potential in all of us. I found this section of the chapter to be the most interesting because I had never heard of humanistic psychology or positive psychology, which I am assuming is because of the newness of the areas. As more years go by I am sure they will be more commonly discussed and included when area’s of psychology research are mentioned.
The next main part of the chapter focuses on ‘Self-Actualization’, which is the process of leaving behind timidity, defensive appraisals, and a dependence on others that is paired with the parallel process of moving toward courage to create, make realistic appraisals, and achieve autonomous self-regulation. The chapter explains that there are two fundamental directions that characterize self-actualization as a process. The first of those directions is ‘Autonomy’, or the moving towards self-dependence. The second of those directions is ‘Openness to Experience’, which is receiving information, such as feelings, such that it is neither repressed, ignored, or filtered, nor distorted by wishes, fears, or past experiences. Within the self-actualization section of the chapter a sub-topic is explained, the sub-topic is ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs’, which breaks down needs into five sections. The bottom section, the most important section, includes survival-based needs because they dominate as the strongest motives. The next section up includes safety and security needs; the third section includes love and belongingness needs; the fourth section includes esteem needs; and the fifth section includes self-actualization needs. I personally agree with the breakdown of the needs because I believe survival-based needs and safety needs have to be met before a person can worry about esteem or self-actualization needs. I realize that this model has been subject to some criticism, but nonetheless I still agree with it.
The next section of the chapter focuses on ‘Actualizing Tendency’, and the first major component of that concept is ‘Emergence of the Self’. The section explains that the emergence of the self prompts the emergence of the need for positive regard because it makes an individual sensitive to the feedback of others. The section further explains that over time evaluating the self from other people’s points of view becomes a rather automated and internalized process. The next component of the section is ‘Conditions of Worth’, which explains that throughout development the need for positive regard sensitizes an individual to attend to the acceptances and rejections of others and also throughout development the self structure expands beyond parental conditions of worth to include societal conditions of worth. The final component of the section is ‘Congruence/Incongruence’. Incongruence is the extent to which an individual denies and rejects the full range of his/her personal characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. Congruence is when a person accepts these components. The section concludes by explaining that incongruence is the difference between a person’s actual and perceived self.
The next section of the chapter describes ‘Causality Orientations’, and that there are two forms of these. The first of those is ‘Autonomy Causality Orientation’, which includes people that adopt a general orientation that their inner guides and self-determined forces primarily initiate and regulate their behavior. When people are autonomy oriented their behavior proceeds with a full sense of volition and an internal locus of causality, in that needs, interests, and personally valued goals initiate the person’s behavior and these also regulate his/her decision in persisting or quitting. The second of these two forms is ‘Control Causality Orientation’, which includes people that prefer to pay closer attention to behavioral incentives and social expectations. This form includes people that make decisions in response to the presence and quality of incentives, rewards, social expectations, and social concerns; meaning that they try to do what they feel others feel should be done.
The next section of the chapter focuses on ‘Growth-Seeking’ and ‘Validation-Seeking’, and on explaining the differences between the two concepts. The textbook explains that during social interaction validation seekers often use interpersonal situations to test or measure their personal worth, competence, or likeability because in their eyes others around them externally validate them. Growth seekers center their personal strivings around learning, improving, and reaching personal potential. Unlike validation seekers, when growth seekers have negative interpersonal outcomes they do not use those to adjust their particular trait(s). I would say I use both concepts during different times, but that overall I consider myself to be more of a growth seeker because I am always trying to learn and improve myself in an effort to reach my personal potential.
One of the last sections of the chapter describes the problem of evil. ‘Evil’ is the deliberate, voluntary, intentional infliction of painful suffering on another person without respect for his/her humanity or personhood. The section concludes, after listing several opinions and findings, that it is difficult to determine if evil is inherent in human nature, and that within a supportive interpersonal climate people’s choices move them in the direction of greater socialization, improved relationships, and toward what is healthy and benevolent. The final section of the chapter includes two topics: ‘Optimism’ and ‘Meaning’. The section explains that people who are optimistic live more worthwhile lives than do people who are not optimistic. Optimists experience better psychological and physical health, undertake more health promoting behaviors, show greater persistence and more effective problem solving and are more socially popular. These results are so because optimism gives people a sense of hope and motivation that their futures can indeed be improved. The textbook explains that optimism can be taught and learned, and that it is generally taught through the enactment of the positive thinking and cognitive strategies that is the optimistic explanatory style. The second part of the section focuses on the concept of meaning. The textbook explains that from a motivational point of view meaning in life grows out of three needs: purpose, values, and efficacy.
Terms: 1) Humanistic Psychology 2) Positive Psychology 3) Self-Actualization 4) Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs 5) Emergence of the Self 6) Conditions of Worth 7) Congruence/Incongruence 8) Autonomy Causality Orientation 9) Control Causality Orientation 10) Validation Seeking 11) Growth Seeking 12) Evil 13) Optimism 14) Meaning

Chapter 15 is dedicated to describing and showing practices of positive psychology as a subgroup of humanistic psychology. This concept in psychology focuses on strengths and potential of individuals. Positive psychology in particular focuses on how people can be the best possible person they can be and meeting their full potential. The chapter takes approaches including the holistic approach and self-actualization (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is discussed here as well). Needs are discussed in detail in this chapter and the focus is how we meet our needs as a means to becoming self-actualized. Lastly, personality traits are talked about with a focus on autonomy, openness to experience, and personal growth; these traits are discussed in how they attempt to explain how these traits relate to individuals’ behavior choices.

I found the section on how conditions of worth are established to be very interesting. This section talks about the many ways in which we are influenced and become to understand our conditions of worth and what is acceptable and unacceptable. Conditions of worth describe how we perceive that we are being judged for our behaviors and then by adulthood understand what good behaviors are and what bad behaviors are. This also extends to how we view things in our environment; it is not just good and bad but it also helps us define what is beautiful vs. ugly and what is desirable and undesirable. Conditions of worth are based in our outer world and on the flip side we also experience and inner world of organismic valuing. The chapter then provides discussion and kind of advice for how to parent and to improve a child’s conditions of worth. It states that we need to use unconditional positive regard rather than conditional positive regard. Unconditional positive regard causes children to not internalize the judgments made by society and others. Conditional positive regard takes place when children only receive praise and rewards when it is based on them meeting some condition or behaving in a certain way and meeting the expectations and hopes of the parents. While it is important for children to understand and learn the aspects of society we want them to be able to make an opinion of themselves based on who they are as opposed to how others view them.

