Chapter 15 in the book was about growth motivation and positive psychology. The first thing that the book talked about was holism and positive psychology. Holism asserts that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organzied whole rather than as a series of differentiated parts. Why it is in this book is it says that is the whole organism that is motivated rather than just some part of the organism. This can include the brain or stomach as the book says. It is not just one of those things that is motivated but the whole body. Holism also says that any event that affects one system also affects the entire person. Holism derives from the name "whole" or "wholeness". Positive psychology is talked about with holism and it says that it is a newly emerged field in psychology. It wants to show a vision of a good life and what makes life worth living. The goal of positive psychology is to show what actions lead to experiences of well-being and to develop the individual in a positive way. Positive psychology doesn't want to focus on the bad or negative things in life but on what makes the individual happy.
The next section in the book talks about self-actualization. Self-actualization is the process of leaving behind timidity, defensive appraisals, and a dependence on others that is paired with teh parallel process of moving toward courage to create, make realistic appraisals, and achieve autonomous self-regulation. It also refers to an ever-fuller realization of one's talents, capacities, and potentialities. There are two important directions in self-actualization. They are autonomy and openness to experience. Autonomy here means moving away from heteronomy and toward an ever-increasing capacity to depend on one's self and to regulate one's own thoughts and feelings. Openness means receiving information such that it is neither repressed, ignored, or filtered, nor distorted by wishes, fears, or past experiences. The hierarcy of human needs is talked about in this section also. It is shaped in a pyramid and self-actualization is on top. From top to bottom it looks like this: self-actualization, esteem needs, love and belonginess, safety and security, and physiological needs. To get to the top you must first complete the bottom one's in the pyramid or else you cannot go on to the next one as the hierarcy says. There are some other needs that are talked about which include deficiency and growth.
The next section in the book talks about the actualizing tendency. It includes a couple of different concepts in this section. First of all, it talks about the emergence of the self. When someone's self emerges they grown in complexity and this concept begins to express itself with the organism. Conditions of worth are talked about in this section too. These are behaviors that are judged as either positive and worthy of acceptance or negative and worthy of rejection. These are taught by seeing how others react to different situations and how people will view you while doing them. It also discussed congruence. Congruence describes the extenet to which the individual denies and rejects or accepts the full range of his or her personal characteristics, abilities, desires or beliefs. Facades are talked about here and says that they are a social mask that someone wears and it relates to ways of behaving that have little do with inner guides and much to do with a social front to hide behind.
The next sections talked about causality orientations and growth seeking. There are two types of causality orientations that are talked about. One is autonomy causality orientation which refers to the extent that individuals habitually rely on internal guides(needs,interests,etc). Control causality orientation refers to the extent that individuals habitually rely on external guides(social cues). With the growth seeking section it talks about growth seeking vs. validation seeking. Growth seeking individuals center their personal strivings around learning, improving, and reaching personal potential. Validation seeking individuals seek external validation to measure their personal worth or competence. They use other people as their measuring stick and is obviously way different than growth seeking inviduals.
The chapter ends by talking about a couple of different things. First of all, it talked about how relationships support the actualizing tendency. They could be by helping others, relatedness to others, and by having the freedom to learn. Another section talks about the problem of evil. Evil is important to talk about especially when talking about humanistic psychology. Evil is defined as the deliberate, voluntary infliction of painful suffering on another person without the respect for his/her personhood. Optimism is talked about in another section and this is when someone has a positive mind towards something and feels like something good will happen. The oppositve of optimism in pessimistic and they always see the negative in things.
Chapter 15 is all about positive psychology and how someone grows and develops as a person. Positive psychology is similar to humanistic psychology, but it is more a mental health basis and humanistic psychology is based on human potnetial. According to the book, "if the inner nature of the person is frustrated or denied, sickness can be a result." This chapter also talks about holism and that the human is organized as a whole, anything that affects a part of you, affects the entire person. Everything is looked at as a whole, not as parts of a person.
Self actualization is at the top of Maslow's hierarchy and that it is someone's full relization of their talents and potentialities. There are two things that direct the self-actualization process. Autonomy means that they depend on themselves, and move away from others opinions and focusing on their own thoughts and feelings. Secondly, Openness means leaving behind defensive moves and embracing the courage to create realistic dreams and not having unrealistic wishes. In Maslow's hierarchy there is groups of needs that every person needs. The basic survival needs at the bottom of the pyramid and self-actualization is at the top of the pyramid. Deficiancy needs are basic needs and without them inhibits development. Growth needs are the needs to fulfill personal potential and provide energy and direction to what one is capable of. I think sometimes it is hard to know what needs you actually need. To know this is to pay attention to how you feel psychologicaly when a need is missing, if you feel lost or frantic than you most likely are deprived of a need for wholeness.
Next is the actualizing tendency is the fulfillment of physiological needs and how it maintains and enhances someone. Also when someone is curious, this can drive someone to greater learning and the beginning of new interests and experiences. This is something that is innate and guides a person to perform their behavior and succeed. Experiences that are "out of the box" expands someones potential but can cause stress. The organismic valuation process judges whether the experience is a good or bad thing. As a child, the parents have a lot of influence on them as the learn to develop and grow as a person. If a child is given unconditional positive regard than they will be given acceptance, love and care to their child no matter what. Conditional positive regard is when parents aren't agreeing with their child's wants, and only wants what they believe their child should want. The individual obviously controls their own desires and rejections as well and this is congruence. They need to accept their own beliefs and what they want.
Causality orientations is why they are doing the behaviors they are doing. There are two kinds of guides that regulate behavior. First is the autonomy orientation and involves a person being very high on making their own choices. Their own values and goals drive their behavior, and they are over the whole conformity part. They are very in tune with their own feelings. Second is the control causality orientaion which is more based on external needs and goals. They pay closer attnetion to behavioral incentives and to what society expects. These people are very motivated by money and status needs. Causality orientations are a very big part of the personality and is the reason for the self-determination, autonomy is more innate and control is more external. When people are too focused on their societal conditions causes people to seek validation from others which can be a cause of social anxiety.
Relationships are a big part of supporting ones needs to self-actualize. Four big things are helping others, relating to others, having the freedom to learn new things and to develop growth on old things, and to define the self better. If the relationship is high on the relatedness scale, than there is warmth, genuiness, empathy, interpersonal acceptance and confirmation of the other persons ability to self-determine. These qualities help create a strong relationship and supportive environment for a person to grow and develop their selves.
I found it the most interest part of this chapter is that there are many things in the enviroment that help define the self, it is not only the choices you make but it is the help of others and strong relationships.
Chapter 15 was titled growth motivation and positive psychology. It started out explaining the holism view and defining positive psychology. Holism is looking at people from a top-down perspective; meaning that you see their motives and actions coming from all of them rather than separating the person’s drives into separate systems. Holism is a part of humanistic psychology. This view is defined by two main goals. The first is to move toward growth and self-realization and the second is to move away from façade or self-concealment tendencies. Positive psychology is different than humanistic psychology. It has a strong scientific element of making hypothesis-testable data that can be researched. Positive psychology’s main focus is on human strengths. It does not focus on how to improve or correct a person’s weaknesses, but instead help them realize what their strengths are and how to use them to the best of their ability.
Along with realizing what one’s strengths are comes the concept of self-actualization. This is a person’s internal developmental striving. The two main things that can help one arrive at self-actualization are autonomy and openness. Autonomy is depending on your own thoughts to make decisions, and openness involves letting yourself experience situations with an open mind and getting the most out of those experiences. Self-actualization is included in the hierarchy of human needs. This is a pyramid model in which needs are arranged in order of their importance and degree in which they are felt. At the bottom of the pyramid are the deficiency needs. Deficiency needs are needs that we need to have growth and development; they include physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, and esteem needs. At the very top of the pyramid is growth needs. This includes only self-actualization needs, and does not inhibit human growth and development if they are not accomplished.
Actualizing tendency is another part of humanistic psychology’s emphasis on holism and self-actualization. This is the theory that a person has one main tendency or motivation and that is to actualize, maintain and enhance one’s experiencing self. In other words this is the drive that makes people want to experience new and challenging things. It is also how the emergence of the self comes about. When we experience all these new and different things we gain a sense of who we are and how we handle things. With this a new force called self-actualization takes place. This is when we now are driven by our internal desires. With this comes the concept of conditions of worth. This is when society or outside figures judge our actions as positive or negative and have an externally driven motivation effect on us. Congruence is when these two forces work together and the individual accepts his or her personal characteristics and desires. Incongruence is when individuals see themselves as one way but act a different way because that is what society demands or positively reinforces. This situation can cause psychological distress and anxiety. Congruence and incongruence then lead into causality orientations. Causality orientations are the forces that cause or influence individual behavior. There are generally two types of causality orientations, they are autonomy orientation and control orientation. Autonomy orientation is when individuals let their own beliefs and desires guide their decision making. On the other hand control orientation is when individuals let society or other outside influences guide and direct their behavior. Self-actualization can also have an effect on our relationships. When it comes to helping others it is important to harbor their self-actualization. This means that when they ask for help it is not our job to give advice or fix a problem, but instead we are suppose to offer them unconditional support while they discover how to handle the problem themselves.
Positive psychology also has two other main concepts that arise from it. They are optimism and meaning. Optimism is the thought within us that is a positivity bias. It is the belief that we are better than we actually are. While this isn’t always good, for the most part having this view lets people live more worthwhile lives and actually increases their psychological and physical health. It is also a concept that can be taught or learned. Meaning on the other hand was what people looked for to make their lives seem significant. Meaning to life stems from three needs. These needs include purpose, values, and high efficacy. People who can find meaning in their lives have the ability to turn bad situations or events into something positive that can be motivational.
Terms: holism, humanistic psychology, positive psychology, self-actualization, autonomy, openness, hierarchy of human needs, deficiency needs, growth needs, actualizing tendency, self-actualization, conditions of worth, congruence, causality orientations, autonomy orientation, control orientation, helping others, optimism, meaning
Chapter 15 looked at positive psychology. This looks at people's mental health and how they live their lives to ask "what could be?"This chapter also gets into holism where a human is being best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than just a part of an organism. Any event that affects one system in turn affects the entire being. For example, when Harry is hungry it is Harry himself who is hungry, not just his stomach. The brain works to tell the stomach its hungry along with all the other systems within the body. Holism can also be looked at by analyzing what is unbroken. A broken personality emphasizes the conflict between the ideal self and the actual self. For example, not eating to be skinny. Instead of analyzing this in a psychodynamic way we tend to look at it in a humanistic way which deals with the idea of holism, the self, and striving for fulfillment. Humanistic psychology deals with growth and self realization and not self concealment and pleasing others.
While positive psychology is relatively new, it does investigate positive subjective experiences such as well being, contentment, satisfaction, enjoyment, hope, optimism, talent, creativity, and more. To avoid confusion this is not a sub field of humanistic psychology, but they do overlap each other somewhat. Positive psychology devotes attention to building personal strengths and competence. A large part of positive psychology is self actualization. This is the full realization and use of a person's talents, capacities, and potentialities. It is a continual process of autonomy and openness to experience. Maslow organized motivation into 5 clusters and made the distinction between deficiency and growth needs. Deficiency needs are psychological disturbances and needs for safety, belongingness, and esteem. They were described like vitamins; people need them because the absence of them inhibits growth and development. On the other hand, growth needs surface when deficiency needs are satisfied and render the person restless and discontent. They feel the need to fulfill personal potential. These might also be referred to as self-actualization needs which provide energy and direction for certain behaviors. While Maslow's research on this topic was helpful at the time, current research finds little support for this hierarchy. What is important to take away from it though is why people fail to self actualize and what actions they can take to encourage personal growth towards self-actualization.
Rogers had done research expanding on holism and self actualization. He said that fulfillment of physiological needs maintains and enhances the organism, as well as the fulfillment of needs for belongingness and social status. Curiosity, for example, might enhance and actualize a person by greater learning and the development of new interests. Rogers found that humans have specific motives that stressed the holistic perspective that all human needs serve the collective purpose of maintaining, enhancing, and actualizing the person. This is the actualizing tendency. He describes it as an innate, continual presence that quietly guides a person toward genetically determined potentials. It the development and battle of struggle and pain. This could be an example of socialization of children learning societal conditions of worth on which their behavior and personal characteristics are judged. Consequently all of us live in 2 worlds: the inner world of actualization tendencies and organismic valuation and the outer world of social priorities, conditions of worth and conditional regards. When a person moves away from organismic values and towards external conditions of worth they adopt facades and reject/deny personal characteristics, preferences, or beliefs. One can also look at this in terms of congruence and in-congruence. In-congruence describes the extent of which a person denies or rejects personal qualities and congruence describes the acceptance of full range personal characteristics and desires. A congruent individual will experience a marked sense of autonomy, openness, and personal growth.
This chapter also discussed causality orientations which reflect the extent of self determination in the personality and concern difference in people's understanding of what causes and regulates their behavior. A person with autonomy causality orientation behavior arises in response to the needs and interest with a full sense of personal choice. A person with control causality orientation behavior uses inner guides that are relatively ignored as behavior arises in response to external expectations and controls. An autonomy oriented person experiences relatively greater positive functioning than do control oriented persons. For example, a person trying to lose weight. In terms of social interactions, people can either be growth seeking or validation seeking individuals. People seeking validation tend to prove their self worth, competence, and likeability. They also use interpersonal situations to test of measure those characteristics. Other people, such as teachers, employers, or romantic partners, are seen as sources of external validation and "social yardsticks" to measure their own personal worth. Seems kind of selfish. This can lead to problems because they can imply a lack of personal worth, competence, and likeability. On the other hand, validation seeking individuals center their personal striving on learning, improving, and personal potential. Positive outcomes from interpersonal interaction generally leave the growth seeking person feeling validated as well because growth seekers experience that sense of progress. Negative outcomes fail to usher adjustment problems because they identify and communicate information about life areas that need improvement. The difference between validation and growth seekers is important because it can be used to predict vulnerability to mental health problems. For example, it is more likely that a validation seeker is more prone to anxiety and depression than a growth seeker.
Relationships also support the actualizing tendency in four ways. First, by helping others when they function as an arena that allows people to mature, integrate, and be open to experience. The second, relatedness to others in authentic ways. When people feel emotionally connected to a person their relatedness need is high and internalization of external regulations occurs willingly. The third reason, it promotes the freedom to learn (education). This may be initiated by the individual or with the help of a facilitator/teacher. The last supporting reason is defining the self. This is a personality process related to how individuals conceptualize who they are. While some may resist external definitions and favor internal definitions everyone still used socialized definitions to define themselves as well.
Chapter 15 discussed growth motivation. Individuals have natural temperaments determined by their biology, but we face social expectations that may conflict with those natural temperaments. For instance, an introverted person would likely get pressured to be outgoing in college. By rejecting our true nature, we may be inhibiting our personal growth. A psychology field relevant to this chapter is positive psychology, in which the goal is to concentrate on positive, subjective experiences for individuals to nurture things like satisfaction and optimism. It’s similar to Roger’s humanistic psychology, which uses a holistic approach to increase potential and growth by directing individuals toward self-realization and away from self-concealment (behaviors to meet other’s expectations). However, an important difference is positive psychology uses hypothesis testing, and thus has more support.
Self-actualization refers to striving to realize one’s own potential, talents, and beliefs. This relies on autonomy (independence for self-regulation) and openness to new experience (realizing potential and putting effort forth). Maslow’s hierarchy further demonstrates this concept, along with other needs. It’s arranged by strength (more essential on bottom) with the lower needs developing sooner, which must be fulfilled in order. The four bottom needs (physiological, security, belongingness, and esteem needs) are deficit needs. Only when those deficits get met can growth needs be pursued (self-actualization) to fulfill one’s potential. Although Maslow’s hierarchy remains popular, there is little support behind it. The one concept that has support is the dual-level hierarchy, which separates deficit from growth needs. Furthermore, it’s been proposed we judge experiences to decide whether they promote or reverse growth and act based on those judgments, which is called an organismic valuation process.
One’s emergence of self refers to our growth in complexity, which needs approving feedback from others (positive regard). We receive positive regard by experiencing conditions of worth, in which we internalize behaviors by internalizing them. The process creates a conflict between actualization and self-actualization, in which we must choose between our natural temperaments and social expectations by parental use of conditional positive regard (approval for certain behaviors). Although it creates obedience, conditional positive regard may also create anxiety and anger in children, so it must be done carefully. Congruence refers to one’s acceptance of ranges of characteristics, abilities, and beliefs. As mentioned earlier, individuals create problems when they trade their true selves for socially acceptable masks. These social masks are called facades. Congruence may be improved by intrapersonal relationships if warmth, genuiness, empathy, acceptance, and confirmation of one another’s self-determinations are established.
Causality orientation refers to one’s behavioral regulation. Internal behavioral (integrated) regulation establishes an autonomy causality orientation, which is ultimately fueled by intrinsic motivation. External behavioral (interojected) regulation establishes a control causality orientation, which is ultimately fueled by extrinsic motivation. For instance, a writer who honestly enjoys it will feel more satisfaction than a writer who only does it for a paycheck. The way in which we interpret our experiences creates meaning, which affects purpose, values, and efficacy. Like all fields, positive psychology doesn’t go without its criticisms. First, it assumes humans are naturally good and will reject evil if given proper feedback, but this concept only shows one part of human nature. Second, the concepts are vague, which makes for a difficult description. Finally, it is unclear whether specific differentiations of right and wrong are from our true feelings or social influence. For example, how do I know I care about recycling, because I believe it will save the planet, or society tells me it should be done?
Chapter 15 focuses on growth motivation and positive psychology. The main topics throughout this chapter were holism and positive psychology, self actualization, actualizing tendency, causality orientations, growth seeking vs. validation seeking, how relationships relate, the problem of evil and the positive psychology and it’s growth. As we can see there are many topics that were covered in this chapter, yet many of them relate and flow into one another. Holism and positive psychology are the first topics explained in the book. This relates to gesalt psychology, which is something I just had a test over last week. Holism explains that someone is best understood a whole’ other than something being broken down into different pieces and particles. This can be explained in many different examples. First, the text is explaining that if something happens to the stomach or the brain, it affects the whole body, not just that certain area. This means that this affects the entire person as a whole. Holism comes from the word ‘whole’ or ‘wholeness.’ The text explains that holism relates to the whole top down approach instead of the bottom up approach. Positive psychology is the next topic that relates to holism. This is a new type of psychology that is pretty recent, and has not been studied and looked at as much as other approaches and theories in psychology. I think that this is something that is very interesting and something that needs to be looked at more. It uses the empirical method to look at our lives, and what it is that makes our lives worth living. It also shows what types of actions we can take to make our lives better and to develop positively. It is explained that there are many things that are looked at when it comes to studying positive psychology, such as: well being, satisfaction, contentment, enjoyment, flow, competence, love, passion, etc! I think the book wanted to emphasize that positive psychology relates and somewhat overlaps with humanistic psychology, but they are not the same. It is stated that the main difference between the two is the research, and that positive psychology is more scientifically accurate. I think the quote at the end of the section is kind of clever, and it says ‘positive psychology is psychology, and psychology is science.’ I think that really puts in the information in a different perspective about what exactly it is!
Self actualization is the next topic discussed in the text. This is when we are developing ourselves to meet a certain goal, or to be something. There are two fundamental directions we can take when trying to achieve self actualization. These are autonomy and openness. Autonomy is something that we learned a while back in other chapters and it is similar to being independent and depending on yourself to achieve things. Openness is receiving information from something or someone. With openness, someone moves towards greatness and with autonomy, you are leaving things behind to move towards self actualization. Hierarchy of needs is something that we have also learned about, which relates to the concept of self actualization. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains that our needs can be organized into five different topics (or as the book said clusters). Two of these needs are psychological and physiological. Deficiency needs are also one of the needs we obtain. This is the need of feeling safe, like you belong, and esteem. We need these for growth and development as a human. Growth needs provide energy and direction. According to research done on this topic, it shows that this is something that is still widely used today and pretty popular. The research on this topic relates to our motivation compared to age, and self reports of needs. The chapter also gives the six behaviors that encourage our self actualization, which is pretty interesting. These include: make growth choices, be honest, position yourself for peak experiences, give up defensiveness, let the self emerge and lastly be open to new experiences.
Actualizing tendencies relates to holism and self actualization. This is when a person is being driven towards something, yet it is innate. It guides an individual towards their potential. This would come into play when an individual is wanting to experience new things and take on new challenges. The organismic valuation process is something that is used in this process. It helps us decide exactly what new challenges we want to face and take on. This then relates to an individual figuring out themselves as a whole, and who they really are. According to Rogers, we all live in two different worlds. One, the inner world which is the organismic valuation process already explained; second, the outer world of condition of worth. Congruence and incongruence are the next topics looked at when it comes to actualizing tendencies. This is when an individual either denies or accepts their personal characteristics, abilities and themselves as a person. Congruence is when you accept it, while incongruence is when you reject it. When individuals move to towards either of these directions they can sometimes adopt façade. This is relates to a person socially and relates to how we behave.
Causality orientation relates to our internal and external guides we that experience throughout our life. To rely on your internal guides, such as our needs and interests, we use autonomy causality orientations. When an individual is relying on their external guides it is called the control causality orientation. When an individual is high in autonomy orientation they are involved in a high level of internal locus of control and their needs and interests are valued when it comes to certain goals and our behavior. This is when we choose if we should pursue or give up. Someone who is high in control orientation is different. This is when incentives and rewards come into play. If there are things such as incentives and rewards that go along with a behavior then we are more likely to pursue that. With these types of people, pay (such as salary) and material objects are very important. When people want to change their behavior, they look at their internal guides as well as their external guides to do it. A good example that the book gave was with weight loss. Say you are in a work out class that is designed to lose weight. During this you would have strong internal and external support. Yet what happens when the class ends? This would most likely mean that you would have less external guides because you do not have people watching you or pushing you to reach a certain goal, now it is more up to you alone! This can be very scary for some individuals. Growth seeking and validation seeking are the next topics discussed in this chapter. People who are validation seekers tend to strive towards their self worth and competence. Yet, people who are growth seeking tend to go the other way and focus on learning, improving and reaching their personal goal and potential. According to the text, individuals who are validating seekers are more likely to suffer from depression, which I thought was very interesting. The Goal Orientation Inventory looks at both seekers to see their personality characteristics.
Positive psychology looks at an individual’s mental health and looks to see what they could be. It looks at someone’s strengths. Yet, it states that strengths are just as important as weaknesses. A table on page 441 explains how personal strengths are investigated as a subject matter. For example, happiness, enjoyment, hope, self efficacy, meaning, etc are all examples. I thought that this chapter was pretty interesting and one thing that I found to be very interesting is something that I have already mentioned. The book explained that individuals who were more validating seekers had a better chance of developing depression and anxiety.
Chapter 15 discusses the topics of growth motivation and positive psychology. This has been one of my favorite chapters to read and I enjoy that this is the chapter to end on because it focuses on the positive attributes humans should strive for to maximize their potential. Humanistic psychology is very intriguing to me. It centers on the holism view and seeks to discover human potential and encourage its development. These thinkers must strive toward self-realization and away from facade, self-concealment, and expectations of others. Parallel to the humanistic approach is the field of positive psychology, which is a fairly new science. Both approach deal with the same issues and subject matter, but positive psychology focuses more on the systematic methodology and data to support such claims. The process of developing oneself and recognize ones talents, capacities, and potentials in order to maximize one’s human potential is called self-actualization. Autonomy and openness to experience are two important factors centered on this process. Maslow was an advocate for self-actualization. He organized human needs into five clusters that are ranked in a hierarchy of strength. These needs top-down are self-actualization, esteem, love and belongingness, safety and security, and physiological needs. The bottom half represent the survival needs, or the psychological and physiological needs, while the top half represents the growth needs. The bottom half develops sooner in humans, and as they age they develop the growth needs. These needs provide energy and direction to become what one is capable of becoming. However, recent research finding suggest removing the bottom three lines of the hierarchy and only allow self-actualization to be the top. Maslow understood people may not reach self-actualization because of internal and external environments. People may not reach their max potential because the process of self-actualization makes the person face their insecurities, which can be stressful and anxiety-provoking. Therefore, Maslow offered several everyday behaviors for encouraging growth, such as making growth choices, being honest, set up situations and experiences, give up defensiveness, let the self-emerge, and be open to experiences.
Carl Rogers, for some reason, had been my psychologist of interest since I first began learning about psychology. He’s a humanistic psychologist who values the holism approach and like Maslow, understood human’s specific motives. I enjoy these psychologists because they focus on a “feed-forward” approach, where an individual analyzes a specific experience as good or bad through the organismic valuation process and then can use this feedback to make changes to move forward. Throughout our lives, we learn conditions of worth, where we internalize feedback from parents and society into our self-structure that affect our behavior. The organismic valuation is an internal process, while the conditions of worth are an external process. Rogers advocated for an unconditional positive regard instead of a conditioned one because it allows the developing individual to grow towards their self-actualization and disregard societies conditions of worth that lead to a motivational conflict. People have differences in their strength of these inner and outer guides. Some have an autonomy causality orientation, where they rely on internal guides and act on intrinsic motivation, while others have control causality orientation, where they rely on external guides and act on extrinsic motivation. This distinction then leads to two categories of motivation, either growth-seeking or validation-seeking. Growth-seekers are those intrinsic motivators who strive to reach human potential, while validation-seekers are those extrinsic motivators who strive for social acceptance, a pursuit to restore their deficiency needs, and have a higher risk for developing mental health difficulties, such as anxiety, low self-esteem, and high depression.
A major factor of humanistic psychology is interpersonal relationships because they determine whether a person develops congruence, which is the harmony between experience and expression. Relationships need to be supportive instead of controlling to promote autonomy and nurture actualization. Helping others lets the other person discover themselves. Self-actualizers have strong relatedness that is centered on the unconditional acceptance, instead of a social acceptance of social norms. An example of helping people maximize their human potential would be the educational system with roles of student and teacher. Rogers advocated that teachers instead be called “facilitators” because learning does not follow teaching, instead he believed learning is preceded by identifying interests and supporting them. Therefore, Rogers offered that the educational process follow a student-centered approach instead of the teacher-centered approach.
Another view that many humanistic thinkers possess is that human nature is inherently good, which means evil is not inherent in human nature. To me, this makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint because humans are the most compassionate and social species. Rogers argued that evil is learned from a violent history in relationships, while others argue that evil are a part of everyone therefore we need a value system. Both of these ideas make sense because they both argue the same point that evil is not in human nature, but actually in the culture.
The next section of the text focuses on positive psychology, which seeks to build people strengths and competencies. The tendency to see oneself in a positive light is associated with well-being and enhanced performance. From this positive thinking, optimism is produced. It’s known that optimistic people live more meaningful lives because they believe their future can be improved. This thinking can actually be learned, which can be used also as a therapeutic strategy. People create meaning to their life. An existentialist believes there is no meaning to life in general, but there is great meaning within each individual. This meaning stems from the needs of purpose, values, and efficacy. Creating meaning in something reduces the chance of sickness and suffers from a mental pathology. An example of this might be religion, which defines the meaning of life and makes people feel less afraid of the unknown. Positive psychology also studies the two types of happiness, such as hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic is the experience of pleasure and living a relaxed and good life, while eudaimonic is the experience of seeking challenges and flow and feeling fully alive. In other words, eudaimonic is self-realization that’s stems from psychological needs. From all the research pulled from positive psychologists, it’s still not valid enough to be used in intervention techniques for therapy. However, a group of positive psychologists formed a happiness exercise, which includes writing a letter of gratitude, writing three good things in life each day, writing about oneself at their best, and identifying strengths.
Chapter 15 is all about growth motivation and positive psychology. It first begins by talking about Holism, which is seeing a human being as a whole rather than made up of different parts, where any event effects the whole system of one person. Holism is part of humanistic psychology which is all about discovering human motivation and encouraging it's developments. Positive Psychology is claimed to be a new era of psychology, for it is not a subfield of humanistic psychology but rather parallels with it along the lines of proactively building personal strengths and competencies within human beings.
Self actualization is when an individual realizes his or her strengths of talents, capacities, and potentiality. Autonomy and Openness to experience are two divisions that guide one towards their self actualization. Maslow created a 'need hierarchy' pyramid to help explain how one can reach their self actualization by going through all their deficiency needs (physiological - safety and security - love and belongings - esteem) to their growth needs, which is their self actualization. Much research has been conducted about Maslow's need hierarchy and have concluded that instead of grouping the deficiency needs in a pyramid, the five-level of those should be rejected and instead placed into a two-level hierarchy need of deficiency and growth needs. The reason behind doing so is because some individuals may reach their self actualization in a different order of their deficiency needs then Maslow believed. Out of this, six behavior suggestions were made to encourage individuals on their self actualization (make growth changes, be honest, situationally position yourself for peak experiences, give up defensiveness, let the self emerge, and be open to experience).
The actualizing tendency section of chapter 15 goes on to further discuss how one should be motivated to reach and understand their self actualization by claiming that having a feedback system allows for behavior to follow while a feed-forward system that responds to ones intentions to act rather than their actual persistence of behavior. This is different from self-actualizing for it is what occurs within an individual before they reach the self-actualizing stage. The emerging self is part of the actualization stage for it is in need of positive regard - approval, acceptance, and love from others. Another part is dealing with conditions of worth within the world, such as being either judged positively or negatively of acceptance or rejection. Conditional regard of parents is another pusher towards discovering self actualization and can either be positive (giving love and affection for obedience and achievement) or negative (taking away love and affection for disobedience and failure). Congruence and incongruence have major influence on self actualization for it is when the individual either rejects or accepts his or her personal traits and morals. By wearing a facade (social mask), an individual is not really expressing their true self. Once one feels at ease with society and knows their place in the world, then they can begin to fully function as an individual.
Causality orientations come in two ways: autonomy causality orientation and control causality orientation. Autonomy causalities involve making decisions based off personal interests and valued goals where control causalities occur to please others in society. Both are good motivators to move towards, but one should always be more interested in their own autonomy than others in order to feel at ease with their self actualization.
As mentioned before, each individual has a social facade that they where around to please societal every day demands. In doing so, quasi-needs emerge. This means that through social interaction, an individual can begin to determine their place in society and a measure of their personal worth, competence, and like ability. With a positive experience of this, one can ease into the transition of their self actualization with confidence.
Relationships have a big part in moving towards autonomy. Relationships that are controlling push towards heteronomy and relationships that are supportive nurture the actualizing tendency. Through warmth, genuineness, empathy, interpersonal acceptance, and confirmation can a therapist help an individual express their self-determination. To do this, an individual must discover his or herself, have good relatedness with in his or her relationships, be willing to learn from a caring facilitator and work with peers to gain an internal understanding and want of education, and by focusing on their self-definitions compared to their social definitions.
All of this information makes sense to gain a positive road to discovering self-actualization, but only if that road is supported correctly by outside influences. To understand violent people, they probably had a power and control hungry experience in their childhood, where altruistic individuals probably had a childhood full of empathy and care. For those who have not had good experiences, they need to develop a system of right and wrong after experience a malevolent personality trait. When a parent or adult shames and scorns a child, then they are more likely to feel incompetent as a human being and prefers lies and deceit over their actual self-examination of themselves.
Positive psychology comes into play with this by taking looking at both the importance of strengths and weaknesses within an individual and builds strengths of fostering personal growth and well-being, and preventing human sickness (depression and suicide) from entering a personality. It does this through optimism (expression of a positive attitude or good mood from someone who expects it to last in the future), meaning through existentialism (knowing meaning of individual life through a sense of purpose, internalized values, and high efficacy), and a eudaimonic well-being (including happiness and meaning into self-realization by seeking out challenges, exerting effort, being fully engaged, experiencing flow with tasks, acting on one's true values, and feeling fully alive and authentic).
Although there a few criticisms about humanistic and positive psychology, I find it to be very logical and a great way to look at individuals who struggle with finding themselves. I highly enjoyed the quick positive psychology therapy tips of writing a gratitude visit, jotting down three good things that happened in a day, writing down 'you at your best' that day, and identifying at least five personal strengths. I think I will actually start doing this, for sometimes we forget how strong we really are when being compared and socially open to other individuals. Positive psychology and humanistic psychology therapy have my vote 100%.