The most surprising section of the chapter for me was the section about causality orientations. The chapter distinguishes between control-oriented personality and the autonomy-oriented personality. Autonomy-oriented personality is described by intrinsic motivation and identified regulation; it is these two things that then lead to behaviors, values, beliefs that become part of the self. A control-oriented personality is distinguished by extrinsic motivation and introjected integration that cause behaviors, values and beliefs that are usually based on environmental rewards and constraints. The control-oriented personality typically has beliefs and values that are forced onto them by the environment or situation. The reason I found this section of the chapter interesting is because I began to think about where I fall in this type of personality. Initially I classified myself as control-oriented. The chapter gave examples of when an opportunity such as a job or promotion is offered that a person with this type of personality would think about the extrinisic reward such as money right away rather than thinking about the type of opportunity and challenge that would come of it. For me, I think I would exude thoughts of the extrinsic reward after this type of opportunity. However, on the other hand the control-oriented personality says that people have beliefs and values that are forced onto them by the environment. I really do not think that I fall into this category. My behavior may be motivated in part by extrinisic motives but I really wouldn’t say that my values and beliefs are not internal. I think that I have spent a lot of time figuring out how I believe and feel about many aspects such as education, religion, politics, morals, etc and I think that they are entirely my own. This discussion about self-determination theory is very interesting however I think that it is a little bit too much black and white and does not address the gray area that are inherent in individual personality.

The chapter’s focus on positive psychology and the importance of viewing a person’s strengths and full potential made me think of the focus on strengths in I/O psychology. Organizations often take the view of focusing on employee’s strengths as a way to increase their motivation and job performance. The idea is that if we tailor a person’s job or position to their strengths that they will do better. For example, the organization that I intern at has all employees complete the Gallup Strength Finder questionnaire and all of the senior management has their five strengths posted outside their doors. While I think that this approach is interesting and fun to participate in, I think there are a lot of pitfalls to this approach as well. For example, organizations hire a person that they feel will be a good fit for the position; they do not pick people and then place them into a position that matches their strengths, thus making the measurement of the strengths not as useful. I think that overall a criticism of positive psychology is that there is a little too much focus on strengths and potential and not enough focus on how to develop or better our weaknesses while also using our strengths.

ME Terms: Self-actualization, self-determination approach, holism/holistic, positive psychology, conditions of worth, unconditional positive regard, conditional positive regard, control-oriented personality, autonomy-oriented personality, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, humanistic psychology, individual potential, autonomy, openness to experience, personal growth, inner world of organismic valuing, outer world of conditions of worth, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, causality orientations, introjected regulation, identified regulation, environmental/societal influence, and personality.

Chapter 15 was centered on the idea of positive psychology, which is a holistic theory that encourages people to view themselves as a whole person instead of a combination of parts (e.g. brain, ANS, stomach). In viewing the self like a whole, a goal of positive psychology is to develop and better understand their “inner guide”. Moving toward being autonomous and understanding the self increases positive emotions over the lifespan. Self-actualization is key for everyone, according to Maslow’s hierarchy, and positive psychology is one way to achieve this. Although positive psychology is a relatively new theory, there are several actions to take to follow this theory and achieve self-actualization.
Positive psychology, as based on empirical research, builds up the strengths within clients and gives the client’s power to see their positive traits. In doing this, the client is able to recognize that they are capable to behave in ways that can change their lives. Instead of connecting with their “comfortable” feelings of fear and anxiety, the person is inspired to identify how they can react differently and produce better outcomes when they embrace their capacity for power. Like the book said, it takes a lot of courage to be able to change from what someone has always known to a place where they have to accept everything as it comes.
However, it is impossible to achieve self-actualization without first going through to lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy; physiological needs, safety/security needs, love/belongingness needs, and esteem needs. Moving through these needs to self-actualization is called “movement towards growth”. If there is a block in any of these areas, a person can be held back or be maladjusted. It is natural to feel the need to move through these needs; there is a agitated feelings we get when we are being held back from growth. Therefore, growth is natural and when someone is blocked from achieving their next need then that blockage needs to be removed. Sometimes this can be lack of food but other times it can be lack of connectedness with another person. Throughout life we each face our blockages, but we have the strengths to move past them (even if it’s difficult, we still have the strength). Like Maslow said if we “make growth choices, be honest, position ourselves for peak experiences, give up our defensiveness, let our selves emerge, and be open to experiences” then we can grow.
Throughout this growing process there are internal methods we engage in to decide which actions, thoughts, and feelings to have. Two of these methods that influence us are “organismic valuation” and “conditions of worth”. Organismic valuation is process within ourselves that encourages our behavior in ways that produce outcomes, and discourage our behavior in ways that will have negative outcomes. This is very much a personal experience, judged by what is best for us as an individual. On the other hand, conditions of worth are based on what behaviors will achieve positive response from the environment (society). Even though this is not the way people behave in every day life, movement toward conditions of worth actually produces a less fulfilled person. Whereas, if people accepted themselves and others for who they are and how they behave, people would feel much less anxious and depressed. Overall, focusing on conditions of worth will lead to a more difficult journey towards self actualization and may actually create people who are maladjusted.
When people accept conditions of worth, they also develop quasi-needs (needs they think they need because of societies pressures). An example of a quasi-need is exercising just to look thin (not for health reasons). Attempting to gather these needs creates great anxiety, “fear of failure, and high depression”. However, relationships that support the self are powerful combatants to “conditions of worth”. These relationships serve to affirm that the self has strengths and the ability to develop into whatever they want to develop into. In this type of relationship the self is just as important is the relation to the other person.
Overall, society imposes many rules that cause us to compare ourselves to others and make changes we may not have made ourselves. To decrease anxiety, depression, and fear, it is necessary to create supportive relationships. In becoming more autonomous from society and connecting with people in a meaningful way, positive self-actualization can occur. Everyday is a struggle to balance all of these qualities. It is important to remember our personal strengths and achieve what our inner self desires.

ME terms: Positive psychology, holistic, whole, inner guide, autonomous, self, Maslow’s hierarchy, theory, self-actualization, empirical research, strengths, positive, fear, anxiety, capacity, courage, physiological needs, safety/security needs, love/belongingness needs, esteem needs, movement towards growth, maladjusted, make growth choices, be honest, position ourselves for peak experiences, and give up our defensiveness, let our selves emerge, be open to experiences, organismic valuation, conditions of worth, society, quasi-needs, fear of failure, high depression