Chapter 15
Woo-hoo! Last reading post! Our final chapter is titled growth motivation and positive psychology and that automatically made me think if Maslow and his hierarchy of needs. Sure enough within the first few pages there was the pyramid, tipped with self actualization. All of this falls under the umbrella of holism which is a branch of psychology that examines the complete person, rather than the broken. This branch then looks more carefully at how a person functions as a whole as opposed to how individual components make us who we are. It kind of flips the traditional way of thinking on its head. Out of this realm has come a newer phenomenon called positive psychology, which I had heard mentioned before this chapter but never knew what it was about. It turns out that positive psychology seeks to find out what our true potential could be someday. It this way it sets a bar for the preferred standard. However, when I look at my actions on a daily basis I know that I am constantly falling short of this criterion. Surprising, positive psychology doesn’t focus on these shortcomings but instead focuses on my strengths and seeks to build upon those. This sounds like a fine idea when it comes to people with low feelings of competency; build up their strengths so that they can eventually face ‘problem areas’. However, I believe that all this is really accomplishing is coddling people so that they don’t have to learn of and ultimately deal with their flaws. The book explains that it is to help people reach their full potential but I fail to see how that can be accomplished if we do not address our weaknesses. Rant ends here. The book then went on to discuss more in depth Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the base we have many needs that we seek to minimize by getting our fill of them. Such needs include food/water, safety, being loved, and feeling belonged. These needs constantly need to be fulfilled, like filling up your car with gas. At the very top we have self actualization which is our growth motivation. This could be considered chasing your dreams. If you think about it, it makes sense. If you are starving or afraid for your safety you will not be thinking of and taking actions toward how you can a famous author. According to Maslow, we all are all born with our self actualization needs in place, but less than one percent of the population actually achieves it. He explained this away by saying that our deficiency motivation often blocks out our self actualization motivation and that people in general are afraid of attaining self actualization. He termed it the “Jonah complex” which sums up the fact that we are afraid of realizing our full potential. The reason behind this fear is that attaining it is stressful and generates a lot of anxiety. Again this all makes great sense when one thinks about it.
In the middle of the chapter it took a look at our tendencies for attaining actualization as hypothesized by Carl Rogers. Rogers too realized that we have many different needs that must be met before actualization can occur. However, he summarized it as at the core of all of us we have a drive to “actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing self”. Our actualizing tendency is our main motivational force for attaining actualization. Some different components of this include our emergence of self, self worth, and congruence. When our ‘self’ emerges we become a very complex organism and begin to see outside of ourselves as well. When we accomplish this it motivates us to have our self accepted by those around us, thus the motivation to seek love and acceptance. He also demonstrated that our sense of self worth is crucial in our actualizing tendencies. We are given our sense of self by feedback from our surroundings and are told through many interactions which behaviors are desirable and which are bad. However, Rogers suggested that if we focus on these external feedback systems more than we focus on our own inherent self-value then that is detrimental to achieving self actualization because you are inhibiting the ‘real’ you. The last crucial component is congruence, which is how much internal conflict there is in ourselves or how much denial of self we are experiencing. If we are a naturally happy, artistic, individual with no care for governmental control we are not going to experience much congruence if we live in North Korea and suppress our true self all the time. It is best if we can accept our ‘natural’ selves and freely express it to maximize congruence.
One small but very interesting segment of the chapter examined evil in society. What if an individual’s self actualization is evil? We should probably not encourage them to realize it. The ongoing debate over evil is whether or not it is innate, how much of the population is like this, and what drives this behavior? Most humanists hold that people are born good, but that the society/environment around them corrupts them into behaving evil, so, basically, everyone has the potential to be good or bad. What these individuals suggest is that people will either develop a malevolent or benevolent value system, or a system of rules and values that motivate them to do good or evil. If parents do not provide their children with a benevolent value system then their children will develop one from other sources, for good or bad. This was really encouraging for me as a Christian. God lays out the 10 commandments which assume that we are not born good but rather evil and these rules seek to restrain our evil behavior. Being God knew we would violate these commands in every way he sent his son Jesus who lived his whole life without breaking them. Jesus then switched spots with us and took the punishment that we deserved, and now we are seen by God as he saw Jesus, perfect. Telling people to love God above everything else and to love their neighbor as themselves is clearly a benevolent value system that I will certainly pass on to my children.
Last reading Blog!!!!
Terms: self-actualization, Maslow, hierarchy of needs, holism, positive psychology, competency, deficiency motivation, goal motivation, humanist, Carl Rogers, actualization tendency, feedback, conditions of worth, self, congruence, evil, malevolent/benevolent value system
In chapter fifteen of the book Reeves talks about growth motivation and positive psychology. The first topic discussed was about holism and positive psychology. Holism says that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than as a series of differentiated parts operating apart from one another. Essentially it is not separate body parts wanting their own needs, but the whole body working towards a common need. So it is not just the stomach that needs and wants food. The brain activates while the saliva and teeth help chew, stomach digests, intestines absorb nutrients and turn food to energy, muscles use energy, and colon disposes of waste. These are only a few, but all parts of the body are motivated towards the need and fulfilling it. This is why holism or “whole” is used to describe the motivated body. Positive Psychology is basically the report of positive benefits that are reaped from healthy lifestyles and good choices. This is a relatively new idea that accompanies the holism approach. Overall well-being and happiness are paramount in this orientation.
Next Reeves goes on to discuss the idea of self-actualization which is the process of dismissing all negative things like being closed-minded, shy, defensive appraisals, and an ongoing dependence on those around the individual. The goal with self-actualization is that eventually you find the opposite of those things and create a courageous, positive appraising, independent individual. Reeves talks about two directions towards self-actualization and they are autonomy and openness to experience. In his description he says that autonomy is the trip one takes from dependence to independence both behaviorally and emotionally. The landing spot is control over one’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Talking about openness he says that it is taking information from dialog, events, etc and not dealing with it in an indirect, suppressed, or negative manner, but rather makes the most out of the situation or at least be open to interpretation and not just assumptions. When talking about this model it is formed as a pyramid called the Hierarchy of Human Needs with easier tasks on bottom to complete before reaching self-actualization at the top. At the bottom are things such as growth development which goes hand in hand with the topics discussed earlier.
In addition to self-actualization Reeves discusses the emergence of the “self” to begin with. The self only emerges after growth begins and the individual begins to develop a full understanding of who they are and what circumstances they find themselves in. Parallel with growing they are conditions of worth that are placed beforehand. There are two types of behaviors that are judged. They are positive and worth to accept or negative and rejected. Congruence is described with the material as the extent to which someone reacts in the positive acceptance or the negative rejected. However, not everyone reacts in accordance with their true feelings. These facades are disguised behaviors and reactions that are faked for social relevance or acceptance to spur on the motivation for social acceptance
The next sections talked about causality orientations and growth seeking. There are two types of causality orientations discussed. One is autonomy causality orientation which describes how much habit is the reason for seeking internal guides such as needs, interests, etc. Control causality orientation refers to the extent that individuals habitually rely on external guides like what they have learned from society and value from elders and peers. Reeves then goes on the discussing growth seeking. Inside this discussion there is a difference between growth seeking vs. validation seeking. Growth seeking individuals center their personal strivings around learning, improving, and becoming the best they can be. Validation seekers do exactly what the title alludes to. They want to get appraisal from others of show themselves they are better by comparison. This is competitiveness at its saddest.
In the end of the chapter there are several topics that are volleyed around for opinion. He looks at interpersonal relationships are how they can create warmth and pleasure from human contact. Interpersonal relationships help self-actualizing tendencies through helping others, relating to others, learning, and defining the self. Another part took us towards humanistic thinker’s view on inherent evil in people. How much of it is really inherent and why do we do it? Many think we are good and that evil comes from mistreatment by others. On the flip side optimism is believed by many and many participate in exercises that promote feelings of happiness. These are all many qualities of humanistic thinking and like other schools of thought they have their criticisms.
Terms: holism, positive psychology, self-actualization, hierarchy of human needs, self, conditions of worth, congruence, facades, causality orientations, optimism, meaning, growth seeking, validation seeking, interpersonal relationships, humanistic thinking.
In chapter 15 the book talks about growth motivation and positive psychology. The first two things that we are introduced book to are holism and positive psychology. Holism states that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than as a series of differentiated parts, thus coming from the name “whole” or “wholeness”. So when say, someone feels hungry it’s not just their stomach that is motivated and affected but the entire body. Positive psychology is a newly emerging field and follows along the same subject matter as holism. It focuses on the vision of a good life and what makes life worth living. That actions lead to experiences of well-being and develop the individual in a positive way. The thing that sets positive psychology apart from holism is its reliance on hypothesis-testing, data based empirical research.
The next section talks about self-actualization. The process of moving forward in life to realize one’s own talents, capacities, and potentials. In doing this one relies on autonomy, the moving away from heteronomy and depending on one’s self and on openness to new experiences. This is where the hierarchy of human needs comes into play by Maslow to demonstrate. The way this is arranged is by strength with the (more essential and urgent) needs at the bottom developing sooner and in fulfilling order. The four needs that make up the bottom (physiological, security, belongingness, and esteem needs) are known as the deficit needs. Only when these deficits get met can one’s growth needs be pursued (self-actualization) to fulfill one’s potential. Although this theory is still popular today, there is little support behind it. Leaving only the support from the duel-level hierarchy, which separates deficit from growth needs.
The section following covered actualizing tendency. A proposal that we judge experiences based on whether they promote or reverse growth and act based on those judgments, in a process known as the organismic valuation process. First it talks about the emergence of the self, a complex growth that needs approving feedback from others (positive regard). We receive this positive regard when we experience conditions of worth. These conditions are behaviors that are judged as either positive and worthy of acceptance or negative and worthy of rejection. This process of worth creates a conflict between actualization and self-actualization, in that we must choose between our internalized natural temperaments and social expectations by our parental conditions of positive regard (organismic values) or the outer conditions of worth. Then there is congruence, the extent to which the individual denies and rejects or accepts the full range of his or her personal characteristics, abilities, desires or beliefs. When an individual trade their true selves for socially acceptable self facades take form. A social mask that someone wears and it relates to ways of behaving that have little do with inner guides and much to do with a social front to hide behind.
Causality orientation refers to one’s behavioral regulation. There are two kinds of guides that regulate behavior that are adopted from an outer social guide and environmental incentives. First is autonomy causality orientation, were the individuals habitually rely on their intrinsic motivations. Second is control causality orientation which is based more on external needs and goals (extrinsic motivation).The way in which we interpret our experiences creates meaning, which affects purpose, values, and efficacy. In order to have a healthy life one must have a health interpersonal relationship. In order to do this one must be able to reflect on the following characteristics: warmth, genuineness, empathy, interpersonal acceptance, and confirmation of the other person’s capacity for self-determination. Relationships are also a big part of supporting ones needs to self-actualize. Lastly comes the evil side of positive psychology. It first assumes that humans are naturally good and will reject evil if given the proper feedback, second, is that these concepts are vague, which makes for a difficult description. Finally, there is an unclear specific differentiations of right and wrong, they are from our true feelings or social influence?
Terms: growth motivation, temperaments, positive psychology, humanistic psychology, holistic approach, Maslow’s hierarchy, growth needs, deficit needs, dual-level hierarchy, organismic valuation process, emergence of self, positive regard, conditions of worth, congruence, façade, intrapersonal relationships, causality orientation, meaning, potential, capacities
Chapter 15, entitled “Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology”, discusses people’s biological temperaments and the problems they can face if environmental events disturb their inner nature (essential core).
We begin with the topic of holism, introduced originally by Aristotle. This viewpoint states that each human is a reflection of his or her person as a whole rather than the individual parts which make it up. The example given in the textbook states that if a man is hungry, it is his whole self which desires food, not just his stomach. The stomach is merely a part of the whole system of man. According to holism, the “top-down” approach explains human motivation rather than the “bottom-up” approach. In other words, man as a whole entity can explain how the general motives (or master motives) influence the smaller, less significant ones lower down on the totem of human motives. The holistic approach states that human strive toward self-actualization and fulfillment, causing each person to work towards his or her utmost potential and development in life. This perspective, called humanistic, strives towards 1) growth and self-realization, and 2) away from fulfilling others’ expectations or self-concealment.
Holism relates with a newer psychological field of study called positive psychology. Just as the name implies, positive psychology includes the development of positive individuals who act in discovering experiences such as optimism, nurturing communities and involvement in such, talent, creativity, hope, self-determination, civility, love, and perseverance to name a few. This field of study is very scientifically involved as compared to humanistic psychology, which does not emphasize on empirical research and hypothesis testing as positive psychology does. Positive psychology works toward bettering individuals and reversing negativity. In bettering ourselves, we try to achieve self-actualization, which focuses on autonomy and openness to experience, leaving behind dependence on others and brings forth courage and mindfulness.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a motivational proposition most everyone has encountered in their studies. This pyramid-shaped illustration of human needs and their importance includes self-actualization as the top position in the growth needs. As we move down toward the base of the hierarchal pyramid, we discover needs such as esteem, love, belongingness, safety, and basic physiological needs. The top begins with needs related to and necessary for healthy growth and descend to those needs which are needed for survival and, if neglected, lead to deficiency. The needs located at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy are those which cause the most urgency and are felt more strongly than the growth needs at the peak of the pyramid. The self-actualization needs are those needed to make a person who she or he is or will become.
Data research has found support when using a two-tier hierarchy rather than Maslow’s 5-level, stating that only growth and deprivation are necessary regarding distinction of needs; this would mean merging belongingness/love, security/safety, and esteem needs into one unit, making physiological needs one large category and self-actualization the other, thus corresponding to empirical research.
According to Maslow, 99% of the human population does not reach self-actualization during their lifetime. Striving for complete self-emergence may lead to stress, anxiety, depression, and so forth. It is much easier to simply live life more safely, and just accomplish whatever is necessary for acceptable competence, for in order to achieve self-actualization, one must follow these six steps or behaviors: 1) make growth choices, 2) be honest, 3) situationally position yourself for peak experiences, 4) give up defensiveness, 5) let the "self" emerge, and 6) be open to experiences. Although it has been theorized that self-actualization is inherently innate, many do not accomplish it, even though we all may try to.
We are all judged on our personal characteristics and behaviors from the time we are born, and this causes us to learn the “conditions of worth”. According to the Rogerian Model of the Process of Self-Actualization the organismic valuation process begins at birth where the child begins to learn about themselves from parents and other adults, which either fosters or neglects the individual’s needs for positive self-regard. Through socialization experiences, that child learns what to do and not to do. During this process, unconditional valuation is needed for the fully functional person who accepts his or her full-range of abilities, beliefs, who trusts her inner direction to eventually emerge rather than incongruence from conditional organismic valuation of the individual.
Relying on internal guides to explain motivational behavior leads people to adopt an autonomy causality orientation. On the other hand, to rely on the external guides, including social cues, one is said to have adopted a control causality orientation. An example of these two orientations is when a person takes on a new job position and contemplates whether he will like the work he does, which relates to autonomy, and then if he will make more money than at his last job, which corresponds with the control orientation, according to the General Causality Orientations Scale by Deci and Ryan. The control orientation reflects a quasi-need in the last example since the man wanted to make money. This represents validation-seeking behavior.
Relationships support the self-actualization tendency by way of helping others, giving people the freedom to learn, providing us with social definition and determination, and aiding in our striving to feel relatedness with others.
Evil, the chapter explains, is the voluntary and deliberate infliction of pain and/or suffering on someone without respect for his or her humanity. Some theorists think evil is innate, while others think evil is adopted by people as a result of experience.
Sometimes personal growth can be stunted by too much optimism. But optimism aids in healthy lives and better psychological well-being as opposed to negativity. Existentialism considers such things as isolation and meaninglessness in an indifferent universe, Chapter 15 states. Two studies have emerged; one study involves pessimism by Sartre, the other- optimism by Victor Frankl. Regarding motivation, the meaning of life is said to stem from three needs: 1) purpose, 2) values, and 3) efficacy.
There are two types of happiness this chapter discusses; one is eudaimonic, the other is hedonic. When experiencing pleasure without problems, being fully engaged, and living a relaxed and good life, one is experiencing hedonic happiness. Positive Psychology therapies, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, exists to further foster the positive self-actualization process and recommendations for this program include four happiness exercises: 1) gratitude visit, 2) discovering three good things in life, 3) recalling you at your best, and 4) listing your best strengths.
A criticism for self-actualization includes the question of how one person know what he or she really needs. One person may find a certain need much more important on the road to self-discovery than another might. These differences may be socialized, quasi-needs, adopted from parents or other influential adults during the learning process. This is an interesting concept to me, as we are all different in our opinions and the way we learn, as well as what we are taught. I would still say that overall, positive approaches are an asset to higher emotional well-being and lower psychological distress in life.
Chapter 15 was about Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology. The chapter starts out about humanistic psychology, more specifically holism and positive psychology and the idea of identifying and developing the human potential. Positive psychology looks at people’s mental health and how they live their lives to ask, “What could be?” Positive psychology helps build people’s strengths and competencies in addition to psychological wellness. It looks at the good life vision and uses psychology to see what makes life worth living. Holism comes from the word “wholeness” and is the study of what is healthy and unbroken.
Self-actualization happens when the full realization happens for someone on how to use their talents, capabilities, and potentials to the fullest. Maslow created his hierarchy of needs and within it differentiated between deficiency needs and growth needs. Deficiency needs are the physiological needs for safety, belongingness, and esteem. Growth needs are the satisfaction of all of the defiencency needs. For example, rather than feeling insecure, someone may feel a need to fulfill personal potential. Regardless of his popularity on this topic, the book states that there is little support for the need for hierarchy.
Rogers felt that the actualizing tendency coordinated all other motives so it served as the purpose of enhancing and actualizing the self. With socialization children learn to conditions of worth on which their behavior and personal characteristics are judged. Because of this we all live in two different worlds, which the book describes as the inner world of actualizing tendencies and organismic valuation and the outer world of social priorities, conditions of worth and conditional regard. The term congruence is when accepts the full range of his or her personal charachteristics and desires and incongruence is when he or she denies and rejects their personal qualities. The congruent and fully functional person is close to the actualizing tendency and therefore had a good sense of autonomy, openness to experience and personal growth.
Causality orientations are the extent of self determination in the personality and reflect differences in people’s understanding of what causes and regulates their behavior. For example, a person with an autonomy-causality orientation, the behavior happens because of the needs and interests and is because of a personal choice, but for the person with a control-causality orientation, inner guides are ignored when the behavior starts, they also usually have less positive functioning than autonomy controlled individuals. For example, in the losing weight behavior these individuals would not have as good of results because they don’t have very good long term maintenance of behavioral changes/
Validation seeking individuals strive to prove their self-worth, competence and likeability, whereas growth seeking individuals center their striving on learning, improving and reachin personal potential. Validation seeking people are more vulnerable to anxiety and depression.
Interpersonal relationships support the actualizing tendency in four ways; hekping others, relating to others in authentic ways, promoting the freedom to learn, and defining the self. These relationships are defined by a warmth, genuineness, empathy, and interpersonal acceptance.
Terms Used:holism, positive psychology, hierarchy of needs, self-actualization, deficiency needs, growth needs, actualizing tendency, congruence, incongruence, causality orientations, relatedness, competency, self definition
Chapter fifteen discusses the idea of positive psychology and how the idea of holism and the reflection of the whole are different than the individual parts. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is in direct relation to us being motivated with different tasks in our life. I strongly agree with the idea of self-actualization and the definition that the reason for people not wanting to self-actualize is because they are scared of our abilities. When we successfully are able to fulfill our needs we are then able to more than likely self-actualize. As humans are our ability of autonomy is very beneficial for when we strive to develop and realize our abilities and potential. By developing and focusing on ourselves as a whole we are able to grow in a more positive manner rather than focusing on individual aspects.
Causality orientations are ways in which people understand the perception of their behavior. There are two types of causality orientations, for people who rely on internal guides such as needs and interests are considered to have an autonomy causality orientation. People who rely on more external cues such as social context or involvement are considered having control causality orientations. The type of causality orientation reflects the individual’s personality and their motivational ability. Our ability and personal motivation ability shows how our personality and ways in which we are able to successfully develop. Growth-seeking in comparison to validation-seeking is more individually based, people like this work to better them so they then can better the people and situation they are involved with. People who strive for external validation use the things they are involved in as a source of growth and it is very much looking for these situations as a way in which they are personally benefiting them.
Interpersonal relationships and the ability to self-actualize are related because during the development of relationships people are looking for positive encouragement from the other people involved. Conceptualizing who you are can be done through relationships as well and for people specifically women who are able to self-define are more positively affected and then more positively radiate themselves in relationships. I find this as the most interesting part because the idea of how positive relationships can be for an individual but how the effects of evil in a society can affect how a person develops. How much of society is evil they say? Society has socially constructed how we perceive things and this affects how we make decision and what we do, but I also agree with the idea that humans are inherently good and that evil arises. Society has created this evil because it has constantly influenced how we do things.
Terms: positive psychology, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-actualization, growth, holistic, emergence of the self, causality orientation, autonomy causality orientation, control causality orientation, growth-seeking, validation-seeking, actualization tendency, interpersonal relationships, self-definition, social definition, society and evil.
Chapter 15 is titled “Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology”. The main concepts discussed in this chapter include; holism and positive psychology, self-actualization, actualizing tendency, causality orientations, growth-seeking versus validation-seeking, how relationships support the actualizing tendency, the problem of evil and positive psychology and growth. The term “holism” derives from the word “whole” therefore concerns itself with the study of what is healthy. Humanistic psychology is about discovering human potential and encouraging its development and in order to accomplish this, the humanistic perspective concerns striving toward growth and self-realization and away from façade, self-concealment, and the pleasing and fulfilling of the expectations of others. The idea of positive psychology is relatively new in the Psychology world. 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. The goal is to show what actions lead to experiences of well-being, to the development of positive individuals who are optimistic and resilient, and to the creation of nurturing and thriving institutions and communities. Positive psychology literally looks and examines a person and asks, “What could be?” This outlook presents the opportunity for success in a person.
Self-actualization is an inherent developmental striving. Two fundamental directions that characterize self-actualization as a process are autonomy and openness to experience. Autonomy means moving away from heteronomy and toward an ever-increasing capacity to depend on one’s self and to regulate one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Openness means receiving information such that it is not repressed, ignored, or filtered, nor distorted by wishes, fears, or past experiences. Through openness, one leaves behind timidity and defensive appraisals and moves towards greater mindfulness, the courage to create, and realistic appraisals. Through autonomy, one leaves behind a dependence on others and moves toward self-realization. Maslow created a hierarchy of needs in order to explain how to achieve self-actualization. The hierarchy of needs from bottom to top are; physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. After research was conducted on this theory the three main findings were; reject the five-level hierarchy, collapse the physiological, safety, belongingness and esteem needs into the single category of deficiency needs and hypothesize a simplified, two-level hierarchy distinguishing only between deficiency and growth needs.
Causality orientation involves individuals relying on external guides such as social cues. The control orientations involve a relative insensitivity to inner guides, as control-oriented individuals prefer to pay closer attention to behavioral incentives and social expectations. When control oriented, people make decisions in response to the presence and quality of incentives, rewards, social expectations, and social concerns. Causality orientations reflect self-determination in the personality. Hence, self-determination theory explains the origins and dynamics of causality orientations.
The Goal Orientation Inventory measures validation-seeking and growth-seeking strivings as relatively enduring personality characteristics. The respondent is asked to agree or disagree on whether the item describes how he or she thinks and acts in general. Another name for validation seeking is the intentional, deliberate, and bend-over-backwards pursuit of high self-esteem. The pursuit of high self-esteem, while understandable, is fraught with important and debilitating long-term costs, including costs to one’s personal autonomy, sacrifices to one’s learning, costs to one’s relationships with others, costs to physical health and costs to mental health.
The most interesting thing that I took away from the chapter was the idea of positive psychology. It looks at people’s mental health and their quality of life and asks “What could be?” This is important because my future job will be dealing with individuals that have either mental health issues or behavioral problems. Having an optimistic outlook will help people maintain a sense of hope and well-being.
I have been in college for 4 years now, studying primarily psychology along with other electives and such. Surprisingly, I have never heard of holism. Holism is a simply understanding the individual as a whole, rather than differentiated parts. This is a simple concept because it is referring to the parts of our body being one, not separate. If our leg, stomach, back, etc. hurts, it affects the person, not just that body part. By studying people in this way, I think we are more applicable to find deeper problems. If we only know about one problem, we may not be considering the five others that are also bothering them.
I thought it was interesting to learn about the difference between positive psychology and Humanistic psychology despite their commonalities. Positive psychology focuses on hypothesis-testing, data based empirical research. Everyone wants to have a positive life, however many have trouble getting themselves there. Positive psychology looks at “what could be” in any situation. Although self-actualization is inherent, people have tendencies to put themselves down, and think of the negatives, instead of focusing on the autonomy and openness.
The hierarchy of human needs can be related to deprivation. Needs that are low on the hierarchy are more desired. Just like when human beings are deprived of anything such as water, food, socialization and the like, we feel an urgency to fulfill that need and become satiated from it. I also thought it was interesting to read that although Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is very popular in the education system, it had minimal empirical support. This is surprising because nowadays, anything that can’t be backed up usually falls between the cracks.
Conditions of worth are like learning what is right and wrong. This is how we have such a diverse culture. The environment we grow up in and the parental conditions of worth that we incorporate into our own lives because we are sensitive to their positive regard, has everything to do with why there is so much diversity. Those who stray from their indigenous beliefs have chosen to be incongruent of their culture.
The book mentioned growth seeking versus validation seeking. It sounded like we are one or the other, either you are an individual that centers their personal strivings on learning, improving, and reaching your potential (growth seeking), or you strive off the approval of others (validation seeking). I personally think that we all have a little of both. One may be more apparent than the other, but even people who are growth seeking individuals’ desire social approval; it is after all one of our inherent needs. Whether it is approval from our parents, teachers, friends, bosses, significant other, we all want some social approval.
My sister and I are similar in many ways, but when it comes to our well-being we differ. My sister, has a hedonic well-being, she is comfortable with life and likes to avoid adventure at all costs in hopes nothing bad will ever happen. On the other hand, I have a eudaimonic well-being because I seek out adventure and challenges, such as higher schooling. I am never content with like, there is always something else out there that I haven’t tried yet. The three antecedents of eudaimonic well-being are wealth and materialism, attachment and relationships, and pursuit of personal goals. Although I am a broke college student at the moment, I will still work for anything I want until I can afford it. I have great relationships and I can’t think of any failed personal goals.
Terms: Holism, positive psychology, humanistic psychology, hypothesis-testing, self-actualization, autonomy, openness, hierarchy of human needs, deprivation, satiated, socialization, parental conditions of worth, positive regard, incongruent, social approval, growth-seeking, validation-seeking, hedonic well-being, eudaimonic well-being, personal goals, antecedents
This chapter was about humanistic psychology and how it stresses the notions of inherent potentialities, holism, and strivings towards personal fulfillment. It explains that the type of psychology is about identifying and developing human potential. Positive psychology looks at people’s mental health and how they live their lives and also seeks to build people’s strengths and competencies to cultivate psychological wellness. The next thing that the chapter introduced was self-actualization which is the full realization and use of one’s talents, capacities, and potentialities. Maslow made the distinction between deficiency needs and growth needs in his need hierarchy. His contribution to contemporary motivation study is not in the hierarchy but rather in his insights about why people fail to self-actualize and what actions they can take to encourage personal growth toward self-actualization. Next is the actualizing tendency which is a fundamental need that coordinates all other motives to serve as the collective purpose of enhancing and actualizing the self. When socializing, children learn societal conditions of worth on which their behavior and personal characteristic are judged. This means that that we live in two worlds, the inner world of the actualizing tendencies and organismic valuation and the outer world of social priorities, conditions of worth, and conditional regard. When people move away from organismic valuing and toward external conditions of worth, they adopt facades and reject or deny personal characteristics, preferences, and beliefs. Congruence is when a person accepts their full range of personal characteristics and desires whereas incongruence is the extent to which a person denies and rejects personal qualities. A congruent person is fully functioning and lives in close proximity to the actualizing tendency and therefore experiences a marked sense of autonomy, openness to experience, and personal growth. The next think that the book talks about is causality orientations and how they reflect the extent of self-determination in the personality and concern differences in people’s understanding of what causes and regulates their behavior. A person with an autonomy-causality orientation has behavior that arises in response to needs and interests with a full sense of personal choice and experience relatively greater positive functioning including long-term maintenance of behavioral changes such as losing weight where as a person with a control-causality orientation has behavior that arises in response to external expectations and controls and inner guides are relatively ignored. A strong commitment to societal conditions of word leads people into a process of seeking validation from others. In social interactions validation-seeking individuals strive to prove their self-worth, competence, and likeability and also are more vulnerable to experiencing anxiety and depression whereas growth-seeking individuals center their strivings on learning, improving, and reaching personal potential. Another topic discussed in chapter 15 is interpersonal relationships. These support the actualizing tendency in four ways: helping others such as therapy, relating to others in authentic ways, promoting freedom to learn such as education, and defining the self. Evil is a problem that humanistic thinkers battle about how much is human nature and why some enjoy the suffering of others. Some think that evil is not inherent in human nature and that human nature is inherently good and evil is only present when experiencing injuries and damages. Others assume that both benevolent and malevolence are inherent in everyone and human nature needs to internalize a benevolent value system before it can avoid evil. Positive psychology seeks to build people’s strengths and competencies and makes them the subject matter of the study. Pollyanna optimism, unscientific concepts and unknown origins of inner guides are some of the criticisms of humanistic understandings.
I thought the most interesting topic that was discussed in the chapter was evil and the argument for whether or not in was part of our human nature. It is interesting to think how evil some people can behave and that some people actually enjoy to see others suffering. There must be something biologically wrong to make this the case simply because it is hard to believe that some people could randomly choose such evil behaviors.
Chapter 15 mostly deals with the idea that if an individuals inner nature is disturbed, they become ill, and if the person’s inner nature is appreciated, they become healthy. Holism promotes the idea that we should not look at people as a bunch of different parts; we should look at them as a whole. Holism suggests that if an event affects one aspect of our self, it affects the whole self. Personal growth is everyone’s main motivation. Chapter 15 then talked about positive psychology’s growth into an actual field. Positive psychology uses research to find what makes like worth living.
Self-actualization is the movement towards fulfilling all of a person’s potential. Someone who has achieved self-actualization is autonomous. There is a hierarchy of needs before reaching self-actualization. The needs in the hierarchy are arranged by way of importance, how early the need develops and are fulfilled in order. The needs are physiological needs, safety and security, love and belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization. Physiological needs and safety and security needs are considered deficiency needs because without them, we cannot grow and develop as we are supposed to. Growth needs emerge once deficiency needs have been met. Growth needs energize and direct our behavior in ways that lead us to achieve all that we can. After extensive research on the topic, psychologists suggest that the need hierarchy should not be a five level hierarchy. The physiological, safety, belongingness, and esteem needs should be categorized into a group called deficiency needs. The hierarchy would then be a two level hierarchy made up of deficiency needs and growth needs. Maslow suggests that only 1% of the population achieves self-actualization. Carl Rogers looked into actualizing tendency and suggested that it constantly present in everyone. When the self emerges, the individual gains a second strong motivational force, the self-actualizing tendency. We are children when we learn about conditions of worth. Our behaviors and personalities are judged based on conditions of worth that label them as positive or negative. Once this happens, people either live in the two worlds of actualization tendencies and the world of social priorities. When people understand their personal characteristics, they are congruent. An incongruence emerges when they reject these things.
Some people believe that their inner guides are what regulate their behavior. These people have an autonomy causality orientation. Some people rely on external cues to regulate their behavior. These people have a control causality orientation. People that need approval from society are validation-seeking individuals. They try to prove to people that they are likeable and competent in their social interactions. Growth-seeking individuals work towards their personal potential.