Chapter 15 is about Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology. The text first explains Holism and positive psychology. Holism says that a person is best understood as an integrated and organized whole as opposed to a series of differential parts. It argues that a person is organized as a whole rather than different parts of a person being motivated by different signals. Holism claims any event that affects one system of a human affects the entire human. Holism is derived from “whole” which explains the information mentioned previously. Overall the humanistic perspective is concerned with total growth, self-realization and self concealment. Positive psychology seeks to articulate the vision of a good life. Psychology varies from other humanistic psychology because it relies on hypothesis-testing and data-based empirical research. It focuses a lot on building personal strengths and competencies.
The next topic is self-actualization which is developmental striving or moving toward courage and achieving self-regulation. Basically, this is the realization of one’s own talent, capacity and potential. The two related fundamental characteristics related to this are openness and autonomy. Autonomy is the capacity to which one has to depend on themselves while openness is the ability to receive information. Maslov proposed the human needs could be divided into five clusters. The first set were physiological needs. The other sets related to psychological needs. The hierarchy Maslov proposed conveyed three themes: needs arrange themselves according to potency/strength, the lower the need is in the hierarchy the sooner it will appear in development and needs in the hierarchy are fulfilled sequentially. A deficiency need is defined as a physiological disturbance and needs for safety, belongingness and esteem. Without these, growth and development would be greatly affected. Once these needs are met, growth needs appear and the person becomes restless and discontent. This is when energy and direction appear. Maslow’s idea is still very popular and a possible reason is because it works nicely with personal experience and common sense. Maslow was also big into the idea of relationships because they support autonomy and openness. Rogers recognized that there were specific motives for humans. While agreeing with Maslov but also focused on the idea of humans need to maintain, enhance and actualization of the self. This actualizing tendency is what motivates a person to try new and challenging experiences, a very important quality in one’s life!
Congruence is the extent to which a person denies and rejects or accepts the range of his/her personal characteristics, abilities, desires and beliefs. With that we know that psychological incongruence is the difference between the perceived self and the actual self. If someone is trying to achieve some form of an external condition of worth, they are usually using a façade which is basically a social mask. Autonomy causality orientation is when an individual relies on internal guides and if an individual relies on external guides they are using control causality orientation. In other words, autonomy oriented people have a high internal locus of control while control oriented individuals are more likely to make decisions in response to incentives, rewards and social concerns. All of this deals with where people find their motivation, whether internal or external.
The next topic is related to growth-seeking versus validation-seeking. A growth seeking individual will often center their personal strivings around learning, improving and reaching personal potential. The difference for validation seeking individuals is they seek validation from peers, employers, teachers, and romantic partners. Both gain positive outcomes from interpersonal interactions. The distinction between the two is important in recognizes vulnerability to mental health difficulties. All in all the distinction between the two is similar to Maslov’s distinction between deficiency and growth needs. Relationships nurture the actualizing tendency. They can either be supportive or controlling and negative. In humanistic education, they typically have three themes: the facilitator, students take responsibility, and students learn cooperatively and in a context of the peer group.
Social definition and self definition are personality processes related to how individuals conceptualize who they are. Individuals who accept external definitions are socially defined while those who resist external definitions are self defined. Positive psychology, as mentioned previously, seeks out to build people’s strengths and competencies. It argues that strengths are just as important as weaknesses, and acknowledging both is necessary. Optimism grows from positivity and is normally known as a good mood or positive outlook. Sometimes though, wishful thinking can do more harm than good. But many still argue that optimism is beneficial. The reason being, that optimism gives hope and motivation for their future.
This chapter was a little repetitive but then again the chapters are winding down. I have always found it interesting how much a positive attitude along with some optimism can affect you. But it makes sense after reading the end of this chapter. We are motivated when we hopeful. When we feel positive energy towards something we will strive more for the achievement!
ME terms: Holism, positive psychology, self actualization, deficiency needs, growth needs, actualizing tendency, congruence, causality orientations, growth seeking, validation seeking, optimism.

Chapter 15 is about growth motivation and positive psychology. Humanistic psychology involves studying these topics and identifies things that could potentially put personal growth and psychological well-being at risk. It also has a motivational role in that it asks individuals to consult their “inner guides” (interests, preferences, values) in order to coordinate them better with their every day lifestyle. The humanistic psychology approach wants to discover human potential and encourages development. It concerns strivings towards growth and realization and away from self-concealment and fulfilling expectations of others.

Holism is a humanistic viewpoint as well and it asserts that a human can best be understood as an organized and integrated whole self rather than the sum of different parts. The entire person should be motivated not just a certain point. It concerns itself with that which is unbroken and whole. It also stresses a top-down approach which focuses on a general, all-encompassing view of the self.
Positive psychology is a new field that seeks to articulate the vision of a good life. It investigates positive subjective experiences such as contentment, satisfaction, love, enjoyment, optimism, perseverance, well-being, etc. It is set apart from humanistic psychology by its reliance on hypothesis-testing and empirical research. It devotes its attention to building personal strength and competency so that the human potential in all of us can be actualized.

Self-actualization is a striving to reach one’s full potential. It is described as a process to an autonomous and open self that can fully realize all that they are capable of. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is probably the best visual demonstration of how to achieve self-actualization. According to Maslow, one must meet all their physiological and psychological needs before self-actualization can occur. He presents these needs in a 5 level hierarchy with physiological needs such as water, food, shelter, etc on the bottom (the first level). The second level is safety and security needs, the third level is love and belongingness needs, the fourth level is esteem needs and the fifth level (the pinnacle) is our self-actualization needs. Three themes can be conveyed when considering Maslow’s hierarchy. First is that the needs are arranged according the strength of importance of that need. The lower it is on the hierarchy, the more urgently it is felt. The second is that the lower the need is in the hierarchy, the sooner it occurs during development so more needs are met as an individual ages. The third theme is that the needs are filled sequentially from lowest to highest. The first four levels are considered deficiency needs because without them we cannot grow and develop. The fifth level is considered a growth need because it is needed to fulfill potential.

Another humanistic psychologist, Carl Rogers, spoke of the actualizing tendency of the self as “the source of energy that motivates development toward autonomy and away from heteronomy.” It considers the individual from a holistic approach. The person grows in complexity and the emergence of self promotes the need for approval and positive regard from others. However, it can lead to conditions of worth which can be negative because children internalize those conditions of worth, especially by parents. If they are given unconditional positive regard for who they naturally are, children grow up with great potential and a confident self. When they are constantly being told to be something they are not or do not receive positive regard they develop a condition of worth which can be attributed to negative psychological development.

There are two major causality orientations that people adopt in understanding the forces that guide their behaviors. When they rely on internal guides they are said to have an autonomy causality orientation. When they rely on external guides then they have a control causality orientation. An autonomy orientation includes paying more attention to a person’s needs or feelings than environmental factors when making decisions. Control oriented people show some insensitivity to their own feelings and pay closer attention outside factors and societal expectations. Both reflect determination in the personality.

When people consider and internalize societal conditions of worth then quasi-needs become apparent. Some people need the approval of others to feel good about themselves so they are deemed to be validation seeking. Growth seeking individuals have more personal strivings that seek to improve learning and reaching their own personal potential. They feel validated by a sense of progress whereas validation seeking individuals rely on other people to feel good and failure or negative outcomes can cause problems for them instead of pushing them on to do better.
Interpersonal relationships support the actualizing tendency and they do this in four different ways. These include helping others, relating to others (authentically), promoting the freedom to learn and defining the self. These relationships are characterized by warmth, genuineness, empathy, interpersonal acceptance and conformation of the other person’s self-determination. These characteristics promote the best environment for the actualizing tendency.

Positive psychology focuses on strengths rather than weaknesses in individuals and asserts that good health is more than just the absence of mental illness. Rather, it emphasizes that continuous self-growth, close and healthy relationships and purposeful life are the true measure of good psychological health.

The most interesting topic I read about was Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Although I have learned about the hierarchy in almost every class I have taken (even in family resource management) none of the teachers nor the text offered any criticisms of Maslow’s hierarchy. Not that I disagree with it entirely, but it was interesting to read other research on needs. For myself, I think that it is unrealistic to think that as each person achieves a new level that everything will stay the same in their lives and they will continue to move up. I think individuals move up and down on the hierarchy all the time. There have been periods of time in my life where all my physiological needs are met, and I have love and close relationships but not necessarily safety or security (at least financially). I think that the authors are correct in that people consider the importance of each need very differently.

ME terms used: growth motivation, positive psychology, humanistic psychology, self-actualization, actualizing tendency, hierarchy of needs, autonomy, heteronomy, autonomy causality orientation, control causality orientation, conditions of worth, quasi-needs

Chapter 15 is titled Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology. This chapter focuses on the 'top down' approach, in that it focuses on all motives, specifically how 'master motives' govern specific ones. This is known as humanisitc psychology. Humanistic psychology is interested in strivings toward growth and self-realization, and away from the pleasing of others. Holism, as defined by the textbook studies what is healthy, or unbroken in a human. Positive psychology researches a common definition on what is good in life, or what makes life worth living. Positive psychology is not synonymous with humanistic psychology, but the two overlap in their focus. Self Actualization, which is widely sought after according to Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. The textbook defines this as the process of leaving behind timidity, defensive appraisals and a dependence on others that is paired with the parallel process of moving toward courage to create, make realistic appraisals and achieve self-regulation. In other words, it is the realization of one's own capacity and potential. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs refers to a theoretical pyramid that outlines our basic needs. From bottom to top, we meet these needs: Physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness, esteem and finally self-actualization. To encourage self-actualization, Maslow suggests six behaviors: Making growth choices, being honest, position yourself for peak experiences, give up defenses, let the self emerge and being open to experience. Both Carl Rogers and Maslow believe that striving for self-actualization is innate, and takes place over our entire lifespan from being a baby learning how to crawl to being and adult and finding a career. The next part of the chapter focuses on causality orientations. There are two causality orientations. Autonomy causality orientation refers to individuals that rely on internal guides to understand their motivation. Control causality oriented people rely on external guides. The authors then differentiate between growth-seeking and validating seeking personalities.
The most interesting part of this chapter for me was Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. I've learned about it in previous classes, and in an earlier section of this class. Though the book criticizes it at the very end, I feel that it is a nice representation of our internal needs. Though it is very basic and doesn't account for every need, it is easy to understand and makes for a great introductory lesson on motivation.
I felt as though this chapter was a great way to end the book.

Terms: Holism, humanistic psychology, positive psychology, self-actualization, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, Carl Rogers, causality orientations, autonomy causality orientation, control causality orientation, growth seeking, validation seeking

Chapter 15 was about growth motivation and positive psychology. It is about how an individual can improve his/herself by having a positive outlook and by meeting the hierarchy of needs. The book first discusses the topic of holism. Holism is the study of what is whole or unbroken in human beings. The book also discusses positive psychology. It implements empirical methods to figure what makes life worth living. It is not the same as humanistic psychology because it uses experiments and other validated research methods to test hypothesis. The goal of positive psychology is to actualize the human potential in all of us.
This process is known as self-actualization. It ultimately consists of autonomy and openness to experience. The hierarchy of human needs is needed to reach self-actualization. It consists of 4 deficiency needs and 1 growth need. Deprivation of any of these four needs stops the continuation to the growth need. The four deficiency needs are physiological, safety, love, and esteem. The growth need is self-actualization. It can be reached and worked on once the other ones are fulfilled.
Actualizing tendency is another theory about how personal growth works. It works under the mechanism known as an organismic valuation process. It is an innate ability that judges whether a specific experience promotes or reverses growth. If an experience was good then a person would be more motivated to succeed in that behavior. Like if I was naturally good at football(I’m not). I would be motivated to become better without prompt from anyone else. Congruence is the extent to which a person denies (incongruence) or accepts (congruence) the full range of his/her personal abilities, desires, characteristics, and beliefs. A person can have an internal set of characteristics, but may act in a different way in public. This is a façade to appear socially acceptable. Ugghhh… this chapter blows. People may also be validation-seeking instead of growth seeking. Validation seeking people will constantly be asking questions to make sure that things are all right in the relationship. Growth-seeking people focus more of their attention on improving themselves.
The road to actualizing the self depends a lot on interpersonal relationships. A good interpersonal relationship depends on warmth, empathy, genuineness, interpersonal acceptance, and confirmations of the other person’s capacity for self-determination.

Terms: positive psychology, growth motivation, holism, self-actualization, autonomy, hierarchy of human needs, deficiency needs, growth need, actualizing tendency, organismic valuation process, congruence, façade, growth-seeking, validation- seeking,

Chapter 15 talks about kinds of Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology. Positive Psychology articulates the vision of the “good life”. It uses methods of psychology to help people understand what makes life worth living. It also investigates positive subjective experiences like your well being, enjoyment, hope, optimism, competence, love, interpersonal responsibility, etc. When compared to Humanistic Psychology, Positive Psychology is more scientifically focused and is focused on hypothesis-testing and data-based research.

Another main part of this chapter is Self Actualization. It is described as a “developmental striving”. It works as a process for people to leave behind any timidity, defensive traits, and dependency on others and to move towards courage, realistic appraisals, and autonomous regulation.

There are two main directions that self actualization can take: Autonomy or Openness. Autonomy is a person’s “mindfulness”. It is when a person moves toward caring for themselves and regulating their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. When I read through his autonomy section, it made me think of myself when I came to college. During high school, when I was living at home, my parents did a lot of the stuff to take care of me: provided food, made sure my homework was done, paid for car/gas, etc. Now that I am in college, I provide for most of that on my own and I am definitely responsible for getting my own homework done on time. As I have gotten older, I have also become more responsible for my own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. I’ve done a lot of growing up since I graduated high school and have really grown into my own person. I thought this whole section on Self Actualization could really pertain to me right now. The second “direction” of self actualization is Openness. Openness is making sure that a person’s feelings aren’t repressed, ignored, or filtered. This part of self actualization is where you move beyond timidity and more towards courage and realistic appraisals. This also reminded me a lot of coming into college, a totally new place where I had to meet all new people. I am a fairly quiet person, but was even more so when I first came to college. I have had to learn to become a lot more open with people and putting myself out there so that I was able to meet people and make friends. This also really pertains to me as I move into the job world and am having to open up to people even more.

Another part of Self Actualization that has always been a huge interest to me is the Hierarchy of Human Needs. This was a system created by Maslow to show the different needs that people go through throughout their lifetime. The needs are set up in a pyramid figure and there are five main needs that people have. They are, starting with the base of the pyramid (what you need to acquire firs), : physiological needs, safety/security needs, love/belonging needs, esteem needs, and self actualization needs. This means that you must acquire physiological needs before you can meet safety needs, and safety must be met before love needs can, and so on. This always is very interesting to me because I have never thought of us having to meet certain needs before we have to meet others. The bottom four needs are called Deficiency Needs. They are called this because, without them, our growth and development would be halted; we wouldn’t be able to move on towards anything else. The top need, self actualization, is known as a Growth Need. This means that all of our other needs have been met, so we can grow and develop healthily. Our growth need allows us energy and direction so that we can become the person we strive to be.