Relationships play a large role in actualizing tendency. Relationships should have warmth, genuineness, empathy, unconditional positive regard, and help the other see that they are competent and full of potential. Another topic in humanistic research is evil. There is a divide in humanistic researchers. Some believe that all humans are innately good and that evil only arises from environmental damages to the person. Other researchers believe that both good and evil are present in every person.
Many of us do not see ourselves realistically. Generally, we believe we are much better at everyday things that everyone else. This positivity is beneficial to mental health, but can also harm people. The positivity can be thought of as optimism. Optimism gives people a sense of hope and can be taught and learned. There are two types of happiness, hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic happiness is pleasure and living a good life. Eudaimonic happiness involves seeking out challenges and feeling fully alive. There are three types of eudaimonic happiness. They are the pursuit of wealth, relationships, and personal goals.
Terms: Holism, Positive Psychology, Self-Actualization, Autonomous, Hierarchy of Needs, Physiological Needs, Safety and Security, Love and Belongingness, Esteem, Deficiency Needs, Growth Needs, Actualizing Tendency, Self-Actualizing Tendency, Conditions of Worth, Congruence, Incongruence, Autonomy Causality Orientation, Control Causality Orientation, Validation-seeking, Growth-seeking, Evil, Hedonic Happiness, Eudaimonic Happiness.
Chapter 15 starts off talking about Holism and humanistic psychology. To reach a whole or holist life people need to strive toward growth and self-realization and away from façade, and the pleasing or fulfilling of the expectations of others. And then it goes on to talk about positive psychology. An easy way to describe positive psychology is to ask yourself, “What could be?” Positive psychology wants to build off people’s strengths and help their weaknesses so a person can reach psychological wellness.
The chapter then goes on to explain self-actualization. This is an inherent development striving, so people realize their talents and how to use them to the full potential. The two directions that characterize self-actualization are autonomy and openness. There are six different behaviors that encourage self-actualization which are: make growth choices, be honest, situationally position yourself for peak experiences, give up defensiveness, let the self emerge, and be open to experience. Maslow’s Need Hierarchy comes into play with deficiency needs and growth needs. Deficiency needs are the things people need in live to survive, like food and water. Growth needs are things that make a person happy and content when their deficiency needs are met. Carl Rogers explains the actualizing tendency in the chapter. This is something that quietly guides people and their choices.
Causality orientations are different for each person. There is autonomy causality orientation which is when people rely on internal guides and there is control causality orientation where people rely on external guides to form their lives. Causality orientations reflect self-determination in personality. If people rely too much on external guides and validation from others it can impact their self-worth. It is good for others to have interpersonal relationships because having interpersonal relationships can help in four ways: helping others, relating to others in authentic ways, promoting freedom to learn, and defining the self.
I found this chapter very interesting in how I might view myself and others. I need to work on my self-actualization, meaning I need to work off my strengths and not worry about my weaknesses so much because my strengths can overpower my weaknesses any day! A lot of smaller parts make up this whole or humanistic people. There needs to be self-actualization, along with causality orientations among other things to help people achieve positive psychology.
Chapter talks about growth motivation and positive psychology, hints the title. The book starts off talking about holism, humanistic psychology, and positive psychology. Holism concerns itself with the study of what is healthy, or unbroken. Holism drives from the word “whole” and has to deal with the whole self from top to bottom. Humanistic psychology is about discovering human potential and encouraging its development. The humanistic perspective concerns striving toward growth and self-resolution and away from façade, self-concealment and the pleasing and fulfilling of expectations of others. Positive psychology seeks to articulate the vision of good life, and it uses the empirical methods of psychology to understand what makes life worth living. Basically, positive psychology looks at people’s mental health and how they live their lives and ask “What could be?”
Next the book talks about self-actualization and hierarchy of human needs. Self-actualization is an inherent development striving. 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. There are two fundamentals that are associated with self-actualization, autonomy and openness. Autonomy means moving away from heteronomy and toward an ever-increasing capacity to depend on one’s self and to regulate one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Openness means receiving information such that is neither repressed, ignored, or filter, nor distorted by wishes, fears, or past experiences. Self-actualization is at the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. The other five clusters are psychological needs, safety and security, love and belongingness, and esteem.
Next, the book talks about actualizing tendency. Carl Rogers believed that the actualizing tendency was innate; a continual presence that quietly guides an individual toward genetically determined potentials. Congruence and incongruence describe the extent to which an individual accepts or denies personal qualities. Congruence is when a person accepts the full range of his or her personal characteristics and desires, while, incongruence is when an individual denies or rejects personal qualities.
Next, the book talks about causality orientations. Causality orientations reflect the extent of self-determination in the personality and concern differences in people’s understanding of what cause and regulates their behavior. There are two categories for causality orientations, autonomy-causality orientations and control-causality orientations. Autonomy-causality orientations individuals’ behavior arises in response to needs and interests with a full sense of personal choice. Control-causality orientations individuals’ inner guides are relatively ignored as behavior arises in response to external expectations and controls.
Next, the book talks about growth-seeking individuals and validation-seeking individuals. Growth-seeking individuals center their strivings on learning, improving, and reaching personal potential, whereas, validation-seeking individuals strive to prove their self-worth, competence, and likability.
Interpersonal relationships support actualizing tendency four ways, helping others, relating to others, promoting freedom to learn, and defining the self. Helping others involves letting the other person discover, and then be him or herself. When it comes to relatedness to others, rather than being independent, selfish, and socially attached, self-actualizers are actually good citizens. For freedom to learn, learning follows having one’s interests identified, facilitated, and supported. Self-definition and social definition are personality process related to how individuals conceptualize who they are. Socially defined individuals accept external definitions of who they are; self-defined individuals resist these external definitions and instead favor internal definitions of the self.
Next the book talks about evil. Evil is the deliberate, voluntary, intentional infliction of pain suffering on another person without the respect for his or her humanity or personhood. Some humanistic thinkers argue that evil is not inherent in human nature, that human nature in inherently good and evil arises only when experience injuries and damages the person.
The final thing the book talks about is positive psychology. Positive psychology looks ate people’s mental health and the quality of their lives to ask “What could be?” It seeks to build people’s strength and competencies, and it makes the study of these strengths and competencies its subject matter.
The most interesting section of the chapter I thought was when it talked about causality orientations. I just found it interesting when it talked about the two categories of autonomy- causality orientations and control- causality orientations.
Terms used: holism, humanistic psychology, positive psychology, self-actualization, autonomy, openness, hierarchy of human needs, actualizing tendency, congruence, incongruence, causality orientations, autonomy-causality orientations, control-causality orientations, growth-seeking individuals, validation-seeking individuals, helping others, relating to others, promoting freedom to learn, defining the self, evil, positive psychology
Chapter 15 was about positive psychology and how a person develops. The first thing that the chapter talked about was the idea of holism. Holism says that natural systems should be viewed as whole and not a collection of their parts. According to holism a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather that a series of parts. It is the whole organism that is motivated and not single parts.
The next main section of the book talked about self-actualization. Self-actualization is an inherent developmental striving. It refers to a realization of ones talents, capacities, and potential. The first concept that explains self-actualization is the hierarchy of human needs. According to Maslow, need arrange themselves in the hierarchy according to potency or strength. The lower the need is, the stronger it is felt. I couldn’t help but compare this to the food pyramid. The things of the bottom are required more than the things on top and are more important to our diet. This is true with Maslow’s hierarchy in saying that physiological needs (bottom) are more important to us than self-actualization needs (bottom). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not actually correct from testing of his theories. It has been found that it is more like a two level hierarchy distinguishing between deficiency and growth needs.
Conditions of worth are important to the field of positive psychology in that we judge our personal characteristics as either positive or negative. This comes from role models in our life and we mold our behavior after them because we see what they see as good and as bad.
Causality orientation refers to one’s behavioral regulation. There are two kinds of guides that regulate behavior that are adopted from an outer social guide and environmental incentives. First is autonomy causality orientation, were the individuals habitually rely on their intrinsic motivations. Second is control causality orientation, which is based more on external needs and goals (extrinsic motivation). The way that we see our experiences create meaning, which affects our vales and purpose.
The last concept that the book talked about was that of evil. According to humanistic psychology, human nature is inherently good. Evil is the deliberate, voluntary, intentional infliction of painful suffering on another person without respect for his or her humanity of personhood. The argument that Roger made was with proper caretaking, that people would inevitably choose good over evil.
Chapter 15 is about growth motivation and positive psychology. Humanistic psychology is identifying and encouraging human potential. Holism is the study of what is healthy and unbroken. Positive psychology is very similar to humanistic psychology, in that this looks to build a person’s strengths and competencies. Some on these are well-being, contentment, enjoyment, optimism, meaning, love and courage; just to name a few. It asks, “What could be?”
This brings me to self-actualization, which is the full realization of a person’s talents, capacities, and potentialities. With positive psychology, a person can achieve self-actualization. Parts of this are autonomy and openness. Autonomy is the removing the reliance on other and gain dependence on one’s self. Openness is receiving information that isn’t repressed, ignored, filtered, or distorted by wishes, fears, and past experiences. Maslow’s Need Hierarchy assists in obtaining self-actualization. The pyramid has the lesser needs on the bottom and a person will gradually make their way to the top to accomplish the goal. What I got from this is that physiological needs take care of food, water, clothing, and other things we need to survive. Safety and security comes next meaning having a home, job for financial security, and other needs that assist with living comfortably. Love and belonging gets at what family, friends and significant others bring to our lives. We need socialization to be fulfilled. Next is esteem, referring to believing in ourselves. Lastly we reach self-actualization. I remember learning about this pyramid a few years ago and understanding that reaching that top would mean we have a peace of mind and a very great place to be.
Deficiency needs are physiological disturbances, and needs for safety, belongingness, and esteem. These are like vitamins, as the book explained; people need them because its absence hinders growth and development. If any deficiency occurs, it shows they are deprived. However, growth needs provide energy and direction to achieve what they are capable of.
Next, the book discusses the different view of a hierarchy. This version adapts more to growth of the mind instead of how the previous one had simple life needs. It encourages growth by changing the mindset. The first behavior explained said to look at life as a series of choices. This basically means to not allow the self to regress because of fear. “Be Honest” is the next one; it allows a person to be themselves and not live up to society. The next one urges you to explore potential. Trying things out just to see what you are not good at to learn potential. This next one forces you to face the challenges the world brings. It tells us to give up our defensiveness so we can put effort in to develop skills needed to be that person. “Let the Self Emerge” explains that we need to find ourselves, instead of looking to other to tell us who we are. Lastly, we need to experience life. Don’t be shy or worry about other’s thoughts; instead, do what you want without a care in the world.
Causality orientations have two parts, autonomy and control. In autonomy causality a behavior comes with needs and interests with the full sense of choice. Whereas, control- causality is inner guides being ignored when behavior comes. Higher positive results come from autonomy-oriented people because they are making the conscious choice instead of letting a response control the outcome.
Positive psychology helps to convert negative thinking. It doesn’t sugar coat things though. It focuses on strengths, which will help the person realize their potential. This, in turn, will create an outcome that will be positive. With the realization of their own potential, they will continue to grow and develop more positively.
I enjoyed this chapter a lot. I really like the new version of the hierarchy that was discussed. When I first learned about Maslow, I remember hearing that a person can bounce back and forth through the levels, which seems like it doesn’t create a sufficient use. The new one provides a different way to think of the situations life throws at you. I find it to be something I will try.
Terms used: humanistic, holism, positive psychology, self-actualization, autonomy, openness, Maslow’s Need hierarchy, deficiency needs, growth needs, autonomy-causality, contrl-causality
Chapter 15 covers information about motivation growth and positive psychology. Positive psychology focus' on the mental health of people and how we live our lives. Humanistic psychology falls into this category and includes potentialities and holism towards personal fulfillment. Humanistic psychology is about identify human potential. Self actualization is a developmental striving and a process of leaving behind timidity, defensive appraisals and dependence on others to create self regulation. There are two directions that help complete self actualization and they are the process of autonomy and openness to experience. Autonomy is something we've talked about before in this book because to refresh your memory it means increasing your capacity to depend on one's self and regulate one's feelings. The second process of self actualization is openness. Openness means receiving information that you don't ignore or repress by distorted wishes or past experiences. Both of these process's help us find our self actualization.
The Hierarchy of Human Needs is mentioned in this chapter. These needs can be clustered into five categories. These needs are grouped into a way that they represent something. The first set of needs are physiological needs and the other needs are psychological needs. The five hierarchy needs include, physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs and self actualization needs.
Encouraging growth was a big part of self actualization for Maslow because he thought that less than 1% of the population actually reached the stage of self actualization. What Maslow thought was that we are responsible for our own growth. People fail to reach their potential because of other external environment.
Causality orientation behavior arises in response to needs and interests with some personal choice. Someone who has control-causality orientation guides are ignored in response to expectations. Autonomy oriented individuals experience more positive functioning control oriented individuals.
Interpersonal relationships are relatively known by warmth, empathy and confirmation of other person's self determination provided by social climate. They support interpersonal relationships in four different ways. Helping others, relating to others, promoting the freedom to learn and defining the self are all characteristics of interpersonal relationships.
Chapter 15 focuses on Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology. The chapter opens by explaining the how people receive dual messages about how they should behave; biological predisposition and cultural expectations. Rejecting one’s nature to appease societal norms can hinder personal growth and psychological well-being. Cultural priorities are not always what is best for psychological health.
Humanistic and positive psychology express the meaning and importance of inner guides. Holism is the study of what is healthy, or 'whole.' A broken veiw approach sees the self as conflicting fragments while humanism identifies with the holistic approach. Humanism is commited to personal growth.
Positive psychology uses emperical methods of pschology to understand what makes life worth living. Its goal is to show what actions lead to positive living. It studies well being along with many other positive positive subjectice experiences, such as love and contentment. What seperates positive psychology from humanistic is that it is more rigorous in its emperical research.
Self actualization is an inherent developmental striving to achieve autonomous self regulation. The two fundamental directions that characterize self actualization are autonomy and openess to experience. These factors allow a person to depend on oneself for regulation of thoughts, feelings and behaviors and to recieve information without defensive appraisal.
Maslows heirarchy of needs helps to explain motivation. THe test heirarchy explains what needs are stronger and therefore felt most urgently. Deficiency needs are the most urgent and fulfilled first because their absence inhibits growth and development. These began with basic physiological needs and extend to esteem needs when these are fulfilled. Growth needs encourage growth motvation to fulfill presonal potential. Also referred to as self-actualization needs, they are apparent in peoples discontent with differences between what they can be and what they are.
There is discrepency in Maslows research. He believed self-acutalization was innate. If this was true, more people should reach a state of self-actualization. Humanistic psychology views all motivation as driven by tendency and striving to actualize, maintain and enhance the experiencing self. This means fulfillment of physiological needs and the need for belonging along with all other needs encourage motivation for the same cause. Rogers refers to self actualization as the forward thrust of life and also believed it innate. All experiences with the struggle involved with realizing ones potentail are evaluated with an 'oranismic valuation process.' The actualizing tendency motivates the individual to undertake challenging experiences and the organic valuation process interperets whether the behavior is growth promoting or not.
Humanistic psychology follows the assumption that 'human nature is inherently good.' This leads to the question 'how much of human nature is benevolent and how much is malevolent?' Evil is is deliberate infliction of pain on another person with disregaurd to his or her humanity. Power and control lead to violence and empathy and care lead to altuism. Other humanist see more ambiguity in the goodness of human nature. Benevolence exists, but so do malevolent personalities. Evil is veiw as evolving out of a person gradiose veiw of self and damaged concept of self.
Positive psychology looks at mental health and asks 'what could be?' It makes the case that strengths are as important as weaknesses and that resiliency is as important as vulnerability. Positive psychology encourages continuing self growth and the nurture of high-quality relationships leads to optimistic, purpose, meaning and eudaimonic well-being.
Chapter fifteen talked about positive psychology and how someone grows and develops as a person. Positive psychology is similar to humanistic psychology, but is more of a mental health basis, rather based on human potential. The book talks about how sickness can be a result of the inner nature of the person being frustrated or denied. Next, they talk about Holism, which asserts that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than as a series of differentiated parts. The book gives the example saying that the whole organism is motivated rather than just one part of the organism. Holism also states that any event that affects one system also affects the entire person. The goal of positive psychology is to show what actions lead to experience of well-being and to develop the individual in a positive way. It doesn’t focus on the bad or negative things in life, but rather on what makes someone happy.
The next part of the chapter talks about 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. It also refers to a better realization of one’s talents, capacities, and potentialities. Within self-actualization, there are 2 important directions. One is autonomy, which in this case means moving away from heteronomy and toward an ever-increasing capacity to depend on one’s self and to regulate one’s own thoughts and feelings. The other is openness to experience, which means receiving information such that it is neither repressed, ignored, or filtered, nor distorted by wishes, fears, or past experiences. The chapter talks about the hierarchy of human needs, which is shaped like a pyramid, and more specifically relevant to this part of the chapter, self-actualization is at the top. Self-actualization is followed by esteem needs, love and belongingness, safety and security, and physiological needs. (In that order from top to bottom)
The chapter talks about actualizing tendencies next, and how they relate to holism and self-actualization. Actualizing tendencies are when a person is being driven towards something, yet it is innate. It guides an individual towards their potential, and would come into play when an individual wants to experience new things and take on new challenges. According to Rogers, we all live in 2 different worlds. One is the inner world, and the other is the outer world of condition and worth. Then this section goes on to talk about congruence and incongruence. Congruence is when you accept your personal characteristics, and incongruence is when you reject your personal characteristics.
The last part of the chapter talks about how relationships are a big part of supporting ones needs to self-actualize. They support the actualizing tendency in 4 ways. The first way is by helping others when they function as an arena that allows people to mature, integrate, and be open to experience. The second way is by relatedness to others in authentic ways. The third way is to promote the freedom to learn. And, the fourth and final way is by defining the self.
TERMS: Positive Psychology, Humanistic Psychology, Holism, Self Actualization, Hierarchy of Needs, Actualizing Tendency, Inner and Outer World, Congruence and Incongruence, Autonomy, Openness.
Chapter 15 is about growth motivations and positive psychology. We will talk about holism and positive psychology, Self-Actualization, Actualizing tendency, Causality Orientations, Growth seeking vs. Validation seeking, How relationships support the actualizing tendency, the problem of evil and finally positive psychology.
Holism is concerned with the study of what is healthy or unbroken. Humanistic psychology identifies with holism. Humanistic psychology is about discovering human potential and encouraging its development. Two striving s are toward growth and self actualization and away from facade and self concealment. Positive psychology is a new field. The goal in this is to show what actions and behaviors lead to well being and development of positive people. Positive psychology is unlike humanistic psychology because it is more rigorous in testing and data collection. P.P. seeks to make people stronger and more productive.
Self Actualization is an inherent developmental striving. In this we move forward into being stronger, independent person and away from timidity and weakness. There are two fundamental directions, Autonomy and openness to experiences. Autonomy means moving away from heteronomy and towards dependence on yourself. Openness to experience is simply that, being open to opportunities. Self actualization also cover's Hierarchy of needs and specifically Maslow's interpretation. This is the needs arrange themselves from strongest and more important on the bottom and the weakest and less important on the top. Maslow says that it one of the tiers is not covered then we cannot progress to the other tiers. He also cites two types of needs, deficiency needs and growth needs. Deficiency is food, safety, love, esteem and growth needs are self actualization needs. The section also talks about six behaviors that encourage self actualization. Those are make growth choices, be honest, position yourself for peak experiences, give up defenses, let self emerge, and be open to experiences.
Actualization Tendency is believed to be an innate program that causes us to move forward and realize our potentials. This is the source of energy that motivates development to autonomy. The A.T. characterizes the individual as a whole. The person grows in complexity and begins to adopt a valuation process. Most importantly the person gains a second motivational forces the Self actualization tendency. This emergence of the self also prompts the need for positive regard. We also gains conditions of worth. This is how behavior is judged either positive or negative by the individual. It also expands to external forces as growth continues. The chapter talks about encourging this process with unconditional positive regard. We also talk about congruence, which is when we have a certain personality and in public we adopt another to fit in or work with social norms. All of the above mentioned makes a fully formed individual.
Causality Orientations are two different conditions which is the cause o certain behaviors in people. The two types are autonomy C.O. and Control C.O. ACO people rely on internal guides for their behavior and CCO people rely on external guides. It is better to me more ACO but individuals must have some CCO also.
Growth Seeking vs. Validation Seeking. This deals with needs of social approval. Growth seeking is when people validate their worth using opportunities to grow and succeeding. Validation seekers are those who use outside and social forces for validation. When presented with a failure and Validation seeker will suffer anxiety and depression. A Growth seeker sees the failure as an attempt to grow more and a personal challenge and approaches it with vigor.
How Relationships Support the Actualization Tendency. The title says it all in this one. The extent to which people develop towards congruence and adjustment depends on the quality of their relationships. Helping others helps you discover yourself and the other person to also discover themselves. We also need to think about relatedness to others or the extent to which a person accepts social conventions and accommodates oneself accordingly. A warning in this is we still need to have autonomy. Finally we need to have the freedom to learn anywhere and at anytime from anyone/thing. We should stress self discovery and self evaluation and refer to teachers as guides or facilitators. Finally we talk about self definition and social definition. These are personality processes related to how people conceptualize who they are. Socially defined people accept external definitions of who they are. Self defined people resist external definitions and favor internal definitions instead.
Next we talk about the problem of evil. Evil is deliberate, voluntary, intentional infliction of painful suffering on another person without respect for their humanity or person hood. The nature of where evil comes from is debated. We all need a value system to support and compliment valuation process.
Finally we come to Positive psychology and growth. P.P. looks at a person's mental health and quality of their lives and asks what could be. This aims to strengthen and build competency. Optimism is important and studies show that optimistic people live longer. This can be taught and learned. We gain meaning in our lives from growth of the self and our value systems. It also comes from purpose, values, and efficacy. This is an active process. In eudaimonic well being we have two types of happiness. Hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic is experienced through pleasure, absence of problems, and living the good life. Eudaimonic is the experience of seeking out challenge, exerting effort and gaining pleasure of this. Both are important. Three important antecedents of eudaimonic well being is wealth and materialism, attachment and relationships, and the pursuit of personal goals.
Terms: Holism, Positive Psychology, Self-Actualization, Conditions of worth, Emergence of self, congruence, casulaity orientations, growth seeking, validation seeking, helping others, relatedness, self definition, social definition, evil, optimism, meaning, eudaimonic, hedonic.
Chapter 15 focuses on positive psychology. Individual’s temperament is influenced by their biological temperament as well as societal values. Introverts that act in extravert ways receive more of the positive emotional benefits than introverts that act as introverts. Holism focuses on the person being motivated as a whole. It believes that the whole being of the person, not just one particular part, is motivated to a certain behavior. It unlike some of the other concepts we’ve discussed is a top down processing theory. The humanistic psychology approach goes along with holism in that its main points are to push the individual towards growth and self-realization as well as taking them away from trying to please others with their behaviors.
Positive psychology is a new area in psychology. It focuses on answering the question. What makes for a healthy mental life? It also wants to answer the question what makes life worth living. Positive psychology is very similar to humanistic psychology except for the fact that it is more scientifically based with hypothesis testing than humanistic psychology. With the research, positive psychologist want to find ways to build personal strengths and to avoid sickness.
Self-actualization is a process in which the individual has to leave behind their dependence on others and instead focusing more on one’s self through autonomous self-regulation. Self-actualization uses autonomy and openness to successfully reach this point. Self-actualization also comes up in psychologist, Maslow’s, research. Maslow created a hierarchy of needs that is shown in many psychology classes even though it does not have much empirical evidence to support certain parts of the theory. It is made up of safety and security, love and belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization. The hierarchy shows that when the need is closer to the bottom of needs, the stronger they are felt. The hierarchy also shows that the lower needs tend to show up earlier in an individuals life than the higher needs. Finally, it shows that the hierarchy needs to be fulfilled in a sequential order, psychological needs being at the bottom with self-actualization at the top. Maslow also had the idea of a disturbance in one’s needs as a deficit need. At any point where there is a deficit it keeps the individual from growing. On the other hand, when there is not a deficit, Maslow called these growth needs. These needs create the direction and energy to push the person towards their ideal self. There are also six behaviors that can lead to self-actualization. These behaviors are making choices related to growth, being honest, create a place where you will be able to obtain optimal experiences, give up defensiveness, let the inner self come out, and be open to new experiences. Rogers also believed much of what Maslow did. He described the source of energy from which autonomy grows and a push away from heteronomy comes from as actualization tendency. It helps the person keep going even in times of failure and take on new experiences. Another important concept that relates to self-actualization is emergence of the self. During this phase, the person becomes sensitive to the feedback from other. It creates a motivation fro the individual to need positive feedback through approval and acceptance.
Rogers expresses the idea of positive regard and how parents should use this unconditionally for their children to feel as though they are completely accepted for whom they are, positive and negative attributes. In life the child is formed through society’s view of what is good and bad. This is also evident when the adults in one’s life attempt to mold the individual to think and be like them. This is done through what is called conditional regard. It can be positive (giving love for obedience) or negative (taking away love for disobedience). Accepting society’s beliefs can have negative psychological affects. This can happen because of incongruence. This is a measure of how much a person rejects or accepts (congruence) their personal characteristics and abilities. They may see themselves in a certain way but express themselves in a different way in public. People may be motivated to behave in a certain way depending on their guides whether they are autonomy causality orientation or control causality orientation. For a person who relies on autonomy, they are more apt to use their needs and interest to guide decisions. Control causality orientation uses cues from the environment and what is expected of them through society’s eyes. They are also guided more by extrinsic motivation whereas autonomy individuals are motivated by intrinsic motivation. Whether the person is one or the other can depend on their personality.
Terms used: Holism, humanistic psychology, positive psychology, self-actualization, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, deficit needs, growth needs, actualization tendency, emergence of the self, unconditional positive regard, conditional regard, congruence, incongruence, autonomy causality orientation, control causality orientation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation,
Chapter 15 starts off discussing temperament and how there are two messages that tells us to behave socially. One of these is our biological temperament, and the other is from cultural priorities. There is a struggle when someone is introverted in that there are benefits to being extroverted. However, there is a risk when the person rejects their inner nature and tries to substitute a more socially acceptable extraverted style in its place. Holism is used to explain human motivation, by saying that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than just some part of the organism. Any event that affects one system affects the entire person. Positive psychology was discussed in the chapter as a newly emerging field in psychology that is attempting to articulate the vision of the good life, in order to determine what makes life worth living. Self-actualization was discussed as an ever-fuller realization of one’s talents, capacities, and potentialities. It encompasses two fundamental directions which are autonomy and openness.
The Hierarchy of Human Needs was also discussed in the chapter. In this Maslow suggests that human needs can be organized into five clusters. These needs included physiological needs, and all that encompass psychological needs, these include safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. While Maslow made some mistakes when theorizing deficiency needs, he was much more accurate with his ideas on growth needs. Maslow offered several everyday behaviors for encouraging growth and self-actualization. These include making growth choices, being honest, situationally positioning one-self for peak experiences, giving up defensiveness, letting the self emerge, and being open to experience. The actualization tendency was also discussed in the chapter because it motivates the individual to want to undertake new and challenging experiences. This tendency characterizes the individual as a whole. With the emergence of self, a person grows in complexity, and the organismic valuation process begins to apply not only to the organism as a whole but also to the self in particular. The emergence of self prompts the emergence of the need for positive regard. Positive regard is important, because it makes the individual sensitive to the feedback of others. Congruence was another concept discussed in the chapter. Congruence and incongruence were described as the extent to which the individual denies and rejects or accepts the full range of his or her personal characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. Causality orientation was also discussed in the chapter. This is how people very in their understanding of the forces that cause their behavior. This reflects self-determination in the personality. There are two types of causality orientation discussed in the chapter and these include autonomy and control. The difference between growth-seeking and validation-seeking was also brought up in the chapter. Growth seekers center their personal strivings on learning, improving, and reaching personal potential. On the other end, validation-seekers use interpersonal situations to test or measure their peers, employers, teachers, and romantic partners. The matter of evil was also discussed in the chapter. While some people over time believed that people were inherently good, it has become more apparent that benevolence and malevolence are a part of everyone. It is just that some people are higher on the evil side than others. Positive psychology was also discussed in the chapter. Positive psychology looks at people’s mental health and the quality of their lives to build strengths and competencies. Another aspect of this is optimism. While more people are neither realistic nor accurate in how they think, it has proven to be healthier and do more harm than good when people have wishful thinking and are more optimistic. There are two types of happiness, hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic well-being is the experience of pleasure, the absence of problems, and the living of a relaxed and good life while eudaimonic well-being is the experience of seeking out challenges, exerting effort, being fully engaged and experiencing flow in what one is doing.
One of the concepts in the chapter that I found to be very interesting was that of the facades. This is when people wear social masks that relate to ways of behaving that have little to do with inner guides and much to do with a social front to hide behind. There are psychological costs to keeping up this façade on a regular basis, which include proneness to maladjustment, including anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and hypoassertiveness. This got me thinking about waitresses who are expected to keep a constant smile for the customers. Many waitresses I see are always smiling; even though there are many times I can tell they are forcing it. I always thought it would be exhausting having to keep up that smile every day, even when they truly don’t feel like smiling. They work for tips, and unfortunately many people want to see the waitress happy, even when they are not. I do wonder though if people ever did any studies on groups of people in businesses that require the person to be happy and upbeat, always smiling, even when they don’t want to, in order to see if they have a higher population of those with psychological illnesses such as depression, anxiety, self-doubt, and hypoassertiveness.
Terms: biological temperament, cultural priorities, holism, positive psychology, self-actualization, openness, autonomy, Hierarchy of Human Needs, actualization tendency, positive regard, congruence, causality orientation, hedonic, eudaimonic
Chapter 15 talks about Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology. This chapter has a lot more happiness involved, more “positive psychology”. It covers the factors that influence someone’s full potential and the ability to grow mentally.
The chapter kicks off with Holism and Positive Psychology. Holism is regarded to the self as a whole. Holism takes the entire variable being measured and evaluates it, as a whole. Holism can be used to contrast various states that one would like to be at (ideal state) and one that they are currently at (current state). Positive psychology is the study of what makes life enjoyable for optimistic individuals. These individuals are generally happy and fairly resilient. Positive psychology seeks out and examines things like well-being, contentment, satisfaction, enjoyment, hope, flow, competence, and many more. Researchers try to further understand factors like these in order to more completely understand what makes people happy.
Self-Actualization is referred to next. Self-actualization is ones realization of their full potential and talents completely. It really stresses the maturation of an individual. Someone who is reaching self-actualization is becoming more independent and pursuing an autonomous lifestyle that makes them original. Individuals in this stage are starting to concentrate on tasks and activities that they are good at and that make them happy.
Self-actualization is parked at the top of
Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs pyramid. It is then followed by Esteem needs, Love and Belongingness Needs, Safety and Security needs, and at the very bottom, Physiological needs. The pyramid is organized in two different sections, Growth Motivation at the top and all the rest being Deficiency Motivations. Maslow deemed these deficiency’s as various different things. They could be job security, social interaction, or food availability. When someone is at a loss of these things, Maslow said they have human sickness, which is a failure to move towards growth and actualization. After there is no “human sickness” within an individual, they can then focus on growth. Growth needs can be referred to as self-actualization. This is when the individual wishes to reach their own personal potential. They are no longer worried about the deficiency needs.
Carl Rogers once said, “The organism has one basic tendency and striving – to actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing self.” This explanation can be called the Actualization Tendency. It’s an organisms, human in this case, drive to always better the self. We seek out to satisfy our physiological needs then move our way up the hierarchal human needs pyramid. After our needs have been satisfied, the organism seeks to maintain that state followed by further enhancement of the self (self-actualization). Basically, what this is saying is that once a person has satisfied all of their essential needs, they embark on making themselves more autonomous and achieving what they are passionate about.