Lastly, a third part of self actualization is Encouraging Growth. There are six behaviors which will help a person to reach self actualization. They are: make growth changes, be honest, position yourself for peak experiences, give up defenses, let the self emerge, and be open to experience. All of these things will allow you to open up in life and reach the point of self actualization. This was also very interesting to me, as I saw a lot of behaviors that I have had to learn over the years and especially since I came to college. I have had to learn what I am good at and what I am not, and use those peak experiences to my advantage and to become even better at them. I have also had to learn to give up my defenses and let my self emerge. I learned this through the close friendships and relationships I have developed. Once I learned to become myself and open myself to people, they had a much more positive attitude toward me and were willing to be open to me as well. Overall, I really liked this chapter and my favorite topic was Self Actualization. It’s very interesting and relatable to my life right now.

TERMS: growth motivation; positive psychology; humanistic psychology; self actualization; autonomy; openness; hierarchy of human needs; physiological needs; safety needs; love needs; esteem needs; deficiency needs; growth needs; peak experiences;

Chapter 15 speaks about positive psychology and growth and personal fulfillment. One of the theories is holism that says the system as a whole determines how the parties behave, so should not only look at things individually. Within the self actualization humanistic theories and actualizing tendencies say that man has needs that must be met to reach out personally. For example we need to eliminate hunger and thirst to get to school, or we have to find a house to protect from the rain before thinking about writing a book. Chapter 15 explains how people can help serve as actualizing tendencies or optimism is associated with better personal growth.
Pindaro, one of the most famous lyric poets of ancient Greece had a great quote, "Become what you are ", and if we think a little about what it tells us humanism, to what psychologists like Maslow and Rogers study, we realize that all this, the self actualization , the Maslow's hierarchical theory or the theory of the personality of Rogers are brilliantly summarized in this sentence. When you look at the hierarchy Need Maslows you think is obvious, everyone knows you need to eat and be sure before thinking about money for college, but it is so obvious, Why humanism is so recent?

Maybe because for centuries maslow theory could only have reached the second stair, back not long ago people had enough to survive. So the theories related to the realization they are interesting for us because it tells us where to look at the motivation of people depending on their social status, for example, why poor people do not come to college? according to this theory because people are more aware of looking for food to survive they needed to think about what education is for them.
For all this humanism is one of the most important theories in psychology from the second half of the twentieth century

In Greek mythology, Cassandra had the gift of prophecy, casandra thought everything was happening, but the question is, if Cassandra had not predicted an event that had occurred in the same way?
I say this in relation to positive psychology and the Growth, we can not scientifically measure whether optimism will make us better or worse, but in my opinion always display positive scenarios can greatly help you succeed in your life.
Term used: holism, positive psychology, self actualization, hierarchy of Human Needs, actualizing tendencies, optimism, growth

Chapter 15 was somewhat lengthy and had a ton of information. Within the first section of the chapter, it stated that main premises that would be seen throughout was that if our inner nature is denied then sickness can be the result. The first factor identified is that humanistic psychology stresses inherent "potentialities", holism, and strivings toward personal fulfillment. It is basically about finding and developing human potential. Holism also looks at how the whole organism is motivated not just bits and pieces. Positive psychology, though rather similar, looks at the state of mind of people (mental health) and how they live their live to what could be. It looks at how people build themselves and how their competence fosters their psychological well being.

Next, the chapter goes onto speak about human needs. It addresses Maslow's Need Hierarchy. I've always thought this to be rather accurate. At the bottom of the pyramid is survival needs then builds up to growth needs. These survival needs can also be seen as deficiency needs which are physiological disturbances which cause absence of needs for safety, belongingness, esteem which would cause harm to growth and development. Growth needs occur when a people feels the need to fulfill personal potential.

At the top of the pyramid is self actualization. This is the "full realization and use of one's talents, capacities, and potential". Though there is not much empirical research to support this as a need, it does give some intuition to why people are unable to self actualize and how to encourage it.

Another important figure discussed is Rogers. He believes that the "actualizing tendency" is at the bottom of all other motives to serve as a purpose of enhancing and actualizing the self. Children are socialized so they learn how they should "properly" behave, however, when they get older they will make their own decisions regardless of judgments. Rogers says this causes use to live in two worlds which is basically the inner and outer world. How we feel and how we feel the world thinks of us and how we should act. He uses the terms congruence for when a person accepts every aspect of personal characteristics and desires and incongruence for when a person rejects these qualities.

If a person feels a strong need to be connected to society, they are more likely to go through the process of "seeking validation from others". This validation seeking will cause a person to prove their self worth, competence, and how much a person likes them. Growth seeking individuals on the other hand will concentrate their success on learning, improving, and reaching potential. Due to this, validation seeking people may be more susceptible to anxiety or depression.

Interpersonal relationships are another big part of the actualizing tendency. This is because it centers itself in: helping others, how to really relate to others, freedom of learning, and defining the self. So since interpersonal relationships are about warmth, empathy, love etc. another person will feel more about themselves when in a relationship that proves to be successful.

So there are many things that make us up, but our needs and our goals are the true motivators. This is what positive psychology strives at answering. It puts people's strengths and competence into a subject matter.

ME Terms: humanistic psychology, holism, positive psychology, Maslow's Need Hierarchy, Growth Needs, Deficiency Needs, self actualization, congruence, incongruence, validation seeking, growth seeking, interpersonal relationships

Chapter 15 is about growth motivation. There are two types of psychology described in this chapter, holism and positive psychology. Holism is similar to existentialism and Gestalt psychology in that humans should be looked at as a whole rather than just the parts. Anything that effects one part of the body affects the whole system. It focuses on striving towards fulfillment. Positive psychology is a newer type of psychology. Its goal is to help people find out how to take actions that lead to positive development and a general positive attitude. Their main focus is on how to build personal strengths and competencies.
One concept in the chapter is called self-actualization. It is an “inherent developmental striving”. Self-actualizing means working towards fulfilling all of a person’s possibilities and forgetting about negative things in life. The two fundamental aspects of self-actualization are openness and autonomy. Openness means being willing to accept new opportunities and becoming mindful. Autonomy is becoming independent for one’s thoughts and actions. One of the prominent psychologists in this field is Abraham Maslow. Maslow came up with the hierarchy of human needs that have three basic themes; they’re ordered according to the strength of the need, the lower the need is in the order, the earlier a person experiences needing it, and the needs are fulfilled from the lowest level to the highest. While this hierarchy has been widely accepted and used frequently, it’s actually been proven to not be completely true. According to the book, research has discovered that people of all ages can have one of the needs. For example, children had reported having esteem needs, something that’s high on the order. There has been proof, however, of a dual-level hierarchy working better; in which growth needs are in one category and deficiency needs are in the other.
Growth needs can be considered self-actualization needs because there are present to help a person reach their potential. They’re called growth needs because fulfilling the need leads to the addition of something, like achievement or competence. Deficiency needs are more biological, like needing to eat or drink. They’re considered deficiency needs because when the need is met, the aversive feelings of hunger, for example, go away.
There are several ways to encourage growth in an individual. Maslow believed that less than 1% of the population ever reach self-actualization because of all the external and internal influences that act upon people, like self-doubt or injuries. He came up with 6 ways to help people reach self-actualization. Those 6 behaviors are: Make growth choices, be honest, situationally position yourself for peak experiences, give up defensiveness, let the self emerge, and be open to experience. Making growth choices included making choices that progress towards a bigger goal. An example is joining an interesting club even though you’re scared to do it alone. Being honest is important because it not only helps yourself by making better decisions, but it also lets people know that you’re an honest person and that usually helps to reach some sort of goal. Situationally positioning yourself for peak experiences means putting yourself out there into situations that are beneficial for yourself. Giving up defensiveness consists of giving up things that hinder you from reaching a goal. Letting the self emerge means listening to yourself rather than others to make your own decisions. Being open to experience is crucial because if you’re open and willing to do things you normally wouldn’t, a whole world of opportunities appears.
Another important figure in this field of psychology is Carl Rogers. He believed that everyone has an actualizing tendency, which is the desire to “actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing self”. He said that everyone fulfills their needs based on a holistic approach rather than breaking it down into categories like Maslow did. The actualizing tendency is innate and leads the person towards reaching their potentials. If some type of behavior produces aversive consequences, it’s most likely that that behavior won’t be emitted again. If the opposite happens, an individual learns what behaviors are rewarding and continues to do them. The actualizing tendency helps a person continue to try new behaviors and figure out which ones are worth doing again. An aspect of the actualizing tendency is the emergence of the self. This means a person grows in complexity and realizes the fact that they have a goal of self-actualization. When the self emerges, so does the need for approval and acceptance from other. When this happens, people become more concerned with other’s criticisms. This need for approval affects a person’s condition of worth. They learn what behaviors are good and bad based off of what other people think. If someone is too concerned with their condition of worth, they move away from actualizing the self. This can interfere with the value they place on themselves, called organismic valuation. To avoid doing this, children need to have unconditional positive regard rather than conditional positive regard. Unconditional positive regard provides children with valuable experiences that enhance them and give support with love and acceptance. Conditional positive regard can lead to a child only feeling loved or accepted if they do what the parent wants because if they don’t, they feel neglected and unloved.
Another concept in this chapter is congruence. Congruence is when a person accepts all of their characteristics, beliefs, desires, and abilities. Incongruence is the opposite. It means that there is a difference between how they perceive themselves and how they actually portray themselves. People with incongruence adopt facades, which is like a social mask. When a person wears a façade, they can suffer from maladjustment which includes anxiety, depression, and other negative outcomes. That’s why it’s important to be honest with yourself and others. A fully functioning individual has this ability. They have desires and they express them in a way to attain them.
Causality orientations is whether a person relies on internal or external guides. Autonomy causality orientation is relying on internal and control causality orientation is relying on external. Autonomy oriented people have an internal locus of control so they believe that outcomes are a result of their behavior rather than other things, which is what control oriented people believe. Autonomy oriented people also make their decisions based off of their needs and feelings rather than external factors like money. Causality orientation reflects self-determination.
Growth-seeking versus validation-seeking is another aspect in the chapter. Growth-seeking individuals look for situations that promote learning and reaching personal potential. Things are seen as an opportunity to grow as an individual rather than something negative. Growth-seeking individuals tend to be healthier mentally because they are optimistic and meet psychological needs. The opposite of this are validation-seeking individuals. These people use situations to measure their competence or likeability. They worry about the acceptance and approval of others rather than themselves. Unlike growth-seeking individuals, validation-seeking individuals tend to be less healthy mentally because they worry about others’ opinions too much and aren’t meeting their psychological needs.

Terms: growth motivation, holism, positive psychology, competence, self-actualization, openness, autonomy, hierarchy of human needs, growth needs, achievement, deficiency needs, encouraging growth, 6 ways to encourage growth, actualizing tendency, emergence of the self, organism valuation, condition of worth, unconditional/conditional positive regard, congruence/incongruence, autonomy/control causality orientations, locus of control, growth-seeking, validation-seeking, optimistic

Chapter 15 is about growth motivation and positive psychology. Humanistic psychology argues that rejecting one’s nature in favor of social priorities puts personal growth and psychological well-being at risk. Humanistic psychology plays a key role in motivation by asking people to pause, listen to their inner guides, and consider the potential benefits of coordinating their inner guides (interests, preferences, values) with their day-to-day lifestyle. Humanistic psychology is about discovering human potential and encouraging its development. Research on positive psychology adds that inner guides like meaning, authenticity, and the passion to learn add to a person’s strength and wellness. Developing these personal strengths leads to happiness. Positive psychology studies the same subject matter as humanistic psychology, but it is more scientifically rigorous using hypotheses-testing, data-based empirical research. Holism says that a human is an integrated, organized whole rather than a series of differential parts. The whole organism is motivated rather than just some part of the organism, such as the stomach or the brain. Holism focuses on a top town psychology which means they focus on general, all-encompassing motives seeing how the master motives govern the more specific ones. Self-actualization is an inherent developmental striving. It refers to an ever-fuller realization of one’s talents, capacities, and potentialities. Autonomy and Openness are the two key factors in self-actualization. Chapter 15 also discusses Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. This pyramid ranges from survival needs to growth needs. The four lower steps involve deficiency motivation (including physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, and esteem needs), while the top of the pyramid self-actualization needs involves growth motivation. Despite its tremendous popularity, research has actually found very little empirical support for the need hierarchy. What was confirmed by research was the idea of deficiency needs and self-actualization needs. The part of the chapter that I found most interesting was that Maslow estimated that less than 1% of the population ever reached self-actualization. Maslow felt that most people failed to reach their potential because of a non-supportive internal or external environment. Others fail because of the Jonah complex and wanting to take the safe route-finding assurance in social authority and then doing only what is needed to be competent enough. There are 6 behaviors that encourage self-actualization: Make growth choices, be honest, situationally position yourself for peak experiences, give up defensiveness, let the self emerge, and be open to experience. Actualization tendency is the forward thrust of life. Organismic valuation process is an innate capability for judging whether a specific experience promotes or reverses growth. The actualizing tendency motivates the individual to want to undertake new and challenging experiences, and the organismic valuation process provides the interpretive information needed for deciding whether the new undertaking is growth-promoting or not. Soon after birth, children begin to learn the conditions of worth on which their behavior and personal characteristics (the self) are judged as, either positive and worthy of acceptance, or negative and worthy of rejection. According to Rogers we all live in two worlds- the world of organismic valuing and the outer world of conditions of worth. The way not to interfere with organismic valuation is to provide “unconditional positive regard.” In this case experiences are judged as valuable to the extent that they enhance oneself. In a conditional love situation, experiences are judged as valuable to the extent that they are approved of by others. To the extent that individuals habitually rely on internal guides (needs and interests), individuals have an autonomy causality orientation. To the extent that individuals habitually relay on external guides (social cues), they have a control causality orientation. Valuing oneself along the lines of societal conditions of worth leads people into processes of validation seeking. The person has a quasi-need of social approval from others. In contrast to validation-seeking individuals, growth-seeking individuals center their personal strivings around learning, improving, and reaching potential. The distinction between striving for validation versus growth is important because it predicts vulnerability to mental health difficulties. Quality relationships support the actualizing tendency through helping others, relatedness to others, freedom to learn, self-definition and social definition. Humanistic psychology would say that human nature is inherently good. However some people do evil which is deliberate, voluntary, intentional infliction of painful suffering on another person without respect for his or her humanity or personhood. Rogers would say that humans behave malevolently only to the extent that they have been injured or damaged by their experiences. Others believe that benevolence and malevolence are part of everyone. Positive psychology tries to encourage flourishing-high levels of emotional, psychological, and social well-being that grows out of continuous self-growth, close and high-quality relationships, and a purposive and meaningful life. A life characterized by purpose, optimism, meaning, and eudaimonic well-being leads to happiness. In applying this Chapter to my life, I could say that I should really care less about what other people think. If I find a sense of congruence by just being myself and doing things that I love, I will continue to be a happy person.
Terms Used: humanistic psychology, positive psychology, holism, self-actualization, autonomy, openness, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, survival needs, growth needs, deficiency motivation, growth motivation, organismic valuation, actualizing tendency, conditions of worth, unconditional positive regard, autonomy causality orientation, control causality orientation, validation seeking, growth seeking, evil, well-being.