We then move on to Causality Orientations.
Causality orientations are people’s perceptions of how their behaviors come to be. People either blame their inner feelings and personal interests which refer to autonomy causality orientations or people tend to blame the environment and society for their behaviors and interests. The latter definition refers to control causality orientations. These are people who let society and public interests guide their behaviors and interests. Causality orientation is related to growth-seeking versus validation-seeking interests. People who are concerned with their own personal interests are considered growth-seeking while people with control causality orientations are considered to have validation-seeking interests. People who have control orientations look for validation from those around them. They look for validation directly from others when they are interacting socially.
I found this last section very interesting. I had no idea people had different interests based on either the environment or their own inner personal desires.
Terms: Holism, Positive psychology, Self-actualization, Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, Deficiency needs, Actualization tendency, Growth-seeking, Validation-seeking, control causality orientation, autonomy causality orientation, autonomy
Chapter 15 is about Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology. First discussed is holism, the understanding that a human being is an integrated, organized whole rather than a series of differentiated parts. Any event that affects one system of a human affects the whole person. It is the study of what is healthy and unbroken. Holism is part of positive psychology which is the study of trying to understand what makes life worth living. What experiences contribute to the development of positive individuals who are optimistic and resilient is part of positive psychology. Potential is a main aspect of positive psychology. It looks at what can a person be and focuses on the strength instead of weakness of a person.
Self-actualization is a developmental process of moving toward courage to create, make realistic appraisals, and achieve autonomous self-regulation. Self actualization is achieves through autonomy and openness to experience. Autonomy refers to increasing independence on one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Openness is about acquiring information that is not repressed, ignored, filtered, or distorted. Self-actualization can be found in a hierarchy of needs proposed by Maslow.The hierarchy contains three principles; 1) needs arrange themselves in the hierarchy according to potency and strength 2) The lower the need is in the hierarchy, the sooner it appears in development 3) Needs on the hierarchy are fulfilled sequentially, from lowest to highest, from the base of the pyramid to its apex. The needs from the top to the bottom are self-actualization needs, esteem needs, love and belongingness needs, safety and security needs, and physiological needs. Self-actualization needs are in their own category of growth motivation. Growth needs provide energy and direction to fulfilling ones potential. The other needs are included in the category of deficiency needs. The absence of these needs inhibit growth and development. These needs describe a person that is in a state of deprivation. Despite all of this information, the hierarchy shows little validity in research. The rank-order method has been disproven. The only information that truly hold up is the dual-level hierarchy in which the needs are categorized into either deficiency or growth needs.
The book now switches gears to Carl Rogers theories. Rogers believed in clusters of needs much like Maslow, however, he saw them as a collection with the purpose to maintain, enhance, and actualize a person. The actualizing tendency is viewed as an innate proves that guides a person towards their potential. The struggles and pains that come with reaching this potential is viewed through an organismic valuation process that tells whether an experience promotes or inhibits growth. Experiences that promote growth are viewed as positive whereas those viewed as regressive are viewed as negative. An emergence of self promotes complexity of a person and creates a self-actualization tendency. It increases the need for positive regard and approval, acceptance and love from others. We begin to move away from Our behaviors are judged by ourselves as either positive and accepted or negative and rejected early on in life through conditions of worth. Rogers states that we live in two worlds; the inner world of organismic valuing and the outer world of conditions of worth. To stay in organismic valuation one receives unconditional positive regard. When a child is give unconditional positive regard they judge experiences as valuable to the extent that they enhance oneself. When partents love and accept their child for who they naturally are the child will not show their true self. This could be damaging to their preferences, talents, capacities, and potentialities. To maintain condition of worth, a parent provides conditional positive reward. Experiences in the child’s life are then valued by approval from others. This conditions lead to a conflict in self-actualization and actualizing tendencies as different behaviors are regulated by both. Self-actualization can lead to maladjustment instead of promoting growth and health when it is incongruent with the actualization tendency. The extent in which an individual denies or rejects their personality characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs can be described as congruence. If an individual perceives him or herself as being one way and then publicly acting a different way it creates incongruence. Behaving this way regularly can increase anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and hypoassertiveness.
Individuals generally adopt an orientation that guides their behavior. Autonomy causality orientation is the extent to which a person relies on internal guides. A person’s needs, interests and personal goals excite their behavior. This type of person is controlled by intrinsic motivation. Generally speaking, a person with an autonomous control personality would have positive functioning in ego development, self-esteem, openness to experience and so forth. Control causality orientation is the extent to which a person relies on external guides. In this case, a person follows social expectations to initiate their behavior. Extrinsic motivation is behind a person with a control-oriented personality.
Validation-seeking individuals develop quasi-needs during social interaction. These needs involve the approval of others to feel self worth. They measure themselves through their peers, employers, teachers and romantic partners. The negative effects of this include lack of personal worth, competence or likability. In contrast, a growth-seeking individual attributes their self worth to their own personal strivings with learning, improving and reaching personal potential. Negative social events do not tend to negatively affect a growth-seeking individual. A validation-seeking person is more likely to have mental health problems than a growth-seeking person.
Relationships are important to supporting the actualizing tendency. There are five characteristics that demonstrate a quality interpersonal relationship. Warmth is caring for and enjoying time with the other person. Genuineness is when each person is fully present in the relationship and offering authenticity. Empathy refers to listening and understanding the others perspective. Interpersonal acceptance means that both persons feel an acceptance and trust in the relationship. Confirmation of the other person’s capacity for self-determination is acknowledging that the other person is capable and competent. Relationships between teacher and student are crucial to development. Rogers liked to view a teacher as a facilitator rather than a teacher, or someone who throws information at students. The facilitator, or teacher, is supposed to provide a supportive environment toward learning. The facilitator should allow the students to freely discuss information and to build their own understanding of concepts. Although this has been proven to be beneficial it is suggested to be incorporated into traditional teaching styles, not to replace them.
The idea that evil is either inherent or learned is up for debate. Rogers believed that evil was not innate. Evil is the deliberate, voluntary, intentional infliction of painful suffering on another person without respect for his or her humanity. Rogers believed that evil could be avoided if caretakers provided enough nurturance and acceptance. However, others believe that benevolence and malevolence are innate in everyone. Therefore a person needs a value system to live by to support benevolence.
Positive psychology includes believing that strengths are more important than weaknesses. The study tries to encourage individuals to reach their full potential. Strengths in a person can help foster personal growth and well-being and prevent human sickness. Optimism can be found in most individuals when it comes to their self-image. This enhanced self-image can benefit performance and come across as a positive mood. Optimistic people generally have better psychological and physical health. Existentialism is the study of the isolation and meaningless of the individual in an indifferent universe. Victor Frankl provided the idea that there is no meaning to life in general, but there is great meaning within each individual life. The meaning of life comes from three needs. First is purpose. In order for today’s behaviors and activities to have purpose there must be future-oriented goals. The second need is for values. Values give definition to what we believe is right or wrong. The third need is efficacy, having a sense of personal control or competence gives us the belief that what we do makes a difference. Eudaimonic well-being is self-realization; the experience of seeking out challenges, exerting effort, and being engaged. It is feeling alive and being authentic. Putting too much pressure on material good and fame lowers ones eudaimonic well-being. The presence of quality, warm, caring, intimate and trusting relationships promotes eudaimonic well-being as well as being one’s true self.
Positive psychology, like any study, comes with criticism. Some believe that the humanistic view only shows one part of human nature, the good side. Others believe that the constructs are undeveloped by definitions. A third criticism involves the actualizing tendency and how to know what is really wanted and what is really needed.
Terms: holism, positive psychology, hierarchy of human needs, deficiency needs, growth needs, actualizing tendency, organismic valuation process, self-actualization tendency, organizmic valuation process, conditions of worth, unconditional positive regard, congruence, autonomy causality orientation, control causality orientation, autonomy causality orientation, control causality orientation, validation-seeking, growth-seeking, facilitator, evil, optimism, existentialism, eudaimonic
“If this essential core (inner nature) of the person is frustrated, denied, or suppressed, sickness results.”(Maslow 1968) This quote summarizes what chapter 15 is all about. This chapter details how important it is to attend to our personal needs. The struggle to balance our personal temperament with what is socially acceptable is a struggle that can result in maladjustment. The first section discusses the differences between holism and positive psychology. The holism approach focuses on a human being made of many different aspects that all need to be motivated. Positive psychology differs in that it focuses on achieving and maintaining a “good life”. Discovering what makes something a “good life” is also a very big part of positive psychology.
The chapter also discussed Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in great detail. This hierarchy is based on three main themes. Maslow’s first point was that if the need was lower on the chart, it was greater. He also stated that the lower needs were the first to appear. His final point was that one could not fulfill the higher needs without first realizing the lower needs. Maslow divided the needs into five basic sections. The lowest was physiological needs and the highest was self-actualization. The needs were arranged starting with survival needs at the bottom and growth needs at the top. I was very surprised to read that like Freud, although Maslow’s pyramid is one of the most recognizable figures from psychology, it actually has very little research backing it up. Further research as indicated that Maslow’s hierarchy needs to change. The five-levels need to be thrown out and replaced with a two level hierarchy which is divided into deficiency and growth needs.
The conditions of worth are learned very early in life and have a large impact on what behaviors are displayed. These can be divided into two groups, unconditional positive regard and conditional positive regard. Unconditional positive regard is based off of the idea of showing love and positive emotional support regardless of the person’s behavior. This encourages the person to follow their instincts. Conditional positive regard, on the other hand, states that positive reinforcement should happen when the behavior is socially acceptable. This encourages the person to follow society’s standards.
Something else this chapter addressed was the concept of evil and how that fits into the different perspectives discussed in this chapter. The humanistic approach states that human nature is inherently good. This however, brings up the question that if human nature is mostly good, why is there so much bad? This is answered with the theory that bad is a result of maladjustment.
Chapter 15 discussed growth motivation and positive psychology. This describes how people grow and develop.The theme of this chapter is "if the essential core of the person is frustrated is frustrated,denied or suppressed sickness results".We can choose to produce good health results if we nurture Our Essential core. Everyday we must make the choice to follow "ones inner nature" vs "cultural priorities", this is basically basing our choices on what we need/want and what societies expectations are.
The chapter leads by explaining the process of holism and positive psychology.
Holism is a human being integrated as an part Organized as a whole rather than different parts. If one part of the system is affected than a persons whole system is affected.holism gets its name from "whole" this is representative of being unbroken or healthy. Positive psychology uses the empirical methods to psychology to prioritize what's most important & makes ones life worth living. This method seeks to show which actions lead to positive experiences which produce well being, enjoyment, self-determination, hope optimism etc.
Self-actualization is striving to become a better version of ones self and leave behind
Negative feelings such as timidity,& dependence on others. This is motivated to experience autonomy and openness. Through autonomy one learns to become less dependent on others and through openness one is able to be open towards new experiences and leave behind negative feelings. Maslow's hierarchy was designed to show ones strengths so they could reach their full potential. Maslow's need a hierarchy ranges from survival needs to growth needs. The lower the need in the hierarchy the sooner it appears in the development. Deficiency needs are psychological disturbances and need for safety and security,esteem,love,belonging ness. Growth needs satisfy all of deficiency needs such as growth needs.
Actualising tendency, the organism has one basic tendency that is being strived towards to actualise,maintain and experience the self.This basically is a guide to someone who wants to reach their full potential and experience new things with positive feelings. A person who is curious learns better and develops more of an interest easily. Actualizing tendency is what motivates a person towards autonomy and away from heteronomy.
Casual orientations is when people base their understanding on what causes their behavior. Some people regulate their behavior based on inner guides and self- determined forces. People consider their goals and personal beliefs when making choices. The autonomy orientation people base their choices on things they like,things they find important rather than what society thinks they should choose.The control orientation is when people base their choices on societies expectations and rewards. They feel they should comply with the rules and do things a certain way to feel a sense of validation.
Interpersonal relationships are supportive of actualizing tendencies, by helping others,being able to relate to others, promoting the freedom to learn and defining the self.
Positive psychology studies people's quality of life and mental health. Positive psychology analyzes people's weaknesses and strengths and is dependent on healthy relationships and personal growth. Positive psychology aims to prevent human sickness( depression) from occurring.
Key terms: Growth motivation, positive psychology,holism,actual tendency, self-actualization, causality orientations,deficiency needs, growth needs, Autonomy orientation,the control orientation, Personal growth,validation
Chapter 15 talks about growth motivation and positive psychology. The first topic is holism and positive psychology. Human beings are integrated and organized as a whole in holism. The whole organism is motivated as a whole rather than in separate parts. Positive psychology uses empirical methods to experience well-being, satisfaction, enjoyment, hope, optimism, meaning, competence, love, courage, perseverance, creativity, and many more. Positive psychology is scientifically strong, using hypothesis-testing, data-based empirical research.
Self-actualization is to strive for a fulfillment. Autonomy and openness to experience are used to characterize self-actualization. Autonomy allows one to regulate their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Openness refers to receiving information that is not filtered or repressed by past experiences, wishes, or fears. Self-actualization is at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This psychological need is included with safety and security, love and belongingness, and self-esteem. The lower the need on the hierarchy, the stronger and more urgent it is felt. It is arranged from lowest (survival needs) to the highest (growth needs).
Actualizing tendency motives people to take on new and challenging experiences, it also characterizes one as the whole. After birth, children learn the conditions of worth. This is where their behaviors and personal characteristics are judged positively and worthy of acceptance or negatively and worthy of rejection. The child learns from parents, friends, teachers, spouses, coaches, and employers what behaviors are acceptable and which are not. Incongruence is when a person rejects or denies and congruence is when a person accepts the full range of their personal characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. Incongruence is a discrepancy between the perceived self and the actual experience. People develop a facade to fit in with the external conditions of worth (social groups).
Autonomy causality orientation is when a person relies on internal guides and control causality orientation is when a person relies on external guides. In autonomy causality orientation, an individual can regulate their behavior and have an internal locus of causality. Interests and goals regulate their decisions. In control orientation, an individual pays attention to social expectations. They respond to incentives, rewards, and social concerns. Causality orientation reflects self-determination in the personality.
Growth seeking individuals strive to learn, improve, and reach personal potential. The look for opportunities for personal growth, learning, and self-improvement. Validation seeking individuals interact interpersonally with social inclusion, interpersonal acceptance, or athletic/academic success. People seeking validation experience anxiety, low self-esteem, or fear of failure. People seeking growth experience low anxiety, high self-esteem, and self-actualization.
The thing that I found interesting was the conditions of worth. You hear about a child feeling accepted or rejected in society in almost all psychology classes, but I did not realized it was called this. I found it interesting that a child can pick up whether their actions are acceptable or not soon after birth. It saddens me to think that a child's self worth could be destroyed by their parents, or other people important to them right after birth and can affect them throughout their whole lives.
TERMS: holism, positive psychology, self-actualization, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, actualizing tendency, conditions of worth, congruence, causality orientation, growth-seeking, validation-seeking
Chapter 15 begins by discussing Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. They include physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. The needs toward the bottom are said to be the strongest motives. Although there is hardly any empirical research to support this hierarchy, it is still widely accepted. Deficiency needs indicate that the person is in a state of deprivation whereas growth needs arise when a person feels restless and discontent even when the deficiency needs are satisfied. Maslow estimated that even though self-actualization is one of the human needs, less than 1% of the population would ever reach it.
The actualization tendency develops as a forward moving pattern characterized by struggle and pain (like the example of the child learning to walk). Relationships support actualizing tendency in that when one is involved in an interpersonal relationship and helps others, it promotes maturity, better integration, and being more open to experience. When people experience a need for relatedness they tend to internalize cultural values, cooperate with others, and show respect for others. These factors in relationships can help one reach self-actualization.
Positive psychology focuses on "What could be?" The purpose is to build people's strengths. Positive psychology suggests that optimism can be taught and learned and provides numerous benefits to ones health and well-being. Frankl urged that meaning in life was not a general term, but rather an individual goal that people must strive for in order to feel accomplishment in life. Meaning grows out of purpose, values, and efficacy.
What I found most interesting in this chapter was the discussion of positive psychology, optimism, meaning, and well-being. I have been focusing on those topics throughout several projects and across a few classes this semester. One interesting thing I had not run into was the ideas behind meaning in life. Although it seems obvious that everyone creates their own meaning in life I had not stopped to think that there is no meaning to life in general.
Terms: Positive Psychology, hierarchy of human needs, self-actualization, deficiency needs, growth needs, actualizing tendency, optimism, meaning
Chapter 15 summarized growth motivation and positive psychology. Personal fulfillment was the theme of this chapter. Humanistic psychology is about identifying and developing human potential. Positive psychology looks at people's mental health and how they live their lives to ask, “what could be?” Positive psychology seeks to build people's strengths and competencies so as to cultivate psychological wellness.
Maslow's hierarchy made it's way into this chapter as well. Self-actualization (the top of the pyramid) refers to the full realization and use of one's talents, capacities, and potentialities. Maslow made the distinction between deficiency needs and growth needs. Even though Maslow's model is very popular, empirical research actually finds little support for the need hierarchy. Maslow's contribution to contemporary motivation study is not in the hierarchy but, rather, in his insights about why people fail to self-actualize and what actions they can take to encourage personal growth toward self-actualization.
With socialization, children learn societal conditions of worth on which their behavior and personal characteristics are judged. As a consequence, all of us live in two worlds the inner world of the actualizing tendencies and organismic valuation and the outer world of social priorities, conditions of worth, and conditional regard. Some characteristics are more helpful than others. The congruent, fully functioning individual lives in close proximity to the actualizing tendency and therefore experiences a marked sense of autonomy, openness to experience, and personal growth.
Causality orientations reflect the extent of self-determination in the personality and concern differences in peoples understanding of what causes and regulates their behavior. For the person with a control0causality orientation, inner guides are relatively ignored as behavior arises in response to external expectations and controls.
A strong commitment to societal conditions of worth leads people into a process of seeking validation from others. In social interaction, validation seeking individuals strive to prove their self0worth, competence, and likeability. In contrast, growth0seeking individuals center their strivings on learning , improving, and reaching personal potential. Validation0seeking individuals are more vulnerable to experiencing anxiety and depression.
I found the authors concept of flourishing to be interesting. Flourishing is more than the absence of mental illness and depends on well being that grows out of continuous personal growth, high quality relationships, and a life characterized by purpose, optimism, meaning, and well being.
Chapter 15 discusses growth motivation and positive psychology, and opens with mentioning humanistic psychology, which focuses on the belief of identifying and developing a person’s potential, and it uses the holistic approach by believing that a person is genuinely good, but mental and social issues can lead a person astray. That is when positive psychology comes into play, which looks at a person’s mental health and how they live their lives. The essential goal of positive psychology is to build people’s strengths and competencies so they can improve psychological wellness.
Self-actualization is a built-in developmental strivings that a person has to realize their talents, capacities, and potentialities. Maslow’s need hierarchy defines the distinction between deficiency needs and growth needs, which showed that people don’t require support for the need hierarchy. Maslow however, was able to provide information about why people fail to self-actualize and what actions support growth toward self-actualization.
The reading then goes onto discuss the actualizing tendencies, which discusses how a person should be motivated to strive for and reach their self-actualization. Through socialization, people learn societal conditions of worth, which they will then base their behavior and personal characteristics based on the feedback they receive from others. They hope to receive positive regard by acting the ways society wants, but this may create a problem for a person. The problem occurs when actualization and self-actualization don’t agree and a person must then choose between their internalized natural temperaments and social expectations. By accepting one’s own person characteristics and desires a person's experiences congruence, if they reject them they will experience incongruence. It is obvious better for a person to experience congruence because then they are likely to feel a sense of autonomy, openness to experience, and person growth.
Casualty orientations are the extent of self-determination in the personality and concern difference in a person’s understanding of what causes and regulates behavior. There are two categories of causality orientations: autonomy-causality orientation and control-causality orientation. Autonomy-causality is when behavior appears in response to needs and interests with a full sense of personal choice, and people that have an autonomy-causality orientation they tend to have more positive functioning compared to people with a control-causality orientation. Control-causality orientation serves as an inner guide that is usually ignored as behavior appears in response to external expectations and controls.
The book then goes on to discuss growth-seeking individuals and validation-seeking individuals. Growth-seeking individuals focus their strivings on learning, improving, and reaching their personal potential. Validation-seeking individuals on the other hand strive to show their self-worth, competence, and likability.
One of the last thing mentioned in the reading is interpersonal relationships, which has a large influence over s person’s need to self-actualize, and relationships affect self-actualization in four ways. The first is when a person helps others, the second is relating to others in genuine ways, third by promoting the freedom to learn, and lastly by defining the self.
Chapter fifteen discussed growth motivation and positive psychology. The chapter begins by discussing holism and positive psychology. Holism is the idea that instead being a bunch of different parts, a person is an “integrated and organized” whole. This idea applies to motivation because holism believes that it is the entire person or organism that is motivated instead of just one part (like the stomach). Holism is “top-down” in that it looks at the general whole and then breaks down into the more specific segments. The humanistic approach to psychology also utilizes the top-down method. The humanistic approach looks at strivings toward personal growth and realization and away from masking ourselves and meeting the expectations of others. Positive psychology is a new area of psychology. It is called positive psychology because it looks at the good psychological aspects of life and what makes life worth living. Some examples from the text include contentment, satisfaction, self-determination, and interpersonal skills. Positive psychology overlaps with humanistic psychology but positive psychology varies in its strong usage of hypothesis-testing and empirical research.
Another topic discussed in chapter fifteen is self-actualization. Self-actualization is the process of growing to achieve autonomous self-regulation and make realistic goals. The two characteristics of self-actualization are autonomy and openness. Autonomy means becoming dependent on one’s self and controlling one’s self. Openness means opening one’s self to receiving all information instead of selecting what information to pay attention to. The chapter discussed Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The base of this hierarchy consists of the physiological needs. Above the physiological needs are other psychological needs. These physiological and psychological needs in the pyramid are all considered deficiency needs. They are called deficiency needs because the loss of them prevents growth. At the top of the pyramid are the self-actualization needs. These needs are growth needs. After achieving all of the deficiency needs, a person feels the need to meet their own potential. This is why self-actualization needs are called growth needs. However, due to the lack of empirical research supporting Maslow’s hierarchy, a popular idea is that the needs are titled deficiency needs and growth needs to make it a little broader. Maslow theorized that only 1% of the population ever achieves self-actualization. He deduced that few reached it because of non-supportive factors in their environment.
The third topic discussed in the text is actualization tendency. This concept is believed to be an innate presence that pushes someone toward predetermined potentials. Development consists of “struggle and pain” and actualization is the push to get through those struggles and pains. The text gave the example of an infant going from crawling to walking and experiencing struggles with gaining balance and pains when they fall. However, actualization is the force that keeps them persisting to achieve the goal of walking. The actualization tendency is what characterizes an individual as entire whole rather than an organism with certain needs driving them to do different things. This tendency aids a person in developing their “self.” Acting along with the actualization tendency are conditions of worth, which are outside factors that influence how individuals value themselves. The final part of this section is about congruence. Congruence is how much a person accepts the range of their abilities and beliefs.
The next section was on causality orientations. People that rely on internal influences have autonomy causality orientation. People that rely on external influences have control causality orientation. A person’s causality orientation is a reflection of their self-determination. Typically, someone that has an autonomy causality orientation personality has more self-determination. Another concept discussed was growth seeking vs. validation seeking. Growth seeking people strive around learning and achieving their personal potential. Growth seeking people grow from negative outcomes. Validation seeking individuals use external validation to know that they are doing “okay” and don’t adjust well to negative outcomes.
Interpersonal relationships support the actualizing tendency. A problem with this humanistic theory is that it hasn’t quite figured out how much “evil” is inherent and how much is situational. The positive psychology look at people’s quality of life and what “could be.”
Chapter 15 is all about individual motivation to grow and strive for a wholeness. Chapter 15 looks at the differences between our natural temperaments/biology and how we act in accordance to societal expectations that go against our natural selves. Individuals who are naturally introverted are naturally more reserved and quiet. They are less likely to speak out and more likely to take more time to contemplate an issue before speaking. This is part of their natural character and it may come across as being shy. However, in college and social settings it may be seen as being more beneficial to be more extroverted and conform to the social expectations of speaking out and being more outgoing. The introverted may therefore be pressured to go against their natural personality/biological temperament and change to fit society. By doing this/conforming, they inhibit or prevent personal growth. Positive psychology is recognized in this chapter as being the study of positive things in thoughts, motivations, and emotions. It is about enforcing optimism and personal satisfaction-natural happiness and not conformity.
Chapter 15 also looks at humanistic psychology and the holistic approach that looks at things more from the “top-down” rather than the “bottom-up” (like positive psychology). This approach, recognized by Roger’s , is about increasing one’s potential and growth by encouraging individuals to avoid behaviors that are focused on meeting the expectations of others rather than yourself, or self-concealment. The humanistic approach encourages self-realization in which the individual looks at what makes them happy or “whole”. A caveat may be, however, that humanistic psychology is not extremely empirically supported. Positive Psychology seems to have more empirical testing or hypothesis that provide more support.
Another huge point of chapter 15 was about self-actualization. This connects wonderfully with the idea of being true to your natural self and temperament. Self-actualization is about working hard to reach and understand your own natural potential, talents, and personal beliefs that ‘make you, you’. Autonomy is a part of self-actualization. It’s important to have independence and personal control over your own self-regulations. Also, openness is important when faced with new opportunities. This openness is the idea of looking at and thinking about what your possible potential is and working toward the achievement of your full potential.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs looks at needs that we all have going from the bottom of a pyramid up starting with the most important points that are essential to develop first. The bottom and most essential needs are the ones, for the most part, we learned about first in this class (physiological, security, esteem, and belonging). It is imperative that these needs are met so that one can function normally. When the bottom layer of the hierarchy/pyramid is met (the needs just mentioned), self-actualization and growth needs are able to be practiced. Another caveat* Despite little empirical support, Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is still incredibly popular. Also while looking at self-actualization, another point is addressed in chapter 15 called the Organismic valuation process. This process is the process in which our experiences are looked at and judged at to whether growth in that area should be promoted or stopped/reversed.
A final and extremely important point of discussion in this chapter was about the emergence of self. The emergence of self is the personal growth in complexities such as positive feedback. Positive feedback often comes when we are able to feel a sense of worth internally or internalize a condition of worth. This emergence of self is all about creating a balance and finding a point in which we can choose and develop our natural temperaments and decided whether or not we want to change to the social expectation in order to get approval from individuals, potentially including our parents. Conditional positive regard is the outcome of what may happen when we conform to societal expectations. In conforming to social expectations on may learn the value of obeying, but they may also become anxious and frustrated or angry as they are working to please others and not necessarily themselves.
Congruence is the acceptance of characteristics, beliefs, and abilities of individuals. It/congruence is something that can be built upon or improved with intrapersonal relationships that are genuine and supportive of another person’s self-determinations. It is about not trading your true self to fit society’s “acceptable” impression or cover.
Finally, causality orientation is basically one’s regulation of behaviors. Internal/intrinsic behaviors or motivations are integrated regulation that establish autonomy causality orientation. External or extrinsic behaviors/ motivation are interojected regulations that establish control causality orientations.
If there is something that would stick with me or perhaps even shock me the most about this chapter is that conforming to society ultimately seems to make us unhappy, anxious, and depressed. It is good to fit in and be accepted by society. However, it is better to be accepted while acting naturally and remaining true to ourselves. When we adjust to fit in, we often lose sight of who we are and we go again who and what we naturally want to be. If we follow our natural temperament we are most likely to be happy. This makes such simple sense, but it still shocked me and it is what I am most likely to take away from this chapter.
Chapter 15 was about growth motivation and positive psychology. The first issue discussed was holism. This is a humanistic approach and it is similar to gestalt and existentialism and sees things as a whole instead of individual pieces. This uses a bottom-up process and focuses on motives one at a time and isolates them instead of focusing on a lot at once. The purpose of holism is to grow in self-realization and to stray away from self-concealment and submitting to the expectations of others. The next aspect is positive psychology which emphasizes having a good life. This uses empirical evidence to try and see what behaviors lead to personal well-being and having a life full of happiness. Some of the qualities that are included are optimism, love, hope, perseverance, creativity, talent , satisfaction, and many other positive things. This is being used to help individuals with issues like depression and substance abuse. Positive psychology is attempting to give individuals a happy life which can lead to a longer life.
The next section talked about self-actualization which is the highest part of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and it is the striving towards fulfillment. Maslow’s hierarchy goes from the bottom which are physiological needs. These needs are required for survival and are instinctive, and as it goes up the needs are definitely important but are more focused on personal growth. An example of self-actualization is for an individual who wants to become a dentist, have a husband and 3 kinds, with a dog and happiness and when they finally achieve this they have achieved their self-actualization according to Maslow. The only way that one can self-actualize is by meeting all of their previous needs in the hierarchy. This is a popular hierarchy to teach however it is not empirical, simply anecdotal, so a lot more research needs to be done to see if it stands true, needs to be changed, or just rejected. Maslow thought that less than 1% people reach self-actualization, but this has no empirical support, and I think that self-actualization to one person does not look like it does to another.
The next section is about actualizing tendency that was theorized by Carl Rogers, who took a more holistic approach to actualization. Rogers said that we evaluate whether we grow or revert back through the organismic evaluation process. This makes an individual want to do challenging things so that growth is experienced. For example an individual may decide to go get their Masters degree because they want to experience the challenge and the growth from that experience. Rogers argues that unconditional positive regard should be given to children instead of conditional. If a parent uses love for obedience this can lead a child to to have a long-term motivational dysfunction. Individuals have congruence (agreement) or incongruence (disagreement) when it comes to assessing their characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. Rogers says that individuals who have a congruent view are fully functioning individuals and see things the way they actually are.
The next topic is causality orientations. Individuals have differing degrees to which they are knowledgeable of what causes their various behaviors. An example is the autonomy causality orientation which is relying in internal guides an example of this would be being a psychology major because you are truely passionate about the material and a career in psychology. Control causality orientation which is the extent to which an individual relies on external guides and follows social cues, an example of this is would be deciding to go to a movie with your friends who are pressuring you to go instead of staying in and going to sleep early if that is what they desire to do. Individuals do not solely follow internal or external guides, but it is usually a combination of both. An example would be trying to achieve a goal of training for a marathon, an individual needs internal guidance from themselves and then external guidance from the support of their friends and family.
Validation seeking is when an individual finds their self-worth, competence, and likability in other people. This can be very dangerous though because a negative social situation can lead to negative beliefs of one’s self in those areas causing mental illness like anxiety or depression. Growth seeking individuals base themselves around their personal achievement, learning, and improving. An individual with this style would find great self-worth and growth in graduating from college. These individuals are typically healthier and would be considered higher on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. To test these qualities there is the Goal Oriented Inventory that can be taken to see where you fall.
Relationships support self-actualizing tendencies because they allow for autonomy. Relationships also create mature and integrated experiences allowing us to help our friends and be helped by them. Relationships also help us with relatedness and our connections with other individuals, but this can also allow us to be hurt since it is a vulnerable position, so deception can occur. This allows for self-discovery and learning, or allows for teaching which also allows learning to occur. Another aspect that falls in this section is self-definition and social definition. These are fairly self-explanatory but an example of self-definition may be a confident person, and an example of a social-definition for that individual may be an arrogant person.
There is definitely a problem with evil in this world. I personally believe that humans are evil and I base that off of my faith and what the bible says about human nature. No one is capable of not doing something evil or sinful in our day, which is why we need Jesus to die for our sins. One of the humanistic views of this is that evil is not inherent but learned through life. The other view is that it is human nature to do evil, which is why we have moral standards to counteract the evil so that we aren’t all barbaric. There is much debate about which one is right, but regardless evil is definitely prevalent in this world which is agreed upon by most individuals.