Chapter 15 is about Holism and positive psychology. Holism comes from the word wholeness and concerns itself with the study of what is healthy, or unbroken. A broken view of psychology see people as fragmented sets of forces that oppose one another. It speaks of the conflict between the ideal self and actual self. A broken self manifests itself in a psychological competition among id, ego, and superego. Humanism identifies with holism as it stresses top-down master motives. Humanistic psychology is about discovering human potential and encouraging its development. The humanistic perspective concerns two strivings toward growth and self-realization, and away from facade, self concealment, and the pleasing and fulfilling of the expectations of others.
positive psychology is a new field in psychology. It seeks to articulate the vision of of the good life, and it uses the empirical methods of psychology to understand what makes life worth living. The subject matter of positive psychology is the investigation of positive subjective experiences such as well being, contentment, satisfaction, and hope. Positive psychology chooses the same subject matter as humanistic psychology. What makes positive psychology different from humanistic psychology is a strong reliance on hypothesis testing, data based empirical research and is more scientifically rigorous. It looks at a person and asks "What could be?"
self actualization is an inherent developmental striving. Its the process of moving toward courage to create more realistic appeals and achieve autonomous self regulation. There are two fundamental directions that characterize self-actualiztion as a process and they are autonomy and openness to experience. Autonomy is moving away from heteronomy and toward a capacity to depend on ones self and to regulate ones thoughts and feelings. Openness means receiving information that is neither repressed or ignored. Within openness one leaves behind timidity and defensive appraisals and moves toward greater mindfulness.
Maslow thought that needs could be put into five clusters, starting with physiological needs and moving up to self actualization needs. A person could not move up the pyramid till the need below that was met first. The needs at the bottom are the strongest and then get weaker as they move their way up. In Maslows pyramid physiological, safety, social, and esteem needs are considered to be deficiency needs. They are like vitamins in the sense that people need them because the absence of them inhibits growth and development. Self actualization is the one need to be considered to be a growth need. The need to fulfill personal potential. They provide energy and direction to become what on is capable of becoming. Although Maslow's hierarchy is very popular it has its doubts. Maslow made a second theme that said the young are occupied with physiological and safety needs, while adults are occupied with esteem and self actualization.
There are six behaviors for encouraging growth: Making good choices, being honest, situationally position yourself for peak experiences, give up defensiveness, let the self emerge, and be open to experience.
Carl Rodgers said the organism has one basic tendency and striving which is to actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing self. He believes the actualizing tendency is innate. The forward moving pattern of development was characterized by struggle and pain. A child will always learn how to walk no matter how hard or painful it may be. All the struggles and experiences of pain are evaluated in accordance with an organismic valuation process. The actualizing tendency makes the person want to take on new challenging experiences.
The emergence of the self prompts the emergence of the need for positive regard. The need for positive regard is of special significance because it makes the individual sensitive to the feedback of others. Soon after birth, children begin to learn the conditions of worth, on which their behavior and personal characteristics are judged as either positive and worthy of acceptance or negative and worthy of rejection. According to Rodgers all of us live in two worlds. The inner world and the outer world.
Congruence and incongruence describe the extent to whcih the individual denies and rejects or accepts the full range of his or her personal characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. Psychological incongruence is the extent of discrepancy between the perceived self and the actual experience. When people move toward identifying with external conditions of worth and adopt facades, or the social mask a person wears. Introverts often find themselves wearing the facade of an unauthentic smile on a regular basis, making them prone to anxiety, depression, and self doubt. A fully functional individual communicates the inner impulses verbally and non verbally. They are open to experience, accept things as they are, and express those experiences in an unedited and authentic manner. A moment to moment experience of a fully functioning individual is a process. It begins with emergence, the onset of innate desire, then goes to acceptance, a motive into consciousness, and ends with expression, unedited communication or a desire.
Every person has a different understanding of the forces that cause their behavior. Some feel that it comes from within and others feel it is from an outer source. People who rely on internal guides are autonomy causality oriented and people who rely on external guides are control causality oriented. When autonomy oriented, peoples behavior proceeds with a full sense of volition and an internal locus of causality. When control oriented, people make decisions in response to teh presence and quality of incentives, rewards, social expectation, and social concerns.
Validation seeking individuals use interpersonal situations to test or measure their personal worth. Growth seeking individuals center their personal strivings around learning, improving, and reaching their full potential. The goal oriented inventory measures validation seeking and growth seeking strivings as relatively enduring personality characteristics. It asks people to agree or disagree on whether the item describes how he or she things and acts in general. The distinction between validation seeking and growth seeking is another way of expressing Maslow's distinction between deficiency and growth needs.
There are four ways of supporting the actualization tendency: Helping others, relatedness to others, Freedom to learn, and defining the self.
There also four happiness exercises a person can do. The first is a gratitude visit where you write a letter of gratitude to someone who has been kind to you. Second, Three good things in life, write down three good things that went well and identify the cause of each every day. Next, you at your best, write about a time who you functioned at your best. Lastly, identify signature strengths, identify up to five personal signature strengths and find a ways to use each in a new way.

Terms: Holism, positive psychology, self actualization, Maslow's hierarchy, deficiency needs, growth needs, actualizing tendency, encouraging growth, congruence, fully functioning individual, causality orientations, growth seeking, validation seeking.