The last aspect is positive psychologies effect on personal growth. The first is optimism which is most simply defined as positivity. It is shown that having an optimistic view can enhance performance and increase well-being, but it can also be harmful because it can create a false sense of hope. Optimism is not always an innate characteristic, but can be learned over time. I used to be a pessimistic individual, but in the last 5 years I have become very optimistic. Meaning is something that everyone strives for. We all just want to know the purpose of life. This comes from the need for purpose, values, and efficacy. Meaning helps individuals to interpret different things in life and make sense of things. The last is well-being. There is hedonic and eudaimonic happiness. Hedonic is the experience of pleasure and when things are going well. Eudaimonic is when pleasure is experienced when doing challenging things. For example I enjoy doing triathlons because they are challenging, so this is the kind of happiness I get from doing this activity. Focusing too much on wealth can be an issue because it can drive people away from other important needs.
I found this section interesting especially that Maslow’s Hierarchy doesn’t have empirical support to back it up. I definitely agree with a lot in this chapter like individuals who get validation from external sources may have more issues like depression and anxiety. I also enjoyed the section about the debate of evil because it is always interesting to see different opinions. Overall I enjoyed this section.
Chapter 15 is about growth motivation and positive psychology. This approach tends to look for the best in people and prefers a “top-down” approach. Humanistic psychology is about discovery our full potential as humans and promoting its development. Its focus is on growth and self-realization. Positive psychology is similar to humanism. It studies what makes life so grand and worth living. It is more of a science than humanism because it employs empirical research and hypothesis testing more in its approach. It studies concepts live optimism, perseverance, flow, and intrinsic motivation.
Self-actualization is the concept given to us by Maslow. It is the concept of meeting all of needs starting with survival needs all the way up to growth needs. It is a hierarchy of needs that one must build upon. It includes such concepts as physiological needs towards the bottom and esteem needs at the top. This model encourages growth of the individual through pro social behaviors. It is largely a conceptual is nature but is helpful to use as a reference. It is interesting to note that Maslow’s estimated that only about 1% of the population even reach self-actualization. Congruence in this schematic is the extent to which one accepts their own characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. A fully functionally individual is in congruence and open to whatever life may present.
Causality orientations represent to what extent people rely upon external guides to guide and regulate their behavior. People who are control orientated pay greater attention to environmental factors as a source of motivation. Autonomy-orientated personalities are motivated more by intrinsic motivation. The latter correlates higher self-esteem, self-actualization, ego development, openness, and acceptance. There is a difference between growth seeking and validation seeking. Growth seeking behavior is center on learning, improvement, and reaching one’s potential. Validation seekers look towards external sources of stimuli as indicators as a source of measurement.
Our relationship with others has a role in the actualization tendency. Relationships can run the full range being controlling to being supportive. Humanistic therapy incorporates the concepts of warmth, genuineness, empathy, interpersonal acceptance, and confirmation to build a congruent relationship between therapist and client. Helping others involves letting people discover their true self and allowing them to learn through means of interest. People who are self defined conceptualize who they are through internal definitions. Those who are socially defined rely more upon what external sources of information.
Positive psychology looks at the human strengths like optimism and meaning as motivational tools to promote well-being. Optimism is both a quality that is inherent as well as a learned behavior. It is a generally positive attitude and outlook on life. Creating meaning in one’s life helps give life events significance and purpose. It also gives one a high sense of efficacy to affect change.
There are some criticisms to humanistic psychology to keep in mind. Four are presented to conclude the chapter. They are a naïve sense of optimism, the use of vague and ill-defined constructs, the inability to differentiate between what is wanted and what is needs, and feelingism, which is relying on subjective inner guides to give assign value.
Please read the following link:http://www.psychologicalscience.com/kim_maclin/2010/01/i-learned-it-at-the-movies.html as well as the 3 resource links at the bottom of that article.This semester's movies:Teen DreamsCast…
Chapter 15 in the book was about growth motivation and positive psychology. The first thing that the book talked about was holism and positive psychology. Holism asserts that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organzied whole rather than as a series of differentiated parts. Why it is in this book is it says that is the whole organism that is motivated rather than just some part of the organism. This can include the brain or stomach as the book says. It is not just one of those things that is motivated but the whole body. Holism also says that any event that affects one system also affects the entire person. Holism derives from the name "whole" or "wholeness". Positive psychology is talked about with holism and it says that it is a newly emerged field in psychology. It wants to show a vision of a good life and what makes life worth living. The goal of positive psychology is to show what actions lead to experiences of well-being and to develop the individual in a positive way. Positive psychology doesn't want to focus on the bad or negative things in life but on what makes the individual happy.
The next section in the book talks about self-actualization. Self-actualization is the process of leaving behind timidity, defensive appraisals, and a dependence on others that is paired with teh parallel process of moving toward courage to create, make realistic appraisals, and achieve autonomous self-regulation. It also refers to an ever-fuller realization of one's talents, capacities, and potentialities. There are two important directions in self-actualization. They are autonomy and openness to experience. Autonomy here means moving away from heteronomy and toward an ever-increasing capacity to depend on one's self and to regulate one's own thoughts and feelings. Openness means receiving information such that it is neither repressed, ignored, or filtered, nor distorted by wishes, fears, or past experiences. The hierarcy of human needs is talked about in this section also. It is shaped in a pyramid and self-actualization is on top. From top to bottom it looks like this: self-actualization, esteem needs, love and belonginess, safety and security, and physiological needs. To get to the top you must first complete the bottom one's in the pyramid or else you cannot go on to the next one as the hierarcy says. There are some other needs that are talked about which include deficiency and growth.
The next section in the book talks about the actualizing tendency. It includes a couple of different concepts in this section. First of all, it talks about the emergence of the self. When someone's self emerges they grown in complexity and this concept begins to express itself with the organism. Conditions of worth are talked about in this section too. These are behaviors that are judged as either positive and worthy of acceptance or negative and worthy of rejection. These are taught by seeing how others react to different situations and how people will view you while doing them. It also discussed congruence. Congruence describes the extenet to which the individual denies and rejects or accepts the full range of his or her personal characteristics, abilities, desires or beliefs. Facades are talked about here and says that they are a social mask that someone wears and it relates to ways of behaving that have little do with inner guides and much to do with a social front to hide behind.
The next sections talked about causality orientations and growth seeking. There are two types of causality orientations that are talked about. One is autonomy causality orientation which refers to the extent that individuals habitually rely on internal guides(needs,interests,etc). Control causality orientation refers to the extent that individuals habitually rely on external guides(social cues). With the growth seeking section it talks about growth seeking vs. validation seeking. Growth seeking individuals center their personal strivings around learning, improving, and reaching personal potential. Validation seeking individuals seek external validation to measure their personal worth or competence. They use other people as their measuring stick and is obviously way different than growth seeking inviduals.
The chapter ends by talking about a couple of different things. First of all, it talked about how relationships support the actualizing tendency. They could be by helping others, relatedness to others, and by having the freedom to learn. Another section talks about the problem of evil. Evil is important to talk about especially when talking about humanistic psychology. Evil is defined as the deliberate, voluntary infliction of painful suffering on another person without the respect for his/her personhood. Optimism is talked about in another section and this is when someone has a positive mind towards something and feels like something good will happen. The oppositve of optimism in pessimistic and they always see the negative in things.
Terms: holism, positive psychology, self-actualization, hierarcy of human needs, self, conditions of worth, congruence, cauasality orientations, optimism, meaning, growth seeking, validation seeking
Chapter 15 is all about positive psychology and how someone grows and develops as a person. Positive psychology is similar to humanistic psychology, but it is more a mental health basis and humanistic psychology is based on human potnetial. According to the book, "if the inner nature of the person is frustrated or denied, sickness can be a result." This chapter also talks about holism and that the human is organized as a whole, anything that affects a part of you, affects the entire person. Everything is looked at as a whole, not as parts of a person.
Self actualization is at the top of Maslow's hierarchy and that it is someone's full relization of their talents and potentialities. There are two things that direct the self-actualization process. Autonomy means that they depend on themselves, and move away from others opinions and focusing on their own thoughts and feelings. Secondly, Openness means leaving behind defensive moves and embracing the courage to create realistic dreams and not having unrealistic wishes. In Maslow's hierarchy there is groups of needs that every person needs. The basic survival needs at the bottom of the pyramid and self-actualization is at the top of the pyramid. Deficiancy needs are basic needs and without them inhibits development. Growth needs are the needs to fulfill personal potential and provide energy and direction to what one is capable of. I think sometimes it is hard to know what needs you actually need. To know this is to pay attention to how you feel psychologicaly when a need is missing, if you feel lost or frantic than you most likely are deprived of a need for wholeness.
Next is the actualizing tendency is the fulfillment of physiological needs and how it maintains and enhances someone. Also when someone is curious, this can drive someone to greater learning and the beginning of new interests and experiences. This is something that is innate and guides a person to perform their behavior and succeed. Experiences that are "out of the box" expands someones potential but can cause stress. The organismic valuation process judges whether the experience is a good or bad thing. As a child, the parents have a lot of influence on them as the learn to develop and grow as a person. If a child is given unconditional positive regard than they will be given acceptance, love and care to their child no matter what. Conditional positive regard is when parents aren't agreeing with their child's wants, and only wants what they believe their child should want. The individual obviously controls their own desires and rejections as well and this is congruence. They need to accept their own beliefs and what they want.
Causality orientations is why they are doing the behaviors they are doing. There are two kinds of guides that regulate behavior. First is the autonomy orientation and involves a person being very high on making their own choices. Their own values and goals drive their behavior, and they are over the whole conformity part. They are very in tune with their own feelings. Second is the control causality orientaion which is more based on external needs and goals. They pay closer attnetion to behavioral incentives and to what society expects. These people are very motivated by money and status needs. Causality orientations are a very big part of the personality and is the reason for the self-determination, autonomy is more innate and control is more external. When people are too focused on their societal conditions causes people to seek validation from others which can be a cause of social anxiety.
Relationships are a big part of supporting ones needs to self-actualize. Four big things are helping others, relating to others, having the freedom to learn new things and to develop growth on old things, and to define the self better. If the relationship is high on the relatedness scale, than there is warmth, genuiness, empathy, interpersonal acceptance and confirmation of the other persons ability to self-determine. These qualities help create a strong relationship and supportive environment for a person to grow and develop their selves.
I found it the most interest part of this chapter is that there are many things in the enviroment that help define the self, it is not only the choices you make but it is the help of others and strong relationships.
Terms: positive psychology, holism, self-actualization, Maslow's hierarchy, congruence, causality orientations, validation seeking, actualizing tendencies
Chapter 15
Chapter 15 was titled growth motivation and positive psychology. It started out explaining the holism view and defining positive psychology. Holism is looking at people from a top-down perspective; meaning that you see their motives and actions coming from all of them rather than separating the person’s drives into separate systems. Holism is a part of humanistic psychology. This view is defined by two main goals. The first is to move toward growth and self-realization and the second is to move away from façade or self-concealment tendencies. Positive psychology is different than humanistic psychology. It has a strong scientific element of making hypothesis-testable data that can be researched. Positive psychology’s main focus is on human strengths. It does not focus on how to improve or correct a person’s weaknesses, but instead help them realize what their strengths are and how to use them to the best of their ability.
Along with realizing what one’s strengths are comes the concept of self-actualization. This is a person’s internal developmental striving. The two main things that can help one arrive at self-actualization are autonomy and openness. Autonomy is depending on your own thoughts to make decisions, and openness involves letting yourself experience situations with an open mind and getting the most out of those experiences. Self-actualization is included in the hierarchy of human needs. This is a pyramid model in which needs are arranged in order of their importance and degree in which they are felt. At the bottom of the pyramid are the deficiency needs. Deficiency needs are needs that we need to have growth and development; they include physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, and esteem needs. At the very top of the pyramid is growth needs. This includes only self-actualization needs, and does not inhibit human growth and development if they are not accomplished.
Actualizing tendency is another part of humanistic psychology’s emphasis on holism and self-actualization. This is the theory that a person has one main tendency or motivation and that is to actualize, maintain and enhance one’s experiencing self. In other words this is the drive that makes people want to experience new and challenging things. It is also how the emergence of the self comes about. When we experience all these new and different things we gain a sense of who we are and how we handle things. With this a new force called self-actualization takes place. This is when we now are driven by our internal desires. With this comes the concept of conditions of worth. This is when society or outside figures judge our actions as positive or negative and have an externally driven motivation effect on us. Congruence is when these two forces work together and the individual accepts his or her personal characteristics and desires. Incongruence is when individuals see themselves as one way but act a different way because that is what society demands or positively reinforces. This situation can cause psychological distress and anxiety. Congruence and incongruence then lead into causality orientations. Causality orientations are the forces that cause or influence individual behavior. There are generally two types of causality orientations, they are autonomy orientation and control orientation. Autonomy orientation is when individuals let their own beliefs and desires guide their decision making. On the other hand control orientation is when individuals let society or other outside influences guide and direct their behavior. Self-actualization can also have an effect on our relationships. When it comes to helping others it is important to harbor their self-actualization. This means that when they ask for help it is not our job to give advice or fix a problem, but instead we are suppose to offer them unconditional support while they discover how to handle the problem themselves.
Positive psychology also has two other main concepts that arise from it. They are optimism and meaning. Optimism is the thought within us that is a positivity bias. It is the belief that we are better than we actually are. While this isn’t always good, for the most part having this view lets people live more worthwhile lives and actually increases their psychological and physical health. It is also a concept that can be taught or learned. Meaning on the other hand was what people looked for to make their lives seem significant. Meaning to life stems from three needs. These needs include purpose, values, and high efficacy. People who can find meaning in their lives have the ability to turn bad situations or events into something positive that can be motivational.
Terms: holism, humanistic psychology, positive psychology, self-actualization, autonomy, openness, hierarchy of human needs, deficiency needs, growth needs, actualizing tendency, self-actualization, conditions of worth, congruence, causality orientations, autonomy orientation, control orientation, helping others, optimism, meaning
Chapter 15 looked at positive psychology. This looks at people's mental health and how they live their lives to ask "what could be?"This chapter also gets into holism where a human is being best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than just a part of an organism. Any event that affects one system in turn affects the entire being. For example, when Harry is hungry it is Harry himself who is hungry, not just his stomach. The brain works to tell the stomach its hungry along with all the other systems within the body. Holism can also be looked at by analyzing what is unbroken. A broken personality emphasizes the conflict between the ideal self and the actual self. For example, not eating to be skinny. Instead of analyzing this in a psychodynamic way we tend to look at it in a humanistic way which deals with the idea of holism, the self, and striving for fulfillment. Humanistic psychology deals with growth and self realization and not self concealment and pleasing others.
While positive psychology is relatively new, it does investigate positive subjective experiences such as well being, contentment, satisfaction, enjoyment, hope, optimism, talent, creativity, and more. To avoid confusion this is not a sub field of humanistic psychology, but they do overlap each other somewhat. Positive psychology devotes attention to building personal strengths and competence. A large part of positive psychology is self actualization. This is the full realization and use of a person's talents, capacities, and potentialities. It is a continual process of autonomy and openness to experience. Maslow organized motivation into 5 clusters and made the distinction between deficiency and growth needs. Deficiency needs are psychological disturbances and needs for safety, belongingness, and esteem. They were described like vitamins; people need them because the absence of them inhibits growth and development. On the other hand, growth needs surface when deficiency needs are satisfied and render the person restless and discontent. They feel the need to fulfill personal potential. These might also be referred to as self-actualization needs which provide energy and direction for certain behaviors. While Maslow's research on this topic was helpful at the time, current research finds little support for this hierarchy. What is important to take away from it though is why people fail to self actualize and what actions they can take to encourage personal growth towards self-actualization.
Rogers had done research expanding on holism and self actualization. He said that fulfillment of physiological needs maintains and enhances the organism, as well as the fulfillment of needs for belongingness and social status. Curiosity, for example, might enhance and actualize a person by greater learning and the development of new interests. Rogers found that humans have specific motives that stressed the holistic perspective that all human needs serve the collective purpose of maintaining, enhancing, and actualizing the person. This is the actualizing tendency. He describes it as an innate, continual presence that quietly guides a person toward genetically determined potentials. It the development and battle of struggle and pain. This could be an example of socialization of children learning societal conditions of worth on which their behavior and personal characteristics are judged. Consequently all of us live in 2 worlds: the inner world of actualization tendencies and organismic valuation and the outer world of social priorities, conditions of worth and conditional regards. When a person moves away from organismic values and towards external conditions of worth they adopt facades and reject/deny personal characteristics, preferences, or beliefs. One can also look at this in terms of congruence and in-congruence. In-congruence describes the extent of which a person denies or rejects personal qualities and congruence describes the acceptance of full range personal characteristics and desires. A congruent individual will experience a marked sense of autonomy, openness, and personal growth.
This chapter also discussed causality orientations which reflect the extent of self determination in the personality and concern difference in people's understanding of what causes and regulates their behavior. A person with autonomy causality orientation behavior arises in response to the needs and interest with a full sense of personal choice. A person with control causality orientation behavior uses inner guides that are relatively ignored as behavior arises in response to external expectations and controls. An autonomy oriented person experiences relatively greater positive functioning than do control oriented persons. For example, a person trying to lose weight. In terms of social interactions, people can either be growth seeking or validation seeking individuals. People seeking validation tend to prove their self worth, competence, and likeability. They also use interpersonal situations to test of measure those characteristics. Other people, such as teachers, employers, or romantic partners, are seen as sources of external validation and "social yardsticks" to measure their own personal worth. Seems kind of selfish. This can lead to problems because they can imply a lack of personal worth, competence, and likeability. On the other hand, validation seeking individuals center their personal striving on learning, improving, and personal potential. Positive outcomes from interpersonal interaction generally leave the growth seeking person feeling validated as well because growth seekers experience that sense of progress. Negative outcomes fail to usher adjustment problems because they identify and communicate information about life areas that need improvement. The difference between validation and growth seekers is important because it can be used to predict vulnerability to mental health problems. For example, it is more likely that a validation seeker is more prone to anxiety and depression than a growth seeker.
Relationships also support the actualizing tendency in four ways. First, by helping others when they function as an arena that allows people to mature, integrate, and be open to experience. The second, relatedness to others in authentic ways. When people feel emotionally connected to a person their relatedness need is high and internalization of external regulations occurs willingly. The third reason, it promotes the freedom to learn (education). This may be initiated by the individual or with the help of a facilitator/teacher. The last supporting reason is defining the self. This is a personality process related to how individuals conceptualize who they are. While some may resist external definitions and favor internal definitions everyone still used socialized definitions to define themselves as well.
TERMS: positive psychology, humanistic psychology, holism, self actualization, Maslow's hierarchy, deficiency needs, growth needs, Rogers and actualizing tendency, inner world, outer world, congruence, in-congruence, causality orientations, autonomy-causality orientation, control-causality orientation, social interactions, growth seeker, validation seeker, interpersonal relationships
Chapter 15 discussed growth motivation. Individuals have natural temperaments determined by their biology, but we face social expectations that may conflict with those natural temperaments. For instance, an introverted person would likely get pressured to be outgoing in college. By rejecting our true nature, we may be inhibiting our personal growth. A psychology field relevant to this chapter is positive psychology, in which the goal is to concentrate on positive, subjective experiences for individuals to nurture things like satisfaction and optimism. It’s similar to Roger’s humanistic psychology, which uses a holistic approach to increase potential and growth by directing individuals toward self-realization and away from self-concealment (behaviors to meet other’s expectations). However, an important difference is positive psychology uses hypothesis testing, and thus has more support.
Self-actualization refers to striving to realize one’s own potential, talents, and beliefs. This relies on autonomy (independence for self-regulation) and openness to new experience (realizing potential and putting effort forth). Maslow’s hierarchy further demonstrates this concept, along with other needs. It’s arranged by strength (more essential on bottom) with the lower needs developing sooner, which must be fulfilled in order. The four bottom needs (physiological, security, belongingness, and esteem needs) are deficit needs. Only when those deficits get met can growth needs be pursued (self-actualization) to fulfill one’s potential. Although Maslow’s hierarchy remains popular, there is little support behind it. The one concept that has support is the dual-level hierarchy, which separates deficit from growth needs. Furthermore, it’s been proposed we judge experiences to decide whether they promote or reverse growth and act based on those judgments, which is called an organismic valuation process.
One’s emergence of self refers to our growth in complexity, which needs approving feedback from others (positive regard). We receive positive regard by experiencing conditions of worth, in which we internalize behaviors by internalizing them. The process creates a conflict between actualization and self-actualization, in which we must choose between our natural temperaments and social expectations by parental use of conditional positive regard (approval for certain behaviors). Although it creates obedience, conditional positive regard may also create anxiety and anger in children, so it must be done carefully. Congruence refers to one’s acceptance of ranges of characteristics, abilities, and beliefs. As mentioned earlier, individuals create problems when they trade their true selves for socially acceptable masks. These social masks are called facades. Congruence may be improved by intrapersonal relationships if warmth, genuiness, empathy, acceptance, and confirmation of one another’s self-determinations are established.
Causality orientation refers to one’s behavioral regulation. Internal behavioral (integrated) regulation establishes an autonomy causality orientation, which is ultimately fueled by intrinsic motivation. External behavioral (interojected) regulation establishes a control causality orientation, which is ultimately fueled by extrinsic motivation. For instance, a writer who honestly enjoys it will feel more satisfaction than a writer who only does it for a paycheck. The way in which we interpret our experiences creates meaning, which affects purpose, values, and efficacy. Like all fields, positive psychology doesn’t go without its criticisms. First, it assumes humans are naturally good and will reject evil if given proper feedback, but this concept only shows one part of human nature. Second, the concepts are vague, which makes for a difficult description. Finally, it is unclear whether specific differentiations of right and wrong are from our true feelings or social influence. For example, how do I know I care about recycling, because I believe it will save the planet, or society tells me it should be done?
Terms: growth motivation, temperaments, personal growth, positive psychology, humanistic psychology, holistic approach, self-realization, self-concealment, self-realization, Maslow’s hierarchy, growth needs, deficit needs, dual-level hierarchy, organismic valuation process, emergence of self, positive regard, conditions of worth, congruence, façade, intrapersonal relationships, causality orientation, integrated regulation, interojected regulation, meaning, potential
Chapter 15 focuses on growth motivation and positive psychology. The main topics throughout this chapter were holism and positive psychology, self actualization, actualizing tendency, causality orientations, growth seeking vs. validation seeking, how relationships relate, the problem of evil and the positive psychology and it’s growth. As we can see there are many topics that were covered in this chapter, yet many of them relate and flow into one another. Holism and positive psychology are the first topics explained in the book. This relates to gesalt psychology, which is something I just had a test over last week. Holism explains that someone is best understood a whole’ other than something being broken down into different pieces and particles. This can be explained in many different examples. First, the text is explaining that if something happens to the stomach or the brain, it affects the whole body, not just that certain area. This means that this affects the entire person as a whole. Holism comes from the word ‘whole’ or ‘wholeness.’ The text explains that holism relates to the whole top down approach instead of the bottom up approach. Positive psychology is the next topic that relates to holism. This is a new type of psychology that is pretty recent, and has not been studied and looked at as much as other approaches and theories in psychology. I think that this is something that is very interesting and something that needs to be looked at more. It uses the empirical method to look at our lives, and what it is that makes our lives worth living. It also shows what types of actions we can take to make our lives better and to develop positively. It is explained that there are many things that are looked at when it comes to studying positive psychology, such as: well being, satisfaction, contentment, enjoyment, flow, competence, love, passion, etc! I think the book wanted to emphasize that positive psychology relates and somewhat overlaps with humanistic psychology, but they are not the same. It is stated that the main difference between the two is the research, and that positive psychology is more scientifically accurate. I think the quote at the end of the section is kind of clever, and it says ‘positive psychology is psychology, and psychology is science.’ I think that really puts in the information in a different perspective about what exactly it is!
Self actualization is the next topic discussed in the text. This is when we are developing ourselves to meet a certain goal, or to be something. There are two fundamental directions we can take when trying to achieve self actualization. These are autonomy and openness. Autonomy is something that we learned a while back in other chapters and it is similar to being independent and depending on yourself to achieve things. Openness is receiving information from something or someone. With openness, someone moves towards greatness and with autonomy, you are leaving things behind to move towards self actualization. Hierarchy of needs is something that we have also learned about, which relates to the concept of self actualization. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains that our needs can be organized into five different topics (or as the book said clusters). Two of these needs are psychological and physiological. Deficiency needs are also one of the needs we obtain. This is the need of feeling safe, like you belong, and esteem. We need these for growth and development as a human. Growth needs provide energy and direction. According to research done on this topic, it shows that this is something that is still widely used today and pretty popular. The research on this topic relates to our motivation compared to age, and self reports of needs. The chapter also gives the six behaviors that encourage our self actualization, which is pretty interesting. These include: make growth choices, be honest, position yourself for peak experiences, give up defensiveness, let the self emerge and lastly be open to new experiences.
Actualizing tendencies relates to holism and self actualization. This is when a person is being driven towards something, yet it is innate. It guides an individual towards their potential. This would come into play when an individual is wanting to experience new things and take on new challenges. The organismic valuation process is something that is used in this process. It helps us decide exactly what new challenges we want to face and take on. This then relates to an individual figuring out themselves as a whole, and who they really are. According to Rogers, we all live in two different worlds. One, the inner world which is the organismic valuation process already explained; second, the outer world of condition of worth. Congruence and incongruence are the next topics looked at when it comes to actualizing tendencies. This is when an individual either denies or accepts their personal characteristics, abilities and themselves as a person. Congruence is when you accept it, while incongruence is when you reject it. When individuals move to towards either of these directions they can sometimes adopt façade. This is relates to a person socially and relates to how we behave.
Causality orientation relates to our internal and external guides we that experience throughout our life. To rely on your internal guides, such as our needs and interests, we use autonomy causality orientations. When an individual is relying on their external guides it is called the control causality orientation. When an individual is high in autonomy orientation they are involved in a high level of internal locus of control and their needs and interests are valued when it comes to certain goals and our behavior. This is when we choose if we should pursue or give up. Someone who is high in control orientation is different. This is when incentives and rewards come into play. If there are things such as incentives and rewards that go along with a behavior then we are more likely to pursue that. With these types of people, pay (such as salary) and material objects are very important. When people want to change their behavior, they look at their internal guides as well as their external guides to do it. A good example that the book gave was with weight loss. Say you are in a work out class that is designed to lose weight. During this you would have strong internal and external support. Yet what happens when the class ends? This would most likely mean that you would have less external guides because you do not have people watching you or pushing you to reach a certain goal, now it is more up to you alone! This can be very scary for some individuals. Growth seeking and validation seeking are the next topics discussed in this chapter. People who are validation seekers tend to strive towards their self worth and competence. Yet, people who are growth seeking tend to go the other way and focus on learning, improving and reaching their personal goal and potential. According to the text, individuals who are validating seekers are more likely to suffer from depression, which I thought was very interesting. The Goal Orientation Inventory looks at both seekers to see their personality characteristics.
Positive psychology looks at an individual’s mental health and looks to see what they could be. It looks at someone’s strengths. Yet, it states that strengths are just as important as weaknesses. A table on page 441 explains how personal strengths are investigated as a subject matter. For example, happiness, enjoyment, hope, self efficacy, meaning, etc are all examples. I thought that this chapter was pretty interesting and one thing that I found to be very interesting is something that I have already mentioned. The book explained that individuals who were more validating seekers had a better chance of developing depression and anxiety.
TERMS: growth motivation, positive psychology, holism self actualization, actualizing tendency, causality orientations, growth seeking, validation seeking, empirical method, gesalt psychology, competence, autonomy, openness, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, deficiency needs, growth needs, innate, organismic valuation process, conditions of worth, congruence, incongruence, autonomy causality orientations, control causality orientation, goal orientation inventory
Chapter 15 discusses the topics of growth motivation and positive psychology. This has been one of my favorite chapters to read and I enjoy that this is the chapter to end on because it focuses on the positive attributes humans should strive for to maximize their potential. Humanistic psychology is very intriguing to me. It centers on the holism view and seeks to discover human potential and encourage its development. These thinkers must strive toward self-realization and away from facade, self-concealment, and expectations of others. Parallel to the humanistic approach is the field of positive psychology, which is a fairly new science. Both approach deal with the same issues and subject matter, but positive psychology focuses more on the systematic methodology and data to support such claims. The process of developing oneself and recognize ones talents, capacities, and potentials in order to maximize one’s human potential is called self-actualization. Autonomy and openness to experience are two important factors centered on this process. Maslow was an advocate for self-actualization. He organized human needs into five clusters that are ranked in a hierarchy of strength. These needs top-down are self-actualization, esteem, love and belongingness, safety and security, and physiological needs. The bottom half represent the survival needs, or the psychological and physiological needs, while the top half represents the growth needs. The bottom half develops sooner in humans, and as they age they develop the growth needs. These needs provide energy and direction to become what one is capable of becoming. However, recent research finding suggest removing the bottom three lines of the hierarchy and only allow self-actualization to be the top. Maslow understood people may not reach self-actualization because of internal and external environments. People may not reach their max potential because the process of self-actualization makes the person face their insecurities, which can be stressful and anxiety-provoking. Therefore, Maslow offered several everyday behaviors for encouraging growth, such as making growth choices, being honest, set up situations and experiences, give up defensiveness, let the self-emerge, and be open to experiences.
Carl Rogers, for some reason, had been my psychologist of interest since I first began learning about psychology. He’s a humanistic psychologist who values the holism approach and like Maslow, understood human’s specific motives. I enjoy these psychologists because they focus on a “feed-forward” approach, where an individual analyzes a specific experience as good or bad through the organismic valuation process and then can use this feedback to make changes to move forward. Throughout our lives, we learn conditions of worth, where we internalize feedback from parents and society into our self-structure that affect our behavior. The organismic valuation is an internal process, while the conditions of worth are an external process. Rogers advocated for an unconditional positive regard instead of a conditioned one because it allows the developing individual to grow towards their self-actualization and disregard societies conditions of worth that lead to a motivational conflict. People have differences in their strength of these inner and outer guides. Some have an autonomy causality orientation, where they rely on internal guides and act on intrinsic motivation, while others have control causality orientation, where they rely on external guides and act on extrinsic motivation. This distinction then leads to two categories of motivation, either growth-seeking or validation-seeking. Growth-seekers are those intrinsic motivators who strive to reach human potential, while validation-seekers are those extrinsic motivators who strive for social acceptance, a pursuit to restore their deficiency needs, and have a higher risk for developing mental health difficulties, such as anxiety, low self-esteem, and high depression.
A major factor of humanistic psychology is interpersonal relationships because they determine whether a person develops congruence, which is the harmony between experience and expression. Relationships need to be supportive instead of controlling to promote autonomy and nurture actualization. Helping others lets the other person discover themselves. Self-actualizers have strong relatedness that is centered on the unconditional acceptance, instead of a social acceptance of social norms. An example of helping people maximize their human potential would be the educational system with roles of student and teacher. Rogers advocated that teachers instead be called “facilitators” because learning does not follow teaching, instead he believed learning is preceded by identifying interests and supporting them. Therefore, Rogers offered that the educational process follow a student-centered approach instead of the teacher-centered approach.
Another view that many humanistic thinkers possess is that human nature is inherently good, which means evil is not inherent in human nature. To me, this makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint because humans are the most compassionate and social species. Rogers argued that evil is learned from a violent history in relationships, while others argue that evil are a part of everyone therefore we need a value system. Both of these ideas make sense because they both argue the same point that evil is not in human nature, but actually in the culture.
The next section of the text focuses on positive psychology, which seeks to build people strengths and competencies. The tendency to see oneself in a positive light is associated with well-being and enhanced performance. From this positive thinking, optimism is produced. It’s known that optimistic people live more meaningful lives because they believe their future can be improved. This thinking can actually be learned, which can be used also as a therapeutic strategy. People create meaning to their life. An existentialist believes there is no meaning to life in general, but there is great meaning within each individual. This meaning stems from the needs of purpose, values, and efficacy. Creating meaning in something reduces the chance of sickness and suffers from a mental pathology. An example of this might be religion, which defines the meaning of life and makes people feel less afraid of the unknown. Positive psychology also studies the two types of happiness, such as hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic is the experience of pleasure and living a relaxed and good life, while eudaimonic is the experience of seeking challenges and flow and feeling fully alive. In other words, eudaimonic is self-realization that’s stems from psychological needs. From all the research pulled from positive psychologists, it’s still not valid enough to be used in intervention techniques for therapy. However, a group of positive psychologists formed a happiness exercise, which includes writing a letter of gratitude, writing three good things in life each day, writing about oneself at their best, and identifying strengths.
TERMS: Humanistic psychology, Holism, Positive psychology, Autonomy, Openness to experience, Growth needs, Self-actualization, Feed-forward, Organismic valuation, Conditions of worth, Unconditional positive regard, Autonomy causality orientation, Control causality orientation, Extrinsic motivation, Intrinsic motivation, Growth-seeking, Validation-seeking, Congruence, Relatedness, Studen-centered, Optimism, Existentialist, Hedonic, Eudaimonic, Happiness exercise
Chapter 15 is all about growth motivation and positive psychology. It first begins by talking about Holism, which is seeing a human being as a whole rather than made up of different parts, where any event effects the whole system of one person. Holism is part of humanistic psychology which is all about discovering human motivation and encouraging it's developments. Positive Psychology is claimed to be a new era of psychology, for it is not a subfield of humanistic psychology but rather parallels with it along the lines of proactively building personal strengths and competencies within human beings.
Self actualization is when an individual realizes his or her strengths of talents, capacities, and potentiality. Autonomy and Openness to experience are two divisions that guide one towards their self actualization. Maslow created a 'need hierarchy' pyramid to help explain how one can reach their self actualization by going through all their deficiency needs (physiological - safety and security - love and belongings - esteem) to their growth needs, which is their self actualization. Much research has been conducted about Maslow's need hierarchy and have concluded that instead of grouping the deficiency needs in a pyramid, the five-level of those should be rejected and instead placed into a two-level hierarchy need of deficiency and growth needs. The reason behind doing so is because some individuals may reach their self actualization in a different order of their deficiency needs then Maslow believed. Out of this, six behavior suggestions were made to encourage individuals on their self actualization (make growth changes, be honest, situationally position yourself for peak experiences, give up defensiveness, let the self emerge, and be open to experience).
The actualizing tendency section of chapter 15 goes on to further discuss how one should be motivated to reach and understand their self actualization by claiming that having a feedback system allows for behavior to follow while a feed-forward system that responds to ones intentions to act rather than their actual persistence of behavior. This is different from self-actualizing for it is what occurs within an individual before they reach the self-actualizing stage. The emerging self is part of the actualization stage for it is in need of positive regard - approval, acceptance, and love from others. Another part is dealing with conditions of worth within the world, such as being either judged positively or negatively of acceptance or rejection. Conditional regard of parents is another pusher towards discovering self actualization and can either be positive (giving love and affection for obedience and achievement) or negative (taking away love and affection for disobedience and failure). Congruence and incongruence have major influence on self actualization for it is when the individual either rejects or accepts his or her personal traits and morals. By wearing a facade (social mask), an individual is not really expressing their true self. Once one feels at ease with society and knows their place in the world, then they can begin to fully function as an individual.
Causality orientations come in two ways: autonomy causality orientation and control causality orientation. Autonomy causalities involve making decisions based off personal interests and valued goals where control causalities occur to please others in society. Both are good motivators to move towards, but one should always be more interested in their own autonomy than others in order to feel at ease with their self actualization.
As mentioned before, each individual has a social facade that they where around to please societal every day demands. In doing so, quasi-needs emerge. This means that through social interaction, an individual can begin to determine their place in society and a measure of their personal worth, competence, and like ability. With a positive experience of this, one can ease into the transition of their self actualization with confidence.
Relationships have a big part in moving towards autonomy. Relationships that are controlling push towards heteronomy and relationships that are supportive nurture the actualizing tendency. Through warmth, genuineness, empathy, interpersonal acceptance, and confirmation can a therapist help an individual express their self-determination. To do this, an individual must discover his or herself, have good relatedness with in his or her relationships, be willing to learn from a caring facilitator and work with peers to gain an internal understanding and want of education, and by focusing on their self-definitions compared to their social definitions.
All of this information makes sense to gain a positive road to discovering self-actualization, but only if that road is supported correctly by outside influences. To understand violent people, they probably had a power and control hungry experience in their childhood, where altruistic individuals probably had a childhood full of empathy and care. For those who have not had good experiences, they need to develop a system of right and wrong after experience a malevolent personality trait. When a parent or adult shames and scorns a child, then they are more likely to feel incompetent as a human being and prefers lies and deceit over their actual self-examination of themselves.
Positive psychology comes into play with this by taking looking at both the importance of strengths and weaknesses within an individual and builds strengths of fostering personal growth and well-being, and preventing human sickness (depression and suicide) from entering a personality. It does this through optimism (expression of a positive attitude or good mood from someone who expects it to last in the future), meaning through existentialism (knowing meaning of individual life through a sense of purpose, internalized values, and high efficacy), and a eudaimonic well-being (including happiness and meaning into self-realization by seeking out challenges, exerting effort, being fully engaged, experiencing flow with tasks, acting on one's true values, and feeling fully alive and authentic).
Although there a few criticisms about humanistic and positive psychology, I find it to be very logical and a great way to look at individuals who struggle with finding themselves. I highly enjoyed the quick positive psychology therapy tips of writing a gratitude visit, jotting down three good things that happened in a day, writing down 'you at your best' that day, and identifying at least five personal strengths. I think I will actually start doing this, for sometimes we forget how strong we really are when being compared and socially open to other individuals. Positive psychology and humanistic psychology therapy have my vote 100%.
Terms: positive psychology, humanistic psychology, holism, self-actualization,autonomy, openness, need hierarchy, deficiency and growth needs, actualizing tendency, emerging self, conditional regards, congruence/incongruence, facade, causality orientations, autonomy causality orientation, control causality orientation, quasi-needs, conditions of worth, personal worth, competence, facilitator, malevolent personality trait, optimism, meaning, eudaimonic well-being
Chapter 15
Woo-hoo! Last reading post! Our final chapter is titled growth motivation and positive psychology and that automatically made me think if Maslow and his hierarchy of needs. Sure enough within the first few pages there was the pyramid, tipped with self actualization. All of this falls under the umbrella of holism which is a branch of psychology that examines the complete person, rather than the broken. This branch then looks more carefully at how a person functions as a whole as opposed to how individual components make us who we are. It kind of flips the traditional way of thinking on its head. Out of this realm has come a newer phenomenon called positive psychology, which I had heard mentioned before this chapter but never knew what it was about. It turns out that positive psychology seeks to find out what our true potential could be someday. It this way it sets a bar for the preferred standard. However, when I look at my actions on a daily basis I know that I am constantly falling short of this criterion. Surprising, positive psychology doesn’t focus on these shortcomings but instead focuses on my strengths and seeks to build upon those. This sounds like a fine idea when it comes to people with low feelings of competency; build up their strengths so that they can eventually face ‘problem areas’. However, I believe that all this is really accomplishing is coddling people so that they don’t have to learn of and ultimately deal with their flaws. The book explains that it is to help people reach their full potential but I fail to see how that can be accomplished if we do not address our weaknesses. Rant ends here. The book then went on to discuss more in depth Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the base we have many needs that we seek to minimize by getting our fill of them. Such needs include food/water, safety, being loved, and feeling belonged. These needs constantly need to be fulfilled, like filling up your car with gas. At the very top we have self actualization which is our growth motivation. This could be considered chasing your dreams. If you think about it, it makes sense. If you are starving or afraid for your safety you will not be thinking of and taking actions toward how you can a famous author. According to Maslow, we all are all born with our self actualization needs in place, but less than one percent of the population actually achieves it. He explained this away by saying that our deficiency motivation often blocks out our self actualization motivation and that people in general are afraid of attaining self actualization. He termed it the “Jonah complex” which sums up the fact that we are afraid of realizing our full potential. The reason behind this fear is that attaining it is stressful and generates a lot of anxiety. Again this all makes great sense when one thinks about it.
In the middle of the chapter it took a look at our tendencies for attaining actualization as hypothesized by Carl Rogers. Rogers too realized that we have many different needs that must be met before actualization can occur. However, he summarized it as at the core of all of us we have a drive to “actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing self”. Our actualizing tendency is our main motivational force for attaining actualization. Some different components of this include our emergence of self, self worth, and congruence. When our ‘self’ emerges we become a very complex organism and begin to see outside of ourselves as well. When we accomplish this it motivates us to have our self accepted by those around us, thus the motivation to seek love and acceptance. He also demonstrated that our sense of self worth is crucial in our actualizing tendencies. We are given our sense of self by feedback from our surroundings and are told through many interactions which behaviors are desirable and which are bad. However, Rogers suggested that if we focus on these external feedback systems more than we focus on our own inherent self-value then that is detrimental to achieving self actualization because you are inhibiting the ‘real’ you. The last crucial component is congruence, which is how much internal conflict there is in ourselves or how much denial of self we are experiencing. If we are a naturally happy, artistic, individual with no care for governmental control we are not going to experience much congruence if we live in North Korea and suppress our true self all the time. It is best if we can accept our ‘natural’ selves and freely express it to maximize congruence.
One small but very interesting segment of the chapter examined evil in society. What if an individual’s self actualization is evil? We should probably not encourage them to realize it. The ongoing debate over evil is whether or not it is innate, how much of the population is like this, and what drives this behavior? Most humanists hold that people are born good, but that the society/environment around them corrupts them into behaving evil, so, basically, everyone has the potential to be good or bad. What these individuals suggest is that people will either develop a malevolent or benevolent value system, or a system of rules and values that motivate them to do good or evil. If parents do not provide their children with a benevolent value system then their children will develop one from other sources, for good or bad. This was really encouraging for me as a Christian. God lays out the 10 commandments which assume that we are not born good but rather evil and these rules seek to restrain our evil behavior. Being God knew we would violate these commands in every way he sent his son Jesus who lived his whole life without breaking them. Jesus then switched spots with us and took the punishment that we deserved, and now we are seen by God as he saw Jesus, perfect. Telling people to love God above everything else and to love their neighbor as themselves is clearly a benevolent value system that I will certainly pass on to my children.
Last reading Blog!!!!
Terms: self-actualization, Maslow, hierarchy of needs, holism, positive psychology, competency, deficiency motivation, goal motivation, humanist, Carl Rogers, actualization tendency, feedback, conditions of worth, self, congruence, evil, malevolent/benevolent value system
In chapter fifteen of the book Reeves talks about growth motivation and positive psychology. The first topic discussed was about holism and positive psychology. Holism says that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than as a series of differentiated parts operating apart from one another. Essentially it is not separate body parts wanting their own needs, but the whole body working towards a common need. So it is not just the stomach that needs and wants food. The brain activates while the saliva and teeth help chew, stomach digests, intestines absorb nutrients and turn food to energy, muscles use energy, and colon disposes of waste. These are only a few, but all parts of the body are motivated towards the need and fulfilling it. This is why holism or “whole” is used to describe the motivated body. Positive Psychology is basically the report of positive benefits that are reaped from healthy lifestyles and good choices. This is a relatively new idea that accompanies the holism approach. Overall well-being and happiness are paramount in this orientation.
Next Reeves goes on to discuss the idea of self-actualization which is the process of dismissing all negative things like being closed-minded, shy, defensive appraisals, and an ongoing dependence on those around the individual. The goal with self-actualization is that eventually you find the opposite of those things and create a courageous, positive appraising, independent individual. Reeves talks about two directions towards self-actualization and they are autonomy and openness to experience. In his description he says that autonomy is the trip one takes from dependence to independence both behaviorally and emotionally. The landing spot is control over one’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Talking about openness he says that it is taking information from dialog, events, etc and not dealing with it in an indirect, suppressed, or negative manner, but rather makes the most out of the situation or at least be open to interpretation and not just assumptions. When talking about this model it is formed as a pyramid called the Hierarchy of Human Needs with easier tasks on bottom to complete before reaching self-actualization at the top. At the bottom are things such as growth development which goes hand in hand with the topics discussed earlier.
In addition to self-actualization Reeves discusses the emergence of the “self” to begin with. The self only emerges after growth begins and the individual begins to develop a full understanding of who they are and what circumstances they find themselves in. Parallel with growing they are conditions of worth that are placed beforehand. There are two types of behaviors that are judged. They are positive and worth to accept or negative and rejected. Congruence is described with the material as the extent to which someone reacts in the positive acceptance or the negative rejected. However, not everyone reacts in accordance with their true feelings. These facades are disguised behaviors and reactions that are faked for social relevance or acceptance to spur on the motivation for social acceptance
The next sections talked about causality orientations and growth seeking. There are two types of causality orientations discussed. One is autonomy causality orientation which describes how much habit is the reason for seeking internal guides such as needs, interests, etc. Control causality orientation refers to the extent that individuals habitually rely on external guides like what they have learned from society and value from elders and peers. Reeves then goes on the discussing growth seeking. Inside this discussion there is a difference between growth seeking vs. validation seeking. Growth seeking individuals center their personal strivings around learning, improving, and becoming the best they can be. Validation seekers do exactly what the title alludes to. They want to get appraisal from others of show themselves they are better by comparison. This is competitiveness at its saddest.
In the end of the chapter there are several topics that are volleyed around for opinion. He looks at interpersonal relationships are how they can create warmth and pleasure from human contact. Interpersonal relationships help self-actualizing tendencies through helping others, relating to others, learning, and defining the self. Another part took us towards humanistic thinker’s view on inherent evil in people. How much of it is really inherent and why do we do it? Many think we are good and that evil comes from mistreatment by others. On the flip side optimism is believed by many and many participate in exercises that promote feelings of happiness. These are all many qualities of humanistic thinking and like other schools of thought they have their criticisms.
Terms: holism, positive psychology, self-actualization, hierarchy of human needs, self, conditions of worth, congruence, facades, causality orientations, optimism, meaning, growth seeking, validation seeking, interpersonal relationships, humanistic thinking.
In chapter 15 the book talks about growth motivation and positive psychology. The first two things that we are introduced book to are holism and positive psychology. Holism states that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than as a series of differentiated parts, thus coming from the name “whole” or “wholeness”. So when say, someone feels hungry it’s not just their stomach that is motivated and affected but the entire body. Positive psychology is a newly emerging field and follows along the same subject matter as holism. It focuses on the vision of a good life and what makes life worth living. That actions lead to experiences of well-being and develop the individual in a positive way. The thing that sets positive psychology apart from holism is its reliance on hypothesis-testing, data based empirical research.
The next section talks about self-actualization. The process of moving forward in life to realize one’s own talents, capacities, and potentials. In doing this one relies on autonomy, the moving away from heteronomy and depending on one’s self and on openness to new experiences. This is where the hierarchy of human needs comes into play by Maslow to demonstrate. The way this is arranged is by strength with the (more essential and urgent) needs at the bottom developing sooner and in fulfilling order. The four needs that make up the bottom (physiological, security, belongingness, and esteem needs) are known as the deficit needs. Only when these deficits get met can one’s growth needs be pursued (self-actualization) to fulfill one’s potential. Although this theory is still popular today, there is little support behind it. Leaving only the support from the duel-level hierarchy, which separates deficit from growth needs.
The section following covered actualizing tendency. A proposal that we judge experiences based on whether they promote or reverse growth and act based on those judgments, in a process known as the organismic valuation process. First it talks about the emergence of the self, a complex growth that needs approving feedback from others (positive regard). We receive this positive regard when we experience conditions of worth. These conditions are behaviors that are judged as either positive and worthy of acceptance or negative and worthy of rejection. This process of worth creates a conflict between actualization and self-actualization, in that we must choose between our internalized natural temperaments and social expectations by our parental conditions of positive regard (organismic values) or the outer conditions of worth. Then there is congruence, the extent to which the individual denies and rejects or accepts the full range of his or her personal characteristics, abilities, desires or beliefs. When an individual trade their true selves for socially acceptable self facades take form. A social mask that someone wears and it relates to ways of behaving that have little do with inner guides and much to do with a social front to hide behind.
Causality orientation refers to one’s behavioral regulation. There are two kinds of guides that regulate behavior that are adopted from an outer social guide and environmental incentives. First is autonomy causality orientation, were the individuals habitually rely on their intrinsic motivations. Second is control causality orientation which is based more on external needs and goals (extrinsic motivation).The way in which we interpret our experiences creates meaning, which affects purpose, values, and efficacy. In order to have a healthy life one must have a health interpersonal relationship. In order to do this one must be able to reflect on the following characteristics: warmth, genuineness, empathy, interpersonal acceptance, and confirmation of the other person’s capacity for self-determination. Relationships are also a big part of supporting ones needs to self-actualize. Lastly comes the evil side of positive psychology. It first assumes that humans are naturally good and will reject evil if given the proper feedback, second, is that these concepts are vague, which makes for a difficult description. Finally, there is an unclear specific differentiations of right and wrong, they are from our true feelings or social influence?
Terms: growth motivation, temperaments, positive psychology, humanistic psychology, holistic approach, Maslow’s hierarchy, growth needs, deficit needs, dual-level hierarchy, organismic valuation process, emergence of self, positive regard, conditions of worth, congruence, façade, intrapersonal relationships, causality orientation, meaning, potential, capacities
Chapter 15, entitled “Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology”, discusses people’s biological temperaments and the problems they can face if environmental events disturb their inner nature (essential core).
We begin with the topic of holism, introduced originally by Aristotle. This viewpoint states that each human is a reflection of his or her person as a whole rather than the individual parts which make it up. The example given in the textbook states that if a man is hungry, it is his whole self which desires food, not just his stomach. The stomach is merely a part of the whole system of man. According to holism, the “top-down” approach explains human motivation rather than the “bottom-up” approach. In other words, man as a whole entity can explain how the general motives (or master motives) influence the smaller, less significant ones lower down on the totem of human motives. The holistic approach states that human strive toward self-actualization and fulfillment, causing each person to work towards his or her utmost potential and development in life. This perspective, called humanistic, strives towards 1) growth and self-realization, and 2) away from fulfilling others’ expectations or self-concealment.
Holism relates with a newer psychological field of study called positive psychology. Just as the name implies, positive psychology includes the development of positive individuals who act in discovering experiences such as optimism, nurturing communities and involvement in such, talent, creativity, hope, self-determination, civility, love, and perseverance to name a few. This field of study is very scientifically involved as compared to humanistic psychology, which does not emphasize on empirical research and hypothesis testing as positive psychology does. Positive psychology works toward bettering individuals and reversing negativity. In bettering ourselves, we try to achieve self-actualization, which focuses on autonomy and openness to experience, leaving behind dependence on others and brings forth courage and mindfulness.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a motivational proposition most everyone has encountered in their studies. This pyramid-shaped illustration of human needs and their importance includes self-actualization as the top position in the growth needs. As we move down toward the base of the hierarchal pyramid, we discover needs such as esteem, love, belongingness, safety, and basic physiological needs. The top begins with needs related to and necessary for healthy growth and descend to those needs which are needed for survival and, if neglected, lead to deficiency. The needs located at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy are those which cause the most urgency and are felt more strongly than the growth needs at the peak of the pyramid. The self-actualization needs are those needed to make a person who she or he is or will become.
Data research has found support when using a two-tier hierarchy rather than Maslow’s 5-level, stating that only growth and deprivation are necessary regarding distinction of needs; this would mean merging belongingness/love, security/safety, and esteem needs into one unit, making physiological needs one large category and self-actualization the other, thus corresponding to empirical research.
According to Maslow, 99% of the human population does not reach self-actualization during their lifetime. Striving for complete self-emergence may lead to stress, anxiety, depression, and so forth. It is much easier to simply live life more safely, and just accomplish whatever is necessary for acceptable competence, for in order to achieve self-actualization, one must follow these six steps or behaviors: 1) make growth choices, 2) be honest, 3) situationally position yourself for peak experiences, 4) give up defensiveness, 5) let the "self" emerge, and 6) be open to experiences. Although it has been theorized that self-actualization is inherently innate, many do not accomplish it, even though we all may try to.
We are all judged on our personal characteristics and behaviors from the time we are born, and this causes us to learn the “conditions of worth”. According to the Rogerian Model of the Process of Self-Actualization the organismic valuation process begins at birth where the child begins to learn about themselves from parents and other adults, which either fosters or neglects the individual’s needs for positive self-regard. Through socialization experiences, that child learns what to do and not to do. During this process, unconditional valuation is needed for the fully functional person who accepts his or her full-range of abilities, beliefs, who trusts her inner direction to eventually emerge rather than incongruence from conditional organismic valuation of the individual.
Relying on internal guides to explain motivational behavior leads people to adopt an autonomy causality orientation. On the other hand, to rely on the external guides, including social cues, one is said to have adopted a control causality orientation. An example of these two orientations is when a person takes on a new job position and contemplates whether he will like the work he does, which relates to autonomy, and then if he will make more money than at his last job, which corresponds with the control orientation, according to the General Causality Orientations Scale by Deci and Ryan. The control orientation reflects a quasi-need in the last example since the man wanted to make money. This represents validation-seeking behavior.
Relationships support the self-actualization tendency by way of helping others, giving people the freedom to learn, providing us with social definition and determination, and aiding in our striving to feel relatedness with others.
Evil, the chapter explains, is the voluntary and deliberate infliction of pain and/or suffering on someone without respect for his or her humanity. Some theorists think evil is innate, while others think evil is adopted by people as a result of experience.
Sometimes personal growth can be stunted by too much optimism. But optimism aids in healthy lives and better psychological well-being as opposed to negativity. Existentialism considers such things as isolation and meaninglessness in an indifferent universe, Chapter 15 states. Two studies have emerged; one study involves pessimism by Sartre, the other- optimism by Victor Frankl. Regarding motivation, the meaning of life is said to stem from three needs: 1) purpose, 2) values, and 3) efficacy.
There are two types of happiness this chapter discusses; one is eudaimonic, the other is hedonic. When experiencing pleasure without problems, being fully engaged, and living a relaxed and good life, one is experiencing hedonic happiness. Positive Psychology therapies, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, exists to further foster the positive self-actualization process and recommendations for this program include four happiness exercises: 1) gratitude visit, 2) discovering three good things in life, 3) recalling you at your best, and 4) listing your best strengths.
A criticism for self-actualization includes the question of how one person know what he or she really needs. One person may find a certain need much more important on the road to self-discovery than another might. These differences may be socialized, quasi-needs, adopted from parents or other influential adults during the learning process. This is an interesting concept to me, as we are all different in our opinions and the way we learn, as well as what we are taught. I would still say that overall, positive approaches are an asset to higher emotional well-being and lower psychological distress in life.
TERMS: self-actualization, organismic valuation process, Positive Psychology therapy, eudaimonic/hedonic (happiness), Existentialism, optimism, evil, self/social definition, relatedness, autonomy, validation-seeking, causality orientations, General Causality Orientations Scale, incongruence, positive self-regard, conditions of worth, self, Maslow’s Human Needs Hierarchy, holism, growth motivation, essential core, happiness exercises
Chapter 15 was about Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology. The chapter starts out about humanistic psychology, more specifically holism and positive psychology and the idea of identifying and developing the human potential. Positive psychology looks at people’s mental health and how they live their lives to ask, “What could be?” Positive psychology helps build people’s strengths and competencies in addition to psychological wellness. It looks at the good life vision and uses psychology to see what makes life worth living. Holism comes from the word “wholeness” and is the study of what is healthy and unbroken.
Self-actualization happens when the full realization happens for someone on how to use their talents, capabilities, and potentials to the fullest. Maslow created his hierarchy of needs and within it differentiated between deficiency needs and growth needs. Deficiency needs are the physiological needs for safety, belongingness, and esteem. Growth needs are the satisfaction of all of the defiencency needs. For example, rather than feeling insecure, someone may feel a need to fulfill personal potential. Regardless of his popularity on this topic, the book states that there is little support for the need for hierarchy.
Rogers felt that the actualizing tendency coordinated all other motives so it served as the purpose of enhancing and actualizing the self. With socialization children learn to conditions of worth on which their behavior and personal characteristics are judged. Because of this we all live in two different worlds, which the book describes as the inner world of actualizing tendencies and organismic valuation and the outer world of social priorities, conditions of worth and conditional regard. The term congruence is when accepts the full range of his or her personal charachteristics and desires and incongruence is when he or she denies and rejects their personal qualities. The congruent and fully functional person is close to the actualizing tendency and therefore had a good sense of autonomy, openness to experience and personal growth.
Causality orientations are the extent of self determination in the personality and reflect differences in people’s understanding of what causes and regulates their behavior. For example, a person with an autonomy-causality orientation, the behavior happens because of the needs and interests and is because of a personal choice, but for the person with a control-causality orientation, inner guides are ignored when the behavior starts, they also usually have less positive functioning than autonomy controlled individuals. For example, in the losing weight behavior these individuals would not have as good of results because they don’t have very good long term maintenance of behavioral changes/
Validation seeking individuals strive to prove their self-worth, competence and likeability, whereas growth seeking individuals center their striving on learning, improving and reachin personal potential. Validation seeking people are more vulnerable to anxiety and depression.
Interpersonal relationships support the actualizing tendency in four ways; hekping others, relating to others in authentic ways, promoting the freedom to learn, and defining the self. These relationships are defined by a warmth, genuineness, empathy, and interpersonal acceptance.
Terms Used:holism, positive psychology, hierarchy of needs, self-actualization, deficiency needs, growth needs, actualizing tendency, congruence, incongruence, causality orientations, relatedness, competency, self definition
Chapter fifteen discusses the idea of positive psychology and how the idea of holism and the reflection of the whole are different than the individual parts. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is in direct relation to us being motivated with different tasks in our life. I strongly agree with the idea of self-actualization and the definition that the reason for people not wanting to self-actualize is because they are scared of our abilities. When we successfully are able to fulfill our needs we are then able to more than likely self-actualize. As humans are our ability of autonomy is very beneficial for when we strive to develop and realize our abilities and potential. By developing and focusing on ourselves as a whole we are able to grow in a more positive manner rather than focusing on individual aspects.
Causality orientations are ways in which people understand the perception of their behavior. There are two types of causality orientations, for people who rely on internal guides such as needs and interests are considered to have an autonomy causality orientation. People who rely on more external cues such as social context or involvement are considered having control causality orientations. The type of causality orientation reflects the individual’s personality and their motivational ability. Our ability and personal motivation ability shows how our personality and ways in which we are able to successfully develop. Growth-seeking in comparison to validation-seeking is more individually based, people like this work to better them so they then can better the people and situation they are involved with. People who strive for external validation use the things they are involved in as a source of growth and it is very much looking for these situations as a way in which they are personally benefiting them.
Interpersonal relationships and the ability to self-actualize are related because during the development of relationships people are looking for positive encouragement from the other people involved. Conceptualizing who you are can be done through relationships as well and for people specifically women who are able to self-define are more positively affected and then more positively radiate themselves in relationships. I find this as the most interesting part because the idea of how positive relationships can be for an individual but how the effects of evil in a society can affect how a person develops. How much of society is evil they say? Society has socially constructed how we perceive things and this affects how we make decision and what we do, but I also agree with the idea that humans are inherently good and that evil arises. Society has created this evil because it has constantly influenced how we do things.
Terms: positive psychology, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-actualization, growth, holistic, emergence of the self, causality orientation, autonomy causality orientation, control causality orientation, growth-seeking, validation-seeking, actualization tendency, interpersonal relationships, self-definition, social definition, society and evil.
Chapter 15 is titled “Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology”. The main concepts discussed in this chapter include; holism and positive psychology, self-actualization, actualizing tendency, causality orientations, growth-seeking versus validation-seeking, how relationships support the actualizing tendency, the problem of evil and positive psychology and growth. The term “holism” derives from the word “whole” therefore concerns itself with the study of what is healthy. Humanistic psychology is about discovering human potential and encouraging its development and in order to accomplish this, the humanistic perspective concerns striving toward growth and self-realization and away from façade, self-concealment, and the pleasing and fulfilling of the expectations of others. The idea of positive psychology is relatively new in the Psychology world. 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. The goal is to show what actions lead to experiences of well-being, to the development of positive individuals who are optimistic and resilient, and to the creation of nurturing and thriving institutions and communities. Positive psychology literally looks and examines a person and asks, “What could be?” This outlook presents the opportunity for success in a person.
Self-actualization is an inherent developmental striving. Two fundamental directions that characterize self-actualization as a process are autonomy and openness to experience. Autonomy means moving away from heteronomy and toward an ever-increasing capacity to depend on one’s self and to regulate one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Openness means receiving information such that it is not repressed, ignored, or filtered, nor distorted by wishes, fears, or past experiences. Through openness, one leaves behind timidity and defensive appraisals and moves towards greater mindfulness, the courage to create, and realistic appraisals. Through autonomy, one leaves behind a dependence on others and moves toward self-realization. Maslow created a hierarchy of needs in order to explain how to achieve self-actualization. The hierarchy of needs from bottom to top are; physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. After research was conducted on this theory the three main findings were; reject the five-level hierarchy, collapse the physiological, safety, belongingness and esteem needs into the single category of deficiency needs and hypothesize a simplified, two-level hierarchy distinguishing only between deficiency and growth needs.
Causality orientation involves individuals relying on external guides such as social cues. The control orientations involve a relative insensitivity to inner guides, as control-oriented individuals prefer to pay closer attention to behavioral incentives and social expectations. When control oriented, people make decisions in response to the presence and quality of incentives, rewards, social expectations, and social concerns. Causality orientations reflect self-determination in the personality. Hence, self-determination theory explains the origins and dynamics of causality orientations.
The Goal Orientation Inventory measures validation-seeking and growth-seeking strivings as relatively enduring personality characteristics. The respondent is asked to agree or disagree on whether the item describes how he or she thinks and acts in general. Another name for validation seeking is the intentional, deliberate, and bend-over-backwards pursuit of high self-esteem. The pursuit of high self-esteem, while understandable, is fraught with important and debilitating long-term costs, including costs to one’s personal autonomy, sacrifices to one’s learning, costs to one’s relationships with others, costs to physical health and costs to mental health.
The most interesting thing that I took away from the chapter was the idea of positive psychology. It looks at people’s mental health and their quality of life and asks “What could be?” This is important because my future job will be dealing with individuals that have either mental health issues or behavioral problems. Having an optimistic outlook will help people maintain a sense of hope and well-being.
Terms: holism, positive psychology, self-actualization, actualizing tendency, causality orientations, growth-seeking, validation-seeking, relationships, actualizing tendency, autonomy, openness, Maslow, incentives, well-being
I have been in college for 4 years now, studying primarily psychology along with other electives and such. Surprisingly, I have never heard of holism. Holism is a simply understanding the individual as a whole, rather than differentiated parts. This is a simple concept because it is referring to the parts of our body being one, not separate. If our leg, stomach, back, etc. hurts, it affects the person, not just that body part. By studying people in this way, I think we are more applicable to find deeper problems. If we only know about one problem, we may not be considering the five others that are also bothering them.
I thought it was interesting to learn about the difference between positive psychology and Humanistic psychology despite their commonalities. Positive psychology focuses on hypothesis-testing, data based empirical research. Everyone wants to have a positive life, however many have trouble getting themselves there. Positive psychology looks at “what could be” in any situation. Although self-actualization is inherent, people have tendencies to put themselves down, and think of the negatives, instead of focusing on the autonomy and openness.
The hierarchy of human needs can be related to deprivation. Needs that are low on the hierarchy are more desired. Just like when human beings are deprived of anything such as water, food, socialization and the like, we feel an urgency to fulfill that need and become satiated from it. I also thought it was interesting to read that although Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is very popular in the education system, it had minimal empirical support. This is surprising because nowadays, anything that can’t be backed up usually falls between the cracks.
Conditions of worth are like learning what is right and wrong. This is how we have such a diverse culture. The environment we grow up in and the parental conditions of worth that we incorporate into our own lives because we are sensitive to their positive regard, has everything to do with why there is so much diversity. Those who stray from their indigenous beliefs have chosen to be incongruent of their culture.