Chapter 15 is about growth motivation and positive psychology. The chapter begins with discussing holism and positive psych. Holism states that human beings are best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than series of differentiated parts. Holism prefers "top-down" approach. It concerns itself with study of what is healthy or unbroken and involves strivings towards growth and self-realization. Positive psych articulates the vision of the good life. Its goal is to show what actions lead to experiences of well-being, development of positive individuals who are optimistic and resilient, and to the creation of nurturing and thriving institutions and communities. Positive psych may share the same subject as humanistic psych but it is more scientifically rigorous. It devotes attention to proactive building of personal strengths and competencies.
Self-Actualization is an underlying flow of movement toward constructive fulfillment of its inherent possibilities, an ever-fuller realization of one's talents, capabilities, and potentialities. It deals with experience that can go in two directions: autonomy and openness. With autonomy, the individual leaves behind a dependence on others and moves toward self-realization. With openness, the individual leaves behind timidity and defense appraisals and moves toward greater mindfulness, courage to create, and realistic appraisals.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to split into five clusters: physiological needs and the four psychological needs of safety and security, love and belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization. There are three themes dealing with the hierarchy: the lower in the hierarchy, the stronger and more urgently it is felt; the lower, the sooner it appears in development; and needs are fulfilled sequentially from lowest in the hierarchy to highest. These needs can be split into deficiency and growth needs. Physiological, safety, love, and esteem make up the deficiency needs; they are called this because absence of them inhibits growth and development. Self-actualization is the growth need; its goal is to fulfill personal potential. It provides energy and direction to become what one is capable of becoming. Research has found very little empirical support of the hierarchy. Age did not predict need importance. Rank does not conform to the predicted order. The hierarchy is more dual-level than five-level.
Encouraging growth is important because people fail to reach their potential because of nonsupportive internal or external environment; people are also responsible for their own lack of growth ("Jonah complex" - fear of own potential). Six ways to encourage growth are to make growth choices, be honest, situationally position self for peak experiences, give up defensiveness, let self emerge, and be open to experience. There is also a stressed importance of intimate and fulfilling relationships.
In the section of Actualizing Tendency, Rogers recognized that all human needs serve collective purpose of maintaining, enhancing, and actualizing. Actualizing tendency is innate, a continual presence that quietly guides. It is a path toward development and growth lined with "struggle and pain".
Organismic valuation process is the innate capability for judging whether a specific experience promotes or reverses growth. It provides experiential feed-forward system that allows to coordinate life experiences with actualizing tendency; it precedes behavior and acts as a traffic light.
Emergence of self works with self-actualizing tendency, which works at odds with actualizing tendency (not the same thing). It prompts emergence of need for positive regard - makes people sensitive to feedback of others. Over time, evaluating self becomes automated and internalized.
Conditions of worth (COW) is when behavior and personal characteristics are judged as either positive and worth of acceptance or negative and worthy of rejection. Over time, parental COW turns to be the focus of positive societal COW. Rogers states that internalized (acquired) COW largely replace innate organismic valuation process; not to interfere with organismic valuation is to provide "unconditional positive regard" instead of "conditional positive regard". Congruence/incongruence is the extent to which people deny and reject or accept the full range of self. It deals with harmonious or conflicted experience-expression. When people move toward identifying with external COW, they adopt facades: social mask a person wears and relates to ways of behaving that have little to do with inner guides. A fully functioning individual lives in close and confident relationship to organismic valuation process, trusting inner direction; congruence is a constant companion. Emergence (onset of innate desire, impulse, or motive) --> Acceptance (desire, impulse, or motive is accepted "as is" into consciousness) --> Expression (unedited communication of desire, impulse, or motive).
Autonomy Casuality Orientations rely on internal guides. They involve a high degree of experienced choice with respect to initiation and regulation of behavior. Needs, interests, personally valued goals initiate behavior and regulate decision in persisting or quitting. It is characterized by intrinsic motivation and identified regulation and correlates positively with measures of positive functioning. Control Casuality Orientations rely on external guides. They prefer to pay closer attention to behavioral incentives and social expectations - make decisions based on presence and quality. There is a sense of pressure to comply with what is demanded/what should be done. Environmental factors are also important. It is characterized by extrinsic motivation and introjected regulation.
Validation-seeking deals with using other people as sources of external validation (social approval) and there can be positive or negative outcomes. It is an intentional, deliberate, bend-over-backwards pursuit of high self-esteem. Growth-seeking centers personal strivings around learning, improving, and reaching personal potential. Positive outcomes carry a sense of progress; negative outcomes declare a need for improvement. Gains in self-esteem are natural byproduct of making progress. A distinction between the two predicts vulnerability to mental health difficulties, way of expressing Maslow's distinction between deficiency (v) and growth (g) needs, and expresses a climate of conditional positive regard (v) vs. unconditional positive regard (g).
Qualities of a supportive relationship for actualizing tendency are warmth, genuineness/authenticity, empathy, interpersonal acceptance, confirmation of other person's capacity for self-determination (support decisions). Helping others involves letting people discover and then be themselves. Relationships rich in relatedness seemingly paradoxically facilitate autonomy. Rogers states that self-initiated learning is the only kind that matters. He prefers the term "facilitator" rather than "teacher". He is also a fan of peer-based cooperative learning. Self-definition rejects external and favors internal definitions of who people are; social-definition accepts external definitions of who they are.
There are two forms of discussion when it comes to the problem of evil. How much of human nature is evil? and Why do some people enjoy inflicting suffering on others? Evil is the deliberate, voluntary, intentional infliction of painful suffering on another person without respect for their humanity/personhood. Rogers states that evil is not inherent in human nature. A person is only evil the extent that they have been damaged by experience. Other humanists say that benevolence and malevolence are part of everyone. A need of a value system determines which becomes prominent.
Positive psych looks at mental health and quality of people's lives to ask "what could be?" It seeks to build people's strengths and competencies. It encourages flourishing. There are three illustrative strengths discussed. Optimism is the positive attitude/good mood that is associated with what one expects to unfold in his/her immediate and long-term future. It gives people a sense of hope and motivation that future can improve. It is responsive to reality while delusions are not. Optimism can be taught and learned. Under meaning, existentialism is the study of isolation and meaninglessness of individuals in indifferent universe. Meaning includes a need of discovery and accomplishment; it grows out a need for purpose, values, and efficacy. Creating meaning is an active and interpretive process. Eudaimonic well-being is the experience of seeking out challenges, exerting effort, being fully engaged and experience flow, acting on one's true values, and feeling fully alive and authentic - self-realization. Three antecedents researched are wealth and materialism, attachment and relationships, and pursuit of personal goals.

ME Terms: holism, positive psychology, self-actualization, autonomy, openness, hierarchy of needs, deficiency needs, growth needs, actualizing tendency, organismic valuation process, self-actualizing tendency, conditions of worth, unconditional/conditional positive regard, congruence, facades, fully functioning individual, autonomy/control casuality orientations, growth/validation-seeking, self/social-definition, evil, optimism, meaning, eudaimonic well-being