The book mentioned growth seeking versus validation seeking. It sounded like we are one or the other, either you are an individual that centers their personal strivings on learning, improving, and reaching your potential (growth seeking), or you strive off the approval of others (validation seeking). I personally think that we all have a little of both. One may be more apparent than the other, but even people who are growth seeking individuals’ desire social approval; it is after all one of our inherent needs. Whether it is approval from our parents, teachers, friends, bosses, significant other, we all want some social approval.
My sister and I are similar in many ways, but when it comes to our well-being we differ. My sister, has a hedonic well-being, she is comfortable with life and likes to avoid adventure at all costs in hopes nothing bad will ever happen. On the other hand, I have a eudaimonic well-being because I seek out adventure and challenges, such as higher schooling. I am never content with like, there is always something else out there that I haven’t tried yet. The three antecedents of eudaimonic well-being are wealth and materialism, attachment and relationships, and pursuit of personal goals. Although I am a broke college student at the moment, I will still work for anything I want until I can afford it. I have great relationships and I can’t think of any failed personal goals.
Terms: Holism, positive psychology, humanistic psychology, hypothesis-testing, self-actualization, autonomy, openness, hierarchy of human needs, deprivation, satiated, socialization, parental conditions of worth, positive regard, incongruent, social approval, growth-seeking, validation-seeking, hedonic well-being, eudaimonic well-being, personal goals, antecedents
Chapter 15
This chapter was about humanistic psychology and how it stresses the notions of inherent potentialities, holism, and strivings towards personal fulfillment. It explains that the type of psychology is about identifying and developing human potential. Positive psychology looks at people’s mental health and how they live their lives and also seeks to build people’s strengths and competencies to cultivate psychological wellness. The next thing that the chapter introduced was self-actualization which is the full realization and use of one’s talents, capacities, and potentialities. Maslow made the distinction between deficiency needs and growth needs in his need hierarchy. His contribution to contemporary motivation study is not in the hierarchy but rather in his insights about why people fail to self-actualize and what actions they can take to encourage personal growth toward self-actualization. Next is the actualizing tendency which is a fundamental need that coordinates all other motives to serve as the collective purpose of enhancing and actualizing the self. When socializing, children learn societal conditions of worth on which their behavior and personal characteristic are judged. This means that that we live in two worlds, the inner world of the actualizing tendencies and organismic valuation and the outer world of social priorities, conditions of worth, and conditional regard. When people move away from organismic valuing and toward external conditions of worth, they adopt facades and reject or deny personal characteristics, preferences, and beliefs. Congruence is when a person accepts their full range of personal characteristics and desires whereas incongruence is the extent to which a person denies and rejects personal qualities. A congruent person is fully functioning and lives in close proximity to the actualizing tendency and therefore experiences a marked sense of autonomy, openness to experience, and personal growth. The next think that the book talks about is causality orientations and how they reflect the extent of self-determination in the personality and concern differences in people’s understanding of what causes and regulates their behavior. A person with an autonomy-causality orientation has behavior that arises in response to needs and interests with a full sense of personal choice and experience relatively greater positive functioning including long-term maintenance of behavioral changes such as losing weight where as a person with a control-causality orientation has behavior that arises in response to external expectations and controls and inner guides are relatively ignored. A strong commitment to societal conditions of word leads people into a process of seeking validation from others. In social interactions validation-seeking individuals strive to prove their self-worth, competence, and likeability and also are more vulnerable to experiencing anxiety and depression whereas growth-seeking individuals center their strivings on learning, improving, and reaching personal potential. Another topic discussed in chapter 15 is interpersonal relationships. These support the actualizing tendency in four ways: helping others such as therapy, relating to others in authentic ways, promoting freedom to learn such as education, and defining the self. Evil is a problem that humanistic thinkers battle about how much is human nature and why some enjoy the suffering of others. Some think that evil is not inherent in human nature and that human nature is inherently good and evil is only present when experiencing injuries and damages. Others assume that both benevolent and malevolence are inherent in everyone and human nature needs to internalize a benevolent value system before it can avoid evil. Positive psychology seeks to build people’s strengths and competencies and makes them the subject matter of the study. Pollyanna optimism, unscientific concepts and unknown origins of inner guides are some of the criticisms of humanistic understandings.
I thought the most interesting topic that was discussed in the chapter was evil and the argument for whether or not in was part of our human nature. It is interesting to think how evil some people can behave and that some people actually enjoy to see others suffering. There must be something biologically wrong to make this the case simply because it is hard to believe that some people could randomly choose such evil behaviors.
Terms: humanistic psychology, positive psychology, competencies, self-actualization, deficiency needs, growth needs, organism valuation, congruence, incongruence, self-determination, autonomy causality, control causality, validation-seeking, growth-seeking, interpersonal relationships, benevolent, malevolence, evil, Pollyanna optimism
Chapter 15 mostly deals with the idea that if an individuals inner nature is disturbed, they become ill, and if the person’s inner nature is appreciated, they become healthy. Holism promotes the idea that we should not look at people as a bunch of different parts; we should look at them as a whole. Holism suggests that if an event affects one aspect of our self, it affects the whole self. Personal growth is everyone’s main motivation. Chapter 15 then talked about positive psychology’s growth into an actual field. Positive psychology uses research to find what makes like worth living.
Self-actualization is the movement towards fulfilling all of a person’s potential. Someone who has achieved self-actualization is autonomous. There is a hierarchy of needs before reaching self-actualization. The needs in the hierarchy are arranged by way of importance, how early the need develops and are fulfilled in order. The needs are physiological needs, safety and security, love and belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization. Physiological needs and safety and security needs are considered deficiency needs because without them, we cannot grow and develop as we are supposed to. Growth needs emerge once deficiency needs have been met. Growth needs energize and direct our behavior in ways that lead us to achieve all that we can. After extensive research on the topic, psychologists suggest that the need hierarchy should not be a five level hierarchy. The physiological, safety, belongingness, and esteem needs should be categorized into a group called deficiency needs. The hierarchy would then be a two level hierarchy made up of deficiency needs and growth needs. Maslow suggests that only 1% of the population achieves self-actualization. Carl Rogers looked into actualizing tendency and suggested that it constantly present in everyone. When the self emerges, the individual gains a second strong motivational force, the self-actualizing tendency. We are children when we learn about conditions of worth. Our behaviors and personalities are judged based on conditions of worth that label them as positive or negative. Once this happens, people either live in the two worlds of actualization tendencies and the world of social priorities. When people understand their personal characteristics, they are congruent. An incongruence emerges when they reject these things.
Some people believe that their inner guides are what regulate their behavior. These people have an autonomy causality orientation. Some people rely on external cues to regulate their behavior. These people have a control causality orientation. People that need approval from society are validation-seeking individuals. They try to prove to people that they are likeable and competent in their social interactions. Growth-seeking individuals work towards their personal potential.
Relationships play a large role in actualizing tendency. Relationships should have warmth, genuineness, empathy, unconditional positive regard, and help the other see that they are competent and full of potential. Another topic in humanistic research is evil. There is a divide in humanistic researchers. Some believe that all humans are innately good and that evil only arises from environmental damages to the person. Other researchers believe that both good and evil are present in every person.
Many of us do not see ourselves realistically. Generally, we believe we are much better at everyday things that everyone else. This positivity is beneficial to mental health, but can also harm people. The positivity can be thought of as optimism. Optimism gives people a sense of hope and can be taught and learned. There are two types of happiness, hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic happiness is pleasure and living a good life. Eudaimonic happiness involves seeking out challenges and feeling fully alive. There are three types of eudaimonic happiness. They are the pursuit of wealth, relationships, and personal goals.
Terms: Holism, Positive Psychology, Self-Actualization, Autonomous, Hierarchy of Needs, Physiological Needs, Safety and Security, Love and Belongingness, Esteem, Deficiency Needs, Growth Needs, Actualizing Tendency, Self-Actualizing Tendency, Conditions of Worth, Congruence, Incongruence, Autonomy Causality Orientation, Control Causality Orientation, Validation-seeking, Growth-seeking, Evil, Hedonic Happiness, Eudaimonic Happiness.
Chapter 15 starts off talking about Holism and humanistic psychology. To reach a whole or holist life people need to strive toward growth and self-realization and away from façade, and the pleasing or fulfilling of the expectations of others. And then it goes on to talk about positive psychology. An easy way to describe positive psychology is to ask yourself, “What could be?” Positive psychology wants to build off people’s strengths and help their weaknesses so a person can reach psychological wellness.
The chapter then goes on to explain self-actualization. This is an inherent development striving, so people realize their talents and how to use them to the full potential. The two directions that characterize self-actualization are autonomy and openness. There are six different behaviors that encourage self-actualization which are: make growth choices, be honest, situationally position yourself for peak experiences, give up defensiveness, let the self emerge, and be open to experience. Maslow’s Need Hierarchy comes into play with deficiency needs and growth needs. Deficiency needs are the things people need in live to survive, like food and water. Growth needs are things that make a person happy and content when their deficiency needs are met. Carl Rogers explains the actualizing tendency in the chapter. This is something that quietly guides people and their choices.
Causality orientations are different for each person. There is autonomy causality orientation which is when people rely on internal guides and there is control causality orientation where people rely on external guides to form their lives. Causality orientations reflect self-determination in personality. If people rely too much on external guides and validation from others it can impact their self-worth. It is good for others to have interpersonal relationships because having interpersonal relationships can help in four ways: helping others, relating to others in authentic ways, promoting freedom to learn, and defining the self.
I found this chapter very interesting in how I might view myself and others. I need to work on my self-actualization, meaning I need to work off my strengths and not worry about my weaknesses so much because my strengths can overpower my weaknesses any day! A lot of smaller parts make up this whole or humanistic people. There needs to be self-actualization, along with causality orientations among other things to help people achieve positive psychology.
Terms: Holism, humanistic psychology, positive psychology, self-actualization, autonomy, openness, deficiency needs, growth needs, actualizing tendency, causality orientations, validation, self-worth,
Chapter talks about growth motivation and positive psychology, hints the title. The book starts off talking about holism, humanistic psychology, and positive psychology. Holism concerns itself with the study of what is healthy, or unbroken. Holism drives from the word “whole” and has to deal with the whole self from top to bottom. Humanistic psychology is about discovering human potential and encouraging its development. The humanistic perspective concerns striving toward growth and self-resolution and away from façade, self-concealment and the pleasing and fulfilling of expectations of others. Positive psychology seeks to articulate the vision of good life, and it uses the empirical methods of psychology to understand what makes life worth living. Basically, positive psychology looks at people’s mental health and how they live their lives and ask “What could be?”
Next the book talks about self-actualization and hierarchy of human needs. Self-actualization is an inherent development striving. 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. There are two fundamentals that are associated with self-actualization, autonomy and openness. Autonomy means moving away from heteronomy and toward an ever-increasing capacity to depend on one’s self and to regulate one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Openness means receiving information such that is neither repressed, ignored, or filter, nor distorted by wishes, fears, or past experiences. Self-actualization is at the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. The other five clusters are psychological needs, safety and security, love and belongingness, and esteem.
Next, the book talks about actualizing tendency. Carl Rogers believed that the actualizing tendency was innate; a continual presence that quietly guides an individual toward genetically determined potentials. Congruence and incongruence describe the extent to which an individual accepts or denies personal qualities. Congruence is when a person accepts the full range of his or her personal characteristics and desires, while, incongruence is when an individual denies or rejects personal qualities.
Next, the book talks about causality orientations. Causality orientations reflect the extent of self-determination in the personality and concern differences in people’s understanding of what cause and regulates their behavior. There are two categories for causality orientations, autonomy-causality orientations and control-causality orientations. Autonomy-causality orientations individuals’ behavior arises in response to needs and interests with a full sense of personal choice. Control-causality orientations individuals’ inner guides are relatively ignored as behavior arises in response to external expectations and controls.
Next, the book talks about growth-seeking individuals and validation-seeking individuals. Growth-seeking individuals center their strivings on learning, improving, and reaching personal potential, whereas, validation-seeking individuals strive to prove their self-worth, competence, and likability.
Interpersonal relationships support actualizing tendency four ways, helping others, relating to others, promoting freedom to learn, and defining the self. Helping others involves letting the other person discover, and then be him or herself. When it comes to relatedness to others, rather than being independent, selfish, and socially attached, self-actualizers are actually good citizens. For freedom to learn, learning follows having one’s interests identified, facilitated, and supported. Self-definition and social definition are personality process related to how individuals conceptualize who they are. Socially defined individuals accept external definitions of who they are; self-defined individuals resist these external definitions and instead favor internal definitions of the self.
Next the book talks about evil. Evil is the deliberate, voluntary, intentional infliction of pain suffering on another person without the respect for his or her humanity or personhood. Some humanistic thinkers argue that evil is not inherent in human nature, that human nature in inherently good and evil arises only when experience injuries and damages the person.
The final thing the book talks about is positive psychology. Positive psychology looks ate people’s mental health and the quality of their lives to ask “What could be?” It seeks to build people’s strength and competencies, and it makes the study of these strengths and competencies its subject matter.
The most interesting section of the chapter I thought was when it talked about causality orientations. I just found it interesting when it talked about the two categories of autonomy- causality orientations and control- causality orientations.
Terms used: holism, humanistic psychology, positive psychology, self-actualization, autonomy, openness, hierarchy of human needs, actualizing tendency, congruence, incongruence, causality orientations, autonomy-causality orientations, control-causality orientations, growth-seeking individuals, validation-seeking individuals, helping others, relating to others, promoting freedom to learn, defining the self, evil, positive psychology
Chapter 15 was about positive psychology and how a person develops. The first thing that the chapter talked about was the idea of holism. Holism says that natural systems should be viewed as whole and not a collection of their parts. According to holism a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather that a series of parts. It is the whole organism that is motivated and not single parts.
The next main section of the book talked about self-actualization. Self-actualization is an inherent developmental striving. It refers to a realization of ones talents, capacities, and potential. The first concept that explains self-actualization is the hierarchy of human needs. According to Maslow, need arrange themselves in the hierarchy according to potency or strength. The lower the need is, the stronger it is felt. I couldn’t help but compare this to the food pyramid. The things of the bottom are required more than the things on top and are more important to our diet. This is true with Maslow’s hierarchy in saying that physiological needs (bottom) are more important to us than self-actualization needs (bottom). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not actually correct from testing of his theories. It has been found that it is more like a two level hierarchy distinguishing between deficiency and growth needs.
Conditions of worth are important to the field of positive psychology in that we judge our personal characteristics as either positive or negative. This comes from role models in our life and we mold our behavior after them because we see what they see as good and as bad.
Causality orientation refers to one’s behavioral regulation. There are two kinds of guides that regulate behavior that are adopted from an outer social guide and environmental incentives. First is autonomy causality orientation, were the individuals habitually rely on their intrinsic motivations. Second is control causality orientation, which is based more on external needs and goals (extrinsic motivation). The way that we see our experiences create meaning, which affects our vales and purpose.
The last concept that the book talked about was that of evil. According to humanistic psychology, human nature is inherently good. Evil is the deliberate, voluntary, intentional infliction of painful suffering on another person without respect for his or her humanity of personhood. The argument that Roger made was with proper caretaking, that people would inevitably choose good over evil.
Positive psychology, holism, self-actualization, Maslow’s hierarchy, conditions of worth, causality orientation, evil
Chapter 15 is about growth motivation and positive psychology. Humanistic psychology is identifying and encouraging human potential. Holism is the study of what is healthy and unbroken. Positive psychology is very similar to humanistic psychology, in that this looks to build a person’s strengths and competencies. Some on these are well-being, contentment, enjoyment, optimism, meaning, love and courage; just to name a few. It asks, “What could be?”
This brings me to self-actualization, which is the full realization of a person’s talents, capacities, and potentialities. With positive psychology, a person can achieve self-actualization. Parts of this are autonomy and openness. Autonomy is the removing the reliance on other and gain dependence on one’s self. Openness is receiving information that isn’t repressed, ignored, filtered, or distorted by wishes, fears, and past experiences. Maslow’s Need Hierarchy assists in obtaining self-actualization. The pyramid has the lesser needs on the bottom and a person will gradually make their way to the top to accomplish the goal. What I got from this is that physiological needs take care of food, water, clothing, and other things we need to survive. Safety and security comes next meaning having a home, job for financial security, and other needs that assist with living comfortably. Love and belonging gets at what family, friends and significant others bring to our lives. We need socialization to be fulfilled. Next is esteem, referring to believing in ourselves. Lastly we reach self-actualization. I remember learning about this pyramid a few years ago and understanding that reaching that top would mean we have a peace of mind and a very great place to be.
Deficiency needs are physiological disturbances, and needs for safety, belongingness, and esteem. These are like vitamins, as the book explained; people need them because its absence hinders growth and development. If any deficiency occurs, it shows they are deprived. However, growth needs provide energy and direction to achieve what they are capable of.
Next, the book discusses the different view of a hierarchy. This version adapts more to growth of the mind instead of how the previous one had simple life needs. It encourages growth by changing the mindset. The first behavior explained said to look at life as a series of choices. This basically means to not allow the self to regress because of fear. “Be Honest” is the next one; it allows a person to be themselves and not live up to society. The next one urges you to explore potential. Trying things out just to see what you are not good at to learn potential. This next one forces you to face the challenges the world brings. It tells us to give up our defensiveness so we can put effort in to develop skills needed to be that person. “Let the Self Emerge” explains that we need to find ourselves, instead of looking to other to tell us who we are. Lastly, we need to experience life. Don’t be shy or worry about other’s thoughts; instead, do what you want without a care in the world.
Causality orientations have two parts, autonomy and control. In autonomy causality a behavior comes with needs and interests with the full sense of choice. Whereas, control- causality is inner guides being ignored when behavior comes. Higher positive results come from autonomy-oriented people because they are making the conscious choice instead of letting a response control the outcome.
Positive psychology helps to convert negative thinking. It doesn’t sugar coat things though. It focuses on strengths, which will help the person realize their potential. This, in turn, will create an outcome that will be positive. With the realization of their own potential, they will continue to grow and develop more positively.
I enjoyed this chapter a lot. I really like the new version of the hierarchy that was discussed. When I first learned about Maslow, I remember hearing that a person can bounce back and forth through the levels, which seems like it doesn’t create a sufficient use. The new one provides a different way to think of the situations life throws at you. I find it to be something I will try.
Terms used: humanistic, holism, positive psychology, self-actualization, autonomy, openness, Maslow’s Need hierarchy, deficiency needs, growth needs, autonomy-causality, contrl-causality
Chapter 15 covers information about motivation growth and positive psychology. Positive psychology focus' on the mental health of people and how we live our lives. Humanistic psychology falls into this category and includes potentialities and holism towards personal fulfillment. Humanistic psychology is about identify human potential. Self actualization is a developmental striving and a process of leaving behind timidity, defensive appraisals and dependence on others to create self regulation. There are two directions that help complete self actualization and they are the process of autonomy and openness to experience. Autonomy is something we've talked about before in this book because to refresh your memory it means increasing your capacity to depend on one's self and regulate one's feelings. The second process of self actualization is openness. Openness means receiving information that you don't ignore or repress by distorted wishes or past experiences. Both of these process's help us find our self actualization.
The Hierarchy of Human Needs is mentioned in this chapter. These needs can be clustered into five categories. These needs are grouped into a way that they represent something. The first set of needs are physiological needs and the other needs are psychological needs. The five hierarchy needs include, physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs and self actualization needs.
Encouraging growth was a big part of self actualization for Maslow because he thought that less than 1% of the population actually reached the stage of self actualization. What Maslow thought was that we are responsible for our own growth. People fail to reach their potential because of other external environment.
Causality orientation behavior arises in response to needs and interests with some personal choice. Someone who has control-causality orientation guides are ignored in response to expectations. Autonomy oriented individuals experience more positive functioning control oriented individuals.
Interpersonal relationships are relatively known by warmth, empathy and confirmation of other person's self determination provided by social climate. They support interpersonal relationships in four different ways. Helping others, relating to others, promoting the freedom to learn and defining the self are all characteristics of interpersonal relationships.
Chapter 15 focuses on Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology. The chapter opens by explaining the how people receive dual messages about how they should behave; biological predisposition and cultural expectations. Rejecting one’s nature to appease societal norms can hinder personal growth and psychological well-being. Cultural priorities are not always what is best for psychological health.
Humanistic and positive psychology express the meaning and importance of inner guides. Holism is the study of what is healthy, or 'whole.' A broken veiw approach sees the self as conflicting fragments while humanism identifies with the holistic approach. Humanism is commited to personal growth.
Positive psychology uses emperical methods of pschology to understand what makes life worth living. Its goal is to show what actions lead to positive living. It studies well being along with many other positive positive subjectice experiences, such as love and contentment. What seperates positive psychology from humanistic is that it is more rigorous in its emperical research.
Self actualization is an inherent developmental striving to achieve autonomous self regulation. The two fundamental directions that characterize self actualization are autonomy and openess to experience. These factors allow a person to depend on oneself for regulation of thoughts, feelings and behaviors and to recieve information without defensive appraisal.
Maslows heirarchy of needs helps to explain motivation. THe test heirarchy explains what needs are stronger and therefore felt most urgently. Deficiency needs are the most urgent and fulfilled first because their absence inhibits growth and development. These began with basic physiological needs and extend to esteem needs when these are fulfilled. Growth needs encourage growth motvation to fulfill presonal potential. Also referred to as self-actualization needs, they are apparent in peoples discontent with differences between what they can be and what they are.
There is discrepency in Maslows research. He believed self-acutalization was innate. If this was true, more people should reach a state of self-actualization. Humanistic psychology views all motivation as driven by tendency and striving to actualize, maintain and enhance the experiencing self. This means fulfillment of physiological needs and the need for belonging along with all other needs encourage motivation for the same cause. Rogers refers to self actualization as the forward thrust of life and also believed it innate. All experiences with the struggle involved with realizing ones potentail are evaluated with an 'oranismic valuation process.' The actualizing tendency motivates the individual to undertake challenging experiences and the organic valuation process interperets whether the behavior is growth promoting or not.
Humanistic psychology follows the assumption that 'human nature is inherently good.' This leads to the question 'how much of human nature is benevolent and how much is malevolent?' Evil is is deliberate infliction of pain on another person with disregaurd to his or her humanity. Power and control lead to violence and empathy and care lead to altuism. Other humanist see more ambiguity in the goodness of human nature. Benevolence exists, but so do malevolent personalities. Evil is veiw as evolving out of a person gradiose veiw of self and damaged concept of self.
Positive psychology looks at mental health and asks 'what could be?' It makes the case that strengths are as important as weaknesses and that resiliency is as important as vulnerability. Positive psychology encourages continuing self growth and the nurture of high-quality relationships leads to optimistic, purpose, meaning and eudaimonic well-being.
shoots -- I forgot my terms: Self actualization, positive psychology, humanistic psychology, openness, autonomy, hierarchy of human needs, encouraging growth, causality orientation, interpersonal relationships
Chapter fifteen talked about positive psychology and how someone grows and develops as a person. Positive psychology is similar to humanistic psychology, but is more of a mental health basis, rather based on human potential. The book talks about how sickness can be a result of the inner nature of the person being frustrated or denied. Next, they talk about Holism, which asserts that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than as a series of differentiated parts. The book gives the example saying that the whole organism is motivated rather than just one part of the organism. Holism also states that any event that affects one system also affects the entire person. The goal of positive psychology is to show what actions lead to experience of well-being and to develop the individual in a positive way. It doesn’t focus on the bad or negative things in life, but rather on what makes someone happy.
The next part of the chapter talks about 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. It also refers to a better realization of one’s talents, capacities, and potentialities. Within self-actualization, there are 2 important directions. One is autonomy, which in this case means moving away from heteronomy and toward an ever-increasing capacity to depend on one’s self and to regulate one’s own thoughts and feelings. The other is openness to experience, which means receiving information such that it is neither repressed, ignored, or filtered, nor distorted by wishes, fears, or past experiences. The chapter talks about the hierarchy of human needs, which is shaped like a pyramid, and more specifically relevant to this part of the chapter, self-actualization is at the top. Self-actualization is followed by esteem needs, love and belongingness, safety and security, and physiological needs. (In that order from top to bottom)
The chapter talks about actualizing tendencies next, and how they relate to holism and self-actualization. Actualizing tendencies are when a person is being driven towards something, yet it is innate. It guides an individual towards their potential, and would come into play when an individual wants to experience new things and take on new challenges. According to Rogers, we all live in 2 different worlds. One is the inner world, and the other is the outer world of condition and worth. Then this section goes on to talk about congruence and incongruence. Congruence is when you accept your personal characteristics, and incongruence is when you reject your personal characteristics.
The last part of the chapter talks about how relationships are a big part of supporting ones needs to self-actualize. They support the actualizing tendency in 4 ways. The first way is by helping others when they function as an arena that allows people to mature, integrate, and be open to experience. The second way is by relatedness to others in authentic ways. The third way is to promote the freedom to learn. And, the fourth and final way is by defining the self.
TERMS: Positive Psychology, Humanistic Psychology, Holism, Self Actualization, Hierarchy of Needs, Actualizing Tendency, Inner and Outer World, Congruence and Incongruence, Autonomy, Openness.
Chapter 15 is about growth motivations and positive psychology. We will talk about holism and positive psychology, Self-Actualization, Actualizing tendency, Causality Orientations, Growth seeking vs. Validation seeking, How relationships support the actualizing tendency, the problem of evil and finally positive psychology.
Holism is concerned with the study of what is healthy or unbroken. Humanistic psychology identifies with holism. Humanistic psychology is about discovering human potential and encouraging its development. Two striving s are toward growth and self actualization and away from facade and self concealment. Positive psychology is a new field. The goal in this is to show what actions and behaviors lead to well being and development of positive people. Positive psychology is unlike humanistic psychology because it is more rigorous in testing and data collection. P.P. seeks to make people stronger and more productive.
Self Actualization is an inherent developmental striving. In this we move forward into being stronger, independent person and away from timidity and weakness. There are two fundamental directions, Autonomy and openness to experiences. Autonomy means moving away from heteronomy and towards dependence on yourself. Openness to experience is simply that, being open to opportunities. Self actualization also cover's Hierarchy of needs and specifically Maslow's interpretation. This is the needs arrange themselves from strongest and more important on the bottom and the weakest and less important on the top. Maslow says that it one of the tiers is not covered then we cannot progress to the other tiers. He also cites two types of needs, deficiency needs and growth needs. Deficiency is food, safety, love, esteem and growth needs are self actualization needs. The section also talks about six behaviors that encourage self actualization. Those are make growth choices, be honest, position yourself for peak experiences, give up defenses, let self emerge, and be open to experiences.
Actualization Tendency is believed to be an innate program that causes us to move forward and realize our potentials. This is the source of energy that motivates development to autonomy. The A.T. characterizes the individual as a whole. The person grows in complexity and begins to adopt a valuation process. Most importantly the person gains a second motivational forces the Self actualization tendency. This emergence of the self also prompts the need for positive regard. We also gains conditions of worth. This is how behavior is judged either positive or negative by the individual. It also expands to external forces as growth continues. The chapter talks about encourging this process with unconditional positive regard. We also talk about congruence, which is when we have a certain personality and in public we adopt another to fit in or work with social norms. All of the above mentioned makes a fully formed individual.
Causality Orientations are two different conditions which is the cause o certain behaviors in people. The two types are autonomy C.O. and Control C.O. ACO people rely on internal guides for their behavior and CCO people rely on external guides. It is better to me more ACO but individuals must have some CCO also.
Growth Seeking vs. Validation Seeking. This deals with needs of social approval. Growth seeking is when people validate their worth using opportunities to grow and succeeding. Validation seekers are those who use outside and social forces for validation. When presented with a failure and Validation seeker will suffer anxiety and depression. A Growth seeker sees the failure as an attempt to grow more and a personal challenge and approaches it with vigor.
How Relationships Support the Actualization Tendency. The title says it all in this one. The extent to which people develop towards congruence and adjustment depends on the quality of their relationships. Helping others helps you discover yourself and the other person to also discover themselves. We also need to think about relatedness to others or the extent to which a person accepts social conventions and accommodates oneself accordingly. A warning in this is we still need to have autonomy. Finally we need to have the freedom to learn anywhere and at anytime from anyone/thing. We should stress self discovery and self evaluation and refer to teachers as guides or facilitators. Finally we talk about self definition and social definition. These are personality processes related to how people conceptualize who they are. Socially defined people accept external definitions of who they are. Self defined people resist external definitions and favor internal definitions instead.
Next we talk about the problem of evil. Evil is deliberate, voluntary, intentional infliction of painful suffering on another person without respect for their humanity or person hood. The nature of where evil comes from is debated. We all need a value system to support and compliment valuation process.
Finally we come to Positive psychology and growth. P.P. looks at a person's mental health and quality of their lives and asks what could be. This aims to strengthen and build competency. Optimism is important and studies show that optimistic people live longer. This can be taught and learned. We gain meaning in our lives from growth of the self and our value systems. It also comes from purpose, values, and efficacy. This is an active process. In eudaimonic well being we have two types of happiness. Hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic is experienced through pleasure, absence of problems, and living the good life. Eudaimonic is the experience of seeking out challenge, exerting effort and gaining pleasure of this. Both are important. Three important antecedents of eudaimonic well being is wealth and materialism, attachment and relationships, and the pursuit of personal goals.
Terms: Holism, Positive Psychology, Self-Actualization, Conditions of worth, Emergence of self, congruence, casulaity orientations, growth seeking, validation seeking, helping others, relatedness, self definition, social definition, evil, optimism, meaning, eudaimonic, hedonic.
Chapter 15 focuses on positive psychology. Individual’s temperament is influenced by their biological temperament as well as societal values. Introverts that act in extravert ways receive more of the positive emotional benefits than introverts that act as introverts. Holism focuses on the person being motivated as a whole. It believes that the whole being of the person, not just one particular part, is motivated to a certain behavior. It unlike some of the other concepts we’ve discussed is a top down processing theory. The humanistic psychology approach goes along with holism in that its main points are to push the individual towards growth and self-realization as well as taking them away from trying to please others with their behaviors.
Positive psychology is a new area in psychology. It focuses on answering the question. What makes for a healthy mental life? It also wants to answer the question what makes life worth living. Positive psychology is very similar to humanistic psychology except for the fact that it is more scientifically based with hypothesis testing than humanistic psychology. With the research, positive psychologist want to find ways to build personal strengths and to avoid sickness.
Self-actualization is a process in which the individual has to leave behind their dependence on others and instead focusing more on one’s self through autonomous self-regulation. Self-actualization uses autonomy and openness to successfully reach this point. Self-actualization also comes up in psychologist, Maslow’s, research. Maslow created a hierarchy of needs that is shown in many psychology classes even though it does not have much empirical evidence to support certain parts of the theory. It is made up of safety and security, love and belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization. The hierarchy shows that when the need is closer to the bottom of needs, the stronger they are felt. The hierarchy also shows that the lower needs tend to show up earlier in an individuals life than the higher needs. Finally, it shows that the hierarchy needs to be fulfilled in a sequential order, psychological needs being at the bottom with self-actualization at the top. Maslow also had the idea of a disturbance in one’s needs as a deficit need. At any point where there is a deficit it keeps the individual from growing. On the other hand, when there is not a deficit, Maslow called these growth needs. These needs create the direction and energy to push the person towards their ideal self. There are also six behaviors that can lead to self-actualization. These behaviors are making choices related to growth, being honest, create a place where you will be able to obtain optimal experiences, give up defensiveness, let the inner self come out, and be open to new experiences. Rogers also believed much of what Maslow did. He described the source of energy from which autonomy grows and a push away from heteronomy comes from as actualization tendency. It helps the person keep going even in times of failure and take on new experiences. Another important concept that relates to self-actualization is emergence of the self. During this phase, the person becomes sensitive to the feedback from other. It creates a motivation fro the individual to need positive feedback through approval and acceptance.
Rogers expresses the idea of positive regard and how parents should use this unconditionally for their children to feel as though they are completely accepted for whom they are, positive and negative attributes. In life the child is formed through society’s view of what is good and bad. This is also evident when the adults in one’s life attempt to mold the individual to think and be like them. This is done through what is called conditional regard. It can be positive (giving love for obedience) or negative (taking away love for disobedience). Accepting society’s beliefs can have negative psychological affects. This can happen because of incongruence. This is a measure of how much a person rejects or accepts (congruence) their personal characteristics and abilities. They may see themselves in a certain way but express themselves in a different way in public. People may be motivated to behave in a certain way depending on their guides whether they are autonomy causality orientation or control causality orientation. For a person who relies on autonomy, they are more apt to use their needs and interest to guide decisions. Control causality orientation uses cues from the environment and what is expected of them through society’s eyes. They are also guided more by extrinsic motivation whereas autonomy individuals are motivated by intrinsic motivation. Whether the person is one or the other can depend on their personality.
Terms used: Holism, humanistic psychology, positive psychology, self-actualization, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, deficit needs, growth needs, actualization tendency, emergence of the self, unconditional positive regard, conditional regard, congruence, incongruence, autonomy causality orientation, control causality orientation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation,
Chapter 15 starts off discussing temperament and how there are two messages that tells us to behave socially. One of these is our biological temperament, and the other is from cultural priorities. There is a struggle when someone is introverted in that there are benefits to being extroverted. However, there is a risk when the person rejects their inner nature and tries to substitute a more socially acceptable extraverted style in its place. Holism is used to explain human motivation, by saying that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than just some part of the organism. Any event that affects one system affects the entire person. Positive psychology was discussed in the chapter as a newly emerging field in psychology that is attempting to articulate the vision of the good life, in order to determine what makes life worth living. Self-actualization was discussed as an ever-fuller realization of one’s talents, capacities, and potentialities. It encompasses two fundamental directions which are autonomy and openness.
The Hierarchy of Human Needs was also discussed in the chapter. In this Maslow suggests that human needs can be organized into five clusters. These needs included physiological needs, and all that encompass psychological needs, these include safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. While Maslow made some mistakes when theorizing deficiency needs, he was much more accurate with his ideas on growth needs. Maslow offered several everyday behaviors for encouraging growth and self-actualization. These include making growth choices, being honest, situationally positioning one-self for peak experiences, giving up defensiveness, letting the self emerge, and being open to experience. The actualization tendency was also discussed in the chapter because it motivates the individual to want to undertake new and challenging experiences. This tendency characterizes the individual as a whole. With the emergence of self, a person grows in complexity, and the organismic valuation process begins to apply not only to the organism as a whole but also to the self in particular. The emergence of self prompts the emergence of the need for positive regard. Positive regard is important, because it makes the individual sensitive to the feedback of others. Congruence was another concept discussed in the chapter. Congruence and incongruence were described as the extent to which the individual denies and rejects or accepts the full range of his or her personal characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. Causality orientation was also discussed in the chapter. This is how people very in their understanding of the forces that cause their behavior. This reflects self-determination in the personality. There are two types of causality orientation discussed in the chapter and these include autonomy and control. The difference between growth-seeking and validation-seeking was also brought up in the chapter. Growth seekers center their personal strivings on learning, improving, and reaching personal potential. On the other end, validation-seekers use interpersonal situations to test or measure their peers, employers, teachers, and romantic partners. The matter of evil was also discussed in the chapter. While some people over time believed that people were inherently good, it has become more apparent that benevolence and malevolence are a part of everyone. It is just that some people are higher on the evil side than others. Positive psychology was also discussed in the chapter. Positive psychology looks at people’s mental health and the quality of their lives to build strengths and competencies. Another aspect of this is optimism. While more people are neither realistic nor accurate in how they think, it has proven to be healthier and do more harm than good when people have wishful thinking and are more optimistic. There are two types of happiness, hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic well-being is the experience of pleasure, the absence of problems, and the living of a relaxed and good life while eudaimonic well-being is the experience of seeking out challenges, exerting effort, being fully engaged and experiencing flow in what one is doing.
One of the concepts in the chapter that I found to be very interesting was that of the facades. This is when people wear social masks that relate to ways of behaving that have little to do with inner guides and much to do with a social front to hide behind. There are psychological costs to keeping up this façade on a regular basis, which include proneness to maladjustment, including anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and hypoassertiveness. This got me thinking about waitresses who are expected to keep a constant smile for the customers. Many waitresses I see are always smiling; even though there are many times I can tell they are forcing it. I always thought it would be exhausting having to keep up that smile every day, even when they truly don’t feel like smiling. They work for tips, and unfortunately many people want to see the waitress happy, even when they are not. I do wonder though if people ever did any studies on groups of people in businesses that require the person to be happy and upbeat, always smiling, even when they don’t want to, in order to see if they have a higher population of those with psychological illnesses such as depression, anxiety, self-doubt, and hypoassertiveness.
Terms: biological temperament, cultural priorities, holism, positive psychology, self-actualization, openness, autonomy, Hierarchy of Human Needs, actualization tendency, positive regard, congruence, causality orientation, hedonic, eudaimonic
Chapter 15 talks about Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology. This chapter has a lot more happiness involved, more “positive psychology”. It covers the factors that influence someone’s full potential and the ability to grow mentally.
The chapter kicks off with Holism and Positive Psychology. Holism is regarded to the self as a whole. Holism takes the entire variable being measured and evaluates it, as a whole. Holism can be used to contrast various states that one would like to be at (ideal state) and one that they are currently at (current state). Positive psychology is the study of what makes life enjoyable for optimistic individuals. These individuals are generally happy and fairly resilient. Positive psychology seeks out and examines things like well-being, contentment, satisfaction, enjoyment, hope, flow, competence, and many more. Researchers try to further understand factors like these in order to more completely understand what makes people happy.
Self-Actualization is referred to next. Self-actualization is ones realization of their full potential and talents completely. It really stresses the maturation of an individual. Someone who is reaching self-actualization is becoming more independent and pursuing an autonomous lifestyle that makes them original. Individuals in this stage are starting to concentrate on tasks and activities that they are good at and that make them happy.
Self-actualization is parked at the top of
Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs pyramid. It is then followed by Esteem needs, Love and Belongingness Needs, Safety and Security needs, and at the very bottom, Physiological needs. The pyramid is organized in two different sections, Growth Motivation at the top and all the rest being Deficiency Motivations. Maslow deemed these deficiency’s as various different things. They could be job security, social interaction, or food availability. When someone is at a loss of these things, Maslow said they have human sickness, which is a failure to move towards growth and actualization. After there is no “human sickness” within an individual, they can then focus on growth. Growth needs can be referred to as self-actualization. This is when the individual wishes to reach their own personal potential. They are no longer worried about the deficiency needs.
Carl Rogers once said, “The organism has one basic tendency and striving – to actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing self.” This explanation can be called the Actualization Tendency. It’s an organisms, human in this case, drive to always better the self. We seek out to satisfy our physiological needs then move our way up the hierarchal human needs pyramid. After our needs have been satisfied, the organism seeks to maintain that state followed by further enhancement of the self (self-actualization). Basically, what this is saying is that once a person has satisfied all of their essential needs, they embark on making themselves more autonomous and achieving what they are passionate about.
We then move on to Causality Orientations.
Causality orientations are people’s perceptions of how their behaviors come to be. People either blame their inner feelings and personal interests which refer to autonomy causality orientations or people tend to blame the environment and society for their behaviors and interests. The latter definition refers to control causality orientations. These are people who let society and public interests guide their behaviors and interests. Causality orientation is related to growth-seeking versus validation-seeking interests. People who are concerned with their own personal interests are considered growth-seeking while people with control causality orientations are considered to have validation-seeking interests. People who have control orientations look for validation from those around them. They look for validation directly from others when they are interacting socially.
I found this last section very interesting. I had no idea people had different interests based on either the environment or their own inner personal desires.
Terms: Holism, Positive psychology, Self-actualization, Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, Deficiency needs, Actualization tendency, Growth-seeking, Validation-seeking, control causality orientation, autonomy causality orientation, autonomy
Chapter 15 is about Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology. First discussed is holism, the understanding that a human being is an integrated, organized whole rather than a series of differentiated parts. Any event that affects one system of a human affects the whole person. It is the study of what is healthy and unbroken. Holism is part of positive psychology which is the study of trying to understand what makes life worth living. What experiences contribute to the development of positive individuals who are optimistic and resilient is part of positive psychology. Potential is a main aspect of positive psychology. It looks at what can a person be and focuses on the strength instead of weakness of a person.
Self-actualization is a developmental process of moving toward courage to create, make realistic appraisals, and achieve autonomous self-regulation. Self actualization is achieves through autonomy and openness to experience. Autonomy refers to increasing independence on one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Openness is about acquiring information that is not repressed, ignored, filtered, or distorted. Self-actualization can be found in a hierarchy of needs proposed by Maslow.The hierarchy contains three principles; 1) needs arrange themselves in the hierarchy according to potency and strength 2) The lower the need is in the hierarchy, the sooner it appears in development 3) Needs on the hierarchy are fulfilled sequentially, from lowest to highest, from the base of the pyramid to its apex. The needs from the top to the bottom are self-actualization needs, esteem needs, love and belongingness needs, safety and security needs, and physiological needs. Self-actualization needs are in their own category of growth motivation. Growth needs provide energy and direction to fulfilling ones potential. The other needs are included in the category of deficiency needs. The absence of these needs inhibit growth and development. These needs describe a person that is in a state of deprivation. Despite all of this information, the hierarchy shows little validity in research. The rank-order method has been disproven. The only information that truly hold up is the dual-level hierarchy in which the needs are categorized into either deficiency or growth needs.
The book now switches gears to Carl Rogers theories. Rogers believed in clusters of needs much like Maslow, however, he saw them as a collection with the purpose to maintain, enhance, and actualize a person. The actualizing tendency is viewed as an innate proves that guides a person towards their potential. The struggles and pains that come with reaching this potential is viewed through an organismic valuation process that tells whether an experience promotes or inhibits growth. Experiences that promote growth are viewed as positive whereas those viewed as regressive are viewed as negative. An emergence of self promotes complexity of a person and creates a self-actualization tendency. It increases the need for positive regard and approval, acceptance and love from others. We begin to move away from Our behaviors are judged by ourselves as either positive and accepted or negative and rejected early on in life through conditions of worth. Rogers states that we live in two worlds; the inner world of organismic valuing and the outer world of conditions of worth. To stay in organismic valuation one receives unconditional positive regard. When a child is give unconditional positive regard they judge experiences as valuable to the extent that they enhance oneself. When partents love and accept their child for who they naturally are the child will not show their true self. This could be damaging to their preferences, talents, capacities, and potentialities. To maintain condition of worth, a parent provides conditional positive reward. Experiences in the child’s life are then valued by approval from others. This conditions lead to a conflict in self-actualization and actualizing tendencies as different behaviors are regulated by both. Self-actualization can lead to maladjustment instead of promoting growth and health when it is incongruent with the actualization tendency. The extent in which an individual denies or rejects their personality characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs can be described as congruence. If an individual perceives him or herself as being one way and then publicly acting a different way it creates incongruence. Behaving this way regularly can increase anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and hypoassertiveness.
Individuals generally adopt an orientation that guides their behavior. Autonomy causality orientation is the extent to which a person relies on internal guides. A person’s needs, interests and personal goals excite their behavior. This type of person is controlled by intrinsic motivation. Generally speaking, a person with an autonomous control personality would have positive functioning in ego development, self-esteem, openness to experience and so forth. Control causality orientation is the extent to which a person relies on external guides. In this case, a person follows social expectations to initiate their behavior. Extrinsic motivation is behind a person with a control-oriented personality.
Validation-seeking individuals develop quasi-needs during social interaction. These needs involve the approval of others to feel self worth. They measure themselves through their peers, employers, teachers and romantic partners. The negative effects of this include lack of personal worth, competence or likability. In contrast, a growth-seeking individual attributes their self worth to their own personal strivings with learning, improving and reaching personal potential. Negative social events do not tend to negatively affect a growth-seeking individual. A validation-seeking person is more likely to have mental health problems than a growth-seeking person.
Relationships are important to supporting the actualizing tendency. There are five characteristics that demonstrate a quality interpersonal relationship. Warmth is caring for and enjoying time with the other person. Genuineness is when each person is fully present in the relationship and offering authenticity. Empathy refers to listening and understanding the others perspective. Interpersonal acceptance means that both persons feel an acceptance and trust in the relationship. Confirmation of the other person’s capacity for self-determination is acknowledging that the other person is capable and competent. Relationships between teacher and student are crucial to development. Rogers liked to view a teacher as a facilitator rather than a teacher, or someone who throws information at students. The facilitator, or teacher, is supposed to provide a supportive environment toward learning. The facilitator should allow the students to freely discuss information and to build their own understanding of concepts. Although this has been proven to be beneficial it is suggested to be incorporated into traditional teaching styles, not to replace them.
The idea that evil is either inherent or learned is up for debate. Rogers believed that evil was not innate. Evil is the deliberate, voluntary, intentional infliction of painful suffering on another person without respect for his or her humanity. Rogers believed that evil could be avoided if caretakers provided enough nurturance and acceptance. However, others believe that benevolence and malevolence are innate in everyone. Therefore a person needs a value system to live by to support benevolence.
Positive psychology includes believing that strengths are more important than weaknesses. The study tries to encourage individuals to reach their full potential. Strengths in a person can help foster personal growth and well-being and prevent human sickness. Optimism can be found in most individuals when it comes to their self-image. This enhanced self-image can benefit performance and come across as a positive mood. Optimistic people generally have better psychological and physical health. Existentialism is the study of the isolation and meaningless of the individual in an indifferent universe. Victor Frankl provided the idea that there is no meaning to life in general, but there is great meaning within each individual life. The meaning of life comes from three needs. First is purpose. In order for today’s behaviors and activities to have purpose there must be future-oriented goals. The second need is for values. Values give definition to what we believe is right or wrong. The third need is efficacy, having a sense of personal control or competence gives us the belief that what we do makes a difference. Eudaimonic well-being is self-realization; the experience of seeking out challenges, exerting effort, and being engaged. It is feeling alive and being authentic. Putting too much pressure on material good and fame lowers ones eudaimonic well-being. The presence of quality, warm, caring, intimate and trusting relationships promotes eudaimonic well-being as well as being one’s true self.
Positive psychology, like any study, comes with criticism. Some believe that the humanistic view only shows one part of human nature, the good side. Others believe that the constructs are undeveloped by definitions. A third criticism involves the actualizing tendency and how to know what is really wanted and what is really needed.
Terms: holism, positive psychology, hierarchy of human needs, deficiency needs, growth needs, actualizing tendency, organismic valuation process, self-actualization tendency, organizmic valuation process, conditions of worth, unconditional positive regard, congruence, autonomy causality orientation, control causality orientation, autonomy causality orientation, control causality orientation, validation-seeking, growth-seeking, facilitator, evil, optimism, existentialism, eudaimonic
“If this essential core (inner nature) of the person is frustrated, denied, or suppressed, sickness results.”(Maslow 1968) This quote summarizes what chapter 15 is all about. This chapter details how important it is to attend to our personal needs. The struggle to balance our personal temperament with what is socially acceptable is a struggle that can result in maladjustment. The first section discusses the differences between holism and positive psychology. The holism approach focuses on a human being made of many different aspects that all need to be motivated. Positive psychology differs in that it focuses on achieving and maintaining a “good life”. Discovering what makes something a “good life” is also a very big part of positive psychology.
The chapter also discussed Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in great detail. This hierarchy is based on three main themes. Maslow’s first point was that if the need was lower on the chart, it was greater. He also stated that the lower needs were the first to appear. His final point was that one could not fulfill the higher needs without first realizing the lower needs. Maslow divided the needs into five basic sections. The lowest was physiological needs and the highest was self-actualization. The needs were arranged starting with survival needs at the bottom and growth needs at the top. I was very surprised to read that like Freud, although Maslow’s pyramid is one of the most recognizable figures from psychology, it actually has very little research backing it up. Further research as indicated that Maslow’s hierarchy needs to change. The five-levels need to be thrown out and replaced with a two level hierarchy which is divided into deficiency and growth needs.
The conditions of worth are learned very early in life and have a large impact on what behaviors are displayed. These can be divided into two groups, unconditional positive regard and conditional positive regard. Unconditional positive regard is based off of the idea of showing love and positive emotional support regardless of the person’s behavior. This encourages the person to follow their instincts. Conditional positive regard, on the other hand, states that positive reinforcement should happen when the behavior is socially acceptable. This encourages the person to follow society’s standards.
Something else this chapter addressed was the concept of evil and how that fits into the different perspectives discussed in this chapter. The humanistic approach states that human nature is inherently good. This however, brings up the question that if human nature is mostly good, why is there so much bad? This is answered with the theory that bad is a result of maladjustment.
Terms: maladjustment, holism, positive psychology, Maslow’s hierarchy, physiological needs, self-actualization, survival needs, growth needs, deficiency needs, growth needs, conditions of worth, unconditional positive regard , conditional positive regard,
Chapter 15 discussed growth motivation and positive psychology. This describes how people grow and develop.The theme of this chapter is "if the essential core of the person is frustrated is frustrated,denied or suppressed sickness results".We can choose to produce good health results if we nurture Our Essential core. Everyday we must make the choice to follow "ones inner nature" vs "cultural priorities", this is basically basing our choices on what we need/want and what societies expectations are.
The chapter leads by explaining the process of holism and positive psychology.
Holism is a human being integrated as an part Organized as a whole rather than different parts. If one part of the system is affected than a persons whole system is affected.holism gets its name from "whole" this is representative of being unbroken or healthy. Positive psychology uses the empirical methods to psychology to prioritize what's most important & makes ones life worth living. This method seeks to show which actions lead to positive experiences which produce well being, enjoyment, self-determination, hope optimism etc.
Self-actualization is striving to become a better version of ones self and leave behind
Negative feelings such as timidity,& dependence on others. This is motivated to experience autonomy and openness. Through autonomy one learns to become less dependent on others and through openness one is able to be open towards new experiences and leave behind negative feelings. Maslow's hierarchy was designed to show ones strengths so they could reach their full potential. Maslow's need a hierarchy ranges from survival needs to growth needs. The lower the need in the hierarchy the sooner it appears in the development. Deficiency needs are psychological disturbances and need for safety and security,esteem,love,belonging ness. Growth needs satisfy all of deficiency needs such as growth needs.
Actualising tendency, the organism has one basic tendency that is being strived towards to actualise,maintain and experience the self.This basically is a guide to someone who wants to reach their full potential and experience new things with positive feelings. A person who is curious learns better and develops more of an interest easily. Actualizing tendency is what motivates a person towards autonomy and away from heteronomy.
Casual orientations is when people base their understanding on what causes their behavior. Some people regulate their behavior based on inner guides and self- determined forces. People consider their goals and personal beliefs when making choices. The autonomy orientation people base their choices on things they like,things they find important rather than what society thinks they should choose.The control orientation is when people base their choices on societies expectations and rewards. They feel they should comply with the rules and do things a certain way to feel a sense of validation.
Interpersonal relationships are supportive of actualizing tendencies, by helping others,being able to relate to others, promoting the freedom to learn and defining the self.
Positive psychology studies people's quality of life and mental health. Positive psychology analyzes people's weaknesses and strengths and is dependent on healthy relationships and personal growth. Positive psychology aims to prevent human sickness( depression) from occurring.
Key terms: Growth motivation, positive psychology,holism,actual tendency, self-actualization, causality orientations,deficiency needs, growth needs, Autonomy orientation,the control orientation, Personal growth,validation
Chapter 15 talks about growth motivation and positive psychology. The first topic is holism and positive psychology. Human beings are integrated and organized as a whole in holism. The whole organism is motivated as a whole rather than in separate parts. Positive psychology uses empirical methods to experience well-being, satisfaction, enjoyment, hope, optimism, meaning, competence, love, courage, perseverance, creativity, and many more. Positive psychology is scientifically strong, using hypothesis-testing, data-based empirical research.
Self-actualization is to strive for a fulfillment. Autonomy and openness to experience are used to characterize self-actualization. Autonomy allows one to regulate their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Openness refers to receiving information that is not filtered or repressed by past experiences, wishes, or fears. Self-actualization is at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This psychological need is included with safety and security, love and belongingness, and self-esteem. The lower the need on the hierarchy, the stronger and more urgent it is felt. It is arranged from lowest (survival needs) to the highest (growth needs).
Actualizing tendency motives people to take on new and challenging experiences, it also characterizes one as the whole. After birth, children learn the conditions of worth. This is where their behaviors and personal characteristics are judged positively and worthy of acceptance or negatively and worthy of rejection. The child learns from parents, friends, teachers, spouses, coaches, and employers what behaviors are acceptable and which are not. Incongruence is when a person rejects or denies and congruence is when a person accepts the full range of their personal characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. Incongruence is a discrepancy between the perceived self and the actual experience. People develop a facade to fit in with the external conditions of worth (social groups).
Autonomy causality orientation is when a person relies on internal guides and control causality orientation is when a person relies on external guides. In autonomy causality orientation, an individual can regulate their behavior and have an internal locus of causality. Interests and goals regulate their decisions. In control orientation, an individual pays attention to social expectations. They respond to incentives, rewards, and social concerns. Causality orientation reflects self-determination in the personality.
Growth seeking individuals strive to learn, improve, and reach personal potential. The look for opportunities for personal growth, learning, and self-improvement. Validation seeking individuals interact interpersonally with social inclusion, interpersonal acceptance, or athletic/academic success. People seeking validation experience anxiety, low self-esteem, or fear of failure. People seeking growth experience low anxiety, high self-esteem, and self-actualization.
The thing that I found interesting was the conditions of worth. You hear about a child feeling accepted or rejected in society in almost all psychology classes, but I did not realized it was called this. I found it interesting that a child can pick up whether their actions are acceptable or not soon after birth. It saddens me to think that a child's self worth could be destroyed by their parents, or other people important to them right after birth and can affect them throughout their whole lives.
TERMS: holism, positive psychology, self-actualization, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, actualizing tendency, conditions of worth, congruence, causality orientation, growth-seeking, validation-seeking
Chapter 15 begins by discussing Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. They include physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. The needs toward the bottom are said to be the strongest motives. Although there is hardly any empirical research to support this hierarchy, it is still widely accepted. Deficiency needs indicate that the person is in a state of deprivation whereas growth needs arise when a person feels restless and discontent even when the deficiency needs are satisfied. Maslow estimated that even though self-actualization is one of the human needs, less than 1% of the population would ever reach it.
The actualization tendency develops as a forward moving pattern characterized by struggle and pain (like the example of the child learning to walk). Relationships support actualizing tendency in that when one is involved in an interpersonal relationship and helps others, it promotes maturity, better integration, and being more open to experience. When people experience a need for relatedness they tend to internalize cultural values, cooperate with others, and show respect for others. These factors in relationships can help one reach self-actualization.
Positive psychology focuses on "What could be?" The purpose is to build people's strengths. Positive psychology suggests that optimism can be taught and learned and provides numerous benefits to ones health and well-being. Frankl urged that meaning in life was not a general term, but rather an individual goal that people must strive for in order to feel accomplishment in life. Meaning grows out of purpose, values, and efficacy.
What I found most interesting in this chapter was the discussion of positive psychology, optimism, meaning, and well-being. I have been focusing on those topics throughout several projects and across a few classes this semester. One interesting thing I had not run into was the ideas behind meaning in life. Although it seems obvious that everyone creates their own meaning in life I had not stopped to think that there is no meaning to life in general.
Terms: Positive Psychology, hierarchy of human needs, self-actualization, deficiency needs, growth needs, actualizing tendency, optimism, meaning
Chapter 15 summarized growth motivation and positive psychology. Personal fulfillment was the theme of this chapter. Humanistic psychology is about identifying and developing human potential. Positive psychology looks at people's mental health and how they live their lives to ask, “what could be?” Positive psychology seeks to build people's strengths and competencies so as to cultivate psychological wellness.
Maslow's hierarchy made it's way into this chapter as well. Self-actualization (the top of the pyramid) refers to the full realization and use of one's talents, capacities, and potentialities. Maslow made the distinction between deficiency needs and growth needs. Even though Maslow's model is very popular, empirical research actually finds little support for the need hierarchy. Maslow's contribution to contemporary motivation study is not in the hierarchy but, rather, in his insights about why people fail to self-actualize and what actions they can take to encourage personal growth toward self-actualization.
With socialization, children learn societal conditions of worth on which their behavior and personal characteristics are judged. As a consequence, all of us live in two worlds the inner world of the actualizing tendencies and organismic valuation and the outer world of social priorities, conditions of worth, and conditional regard. Some characteristics are more helpful than others. The congruent, fully functioning individual lives in close proximity to the actualizing tendency and therefore experiences a marked sense of autonomy, openness to experience, and personal growth.
Causality orientations reflect the extent of self-determination in the personality and concern differences in peoples understanding of what causes and regulates their behavior. For the person with a control0causality orientation, inner guides are relatively ignored as behavior arises in response to external expectations and controls.
A strong commitment to societal conditions of worth leads people into a process of seeking validation from others. In social interaction, validation seeking individuals strive to prove their self0worth, competence, and likeability. In contrast, growth0seeking individuals center their strivings on learning , improving, and reaching personal potential. Validation0seeking individuals are more vulnerable to experiencing anxiety and depression.
I found the authors concept of flourishing to be interesting. Flourishing is more than the absence of mental illness and depends on well being that grows out of continuous personal growth, high quality relationships, and a life characterized by purpose, optimism, meaning, and well being.
Terms: positive psychology, potential, Maslow, deficiency needs, growth needs, organismic valuation, self-actualization, behavior, validation seeking personal growth, autonomy.
Chapter 15 discusses growth motivation and positive psychology, and opens with mentioning humanistic psychology, which focuses on the belief of identifying and developing a person’s potential, and it uses the holistic approach by believing that a person is genuinely good, but mental and social issues can lead a person astray. That is when positive psychology comes into play, which looks at a person’s mental health and how they live their lives. The essential goal of positive psychology is to build people’s strengths and competencies so they can improve psychological wellness.
Self-actualization is a built-in developmental strivings that a person has to realize their talents, capacities, and potentialities. Maslow’s need hierarchy defines the distinction between deficiency needs and growth needs, which showed that people don’t require support for the need hierarchy. Maslow however, was able to provide information about why people fail to self-actualize and what actions support growth toward self-actualization.
The reading then goes onto discuss the actualizing tendencies, which discusses how a person should be motivated to strive for and reach their self-actualization. Through socialization, people learn societal conditions of worth, which they will then base their behavior and personal characteristics based on the feedback they receive from others. They hope to receive positive regard by acting the ways society wants, but this may create a problem for a person. The problem occurs when actualization and self-actualization don’t agree and a person must then choose between their internalized natural temperaments and social expectations. By accepting one’s own person characteristics and desires a person's experiences congruence, if they reject them they will experience incongruence. It is obvious better for a person to experience congruence because then they are likely to feel a sense of autonomy, openness to experience, and person growth.
Casualty orientations are the extent of self-determination in the personality and concern difference in a person’s understanding of what causes and regulates behavior. There are two categories of causality orientations: autonomy-causality orientation and control-causality orientation. Autonomy-causality is when behavior appears in response to needs and interests with a full sense of personal choice, and people that have an autonomy-causality orientation they tend to have more positive functioning compared to people with a control-causality orientation. Control-causality orientation serves as an inner guide that is usually ignored as behavior appears in response to external expectations and controls.
The book then goes on to discuss growth-seeking individuals and validation-seeking individuals. Growth-seeking individuals focus their strivings on learning, improving, and reaching their personal potential. Validation-seeking individuals on the other hand strive to show their self-worth, competence, and likability.
One of the last thing mentioned in the reading is interpersonal relationships, which has a large influence over s person’s need to self-actualize, and relationships affect self-actualization in four ways. The first is when a person helps others, the second is relating to others in genuine ways, third by promoting the freedom to learn, and lastly by defining the self.
Terms used: growth motivation, positive psychology, humanistic psychology, holistic approach, self-actualization, Maslow’s need hierarchy, actualizing tendencies, positive regard, internalized natural temperaments, social expectations, congruence, incongruence, casualty orientations, self-determination, autonomy-causality orientation, control-causality orientation, growth-seeking individuals, validation-seeking individuals, interpersonal relationships
Chapter fifteen discussed growth motivation and positive psychology. The chapter begins by discussing holism and positive psychology. Holism is the idea that instead being a bunch of different parts, a person is an “integrated and organized” whole. This idea applies to motivation because holism believes that it is the entire person or organism that is motivated instead of just one part (like the stomach). Holism is “top-down” in that it looks at the general whole and then breaks down into the more specific segments. The humanistic approach to psychology also utilizes the top-down method. The humanistic approach looks at strivings toward personal growth and realization and away from masking ourselves and meeting the expectations of others. Positive psychology is a new area of psychology. It is called positive psychology because it looks at the good psychological aspects of life and what makes life worth living. Some examples from the text include contentment, satisfaction, self-determination, and interpersonal skills. Positive psychology overlaps with humanistic psychology but positive psychology varies in its strong usage of hypothesis-testing and empirical research.
Another topic discussed in chapter fifteen is self-actualization. Self-actualization is the process of growing to achieve autonomous self-regulation and make realistic goals. The two characteristics of self-actualization are autonomy and openness. Autonomy means becoming dependent on one’s self and controlling one’s self. Openness means opening one’s self to receiving all information instead of selecting what information to pay attention to. The chapter discussed Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The base of this hierarchy consists of the physiological needs. Above the physiological needs are other psychological needs. These physiological and psychological needs in the pyramid are all considered deficiency needs. They are called deficiency needs because the loss of them prevents growth. At the top of the pyramid are the self-actualization needs. These needs are growth needs. After achieving all of the deficiency needs, a person feels the need to meet their own potential. This is why self-actualization needs are called growth needs. However, due to the lack of empirical research supporting Maslow’s hierarchy, a popular idea is that the needs are titled deficiency needs and growth needs to make it a little broader. Maslow theorized that only 1% of the population ever achieves self-actualization. He deduced that few reached it because of non-supportive factors in their environment.
The third topic discussed in the text is actualization tendency. This concept is believed to be an innate presence that pushes someone toward predetermined potentials. Development consists of “struggle and pain” and actualization is the push to get through those struggles and pains. The text gave the example of an infant going from crawling to walking and experiencing struggles with gaining balance and pains when they fall. However, actualization is the force that keeps them persisting to achieve the goal of walking. The actualization tendency is what characterizes an individual as entire whole rather than an organism with certain needs driving them to do different things. This tendency aids a person in developing their “self.” Acting along with the actualization tendency are conditions of worth, which are outside factors that influence how individuals value themselves. The final part of this section is about congruence. Congruence is how much a person accepts the range of their abilities and beliefs.
The next section was on causality orientations. People that rely on internal influences have autonomy causality orientation. People that rely on external influences have control causality orientation. A person’s causality orientation is a reflection of their self-determination. Typically, someone that has an autonomy causality orientation personality has more self-determination. Another concept discussed was growth seeking vs. validation seeking. Growth seeking people strive around learning and achieving their personal potential. Growth seeking people grow from negative outcomes. Validation seeking individuals use external validation to know that they are doing “okay” and don’t adjust well to negative outcomes.
Interpersonal relationships support the actualizing tendency. A problem with this humanistic theory is that it hasn’t quite figured out how much “evil” is inherent and how much is situational. The positive psychology look at people’s quality of life and what “could be.”
Terms Used: Growth Motivation, Positive Psychology, Holism, Humanistic Approach, Self-Actualization, Autonomy, Openness, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Deficiency Needs, Growth Needs, Actualization Tendency, Struggle and Pain, Self, Conditions of Worth, Congruence, Causality Orientations, Autonomy Causality Orientation, Control Causality Orientation, Self-Determination, Growth Seeking, Validation Seeking, Evil
Chapter 15 is all about individual motivation to grow and strive for a wholeness. Chapter 15 looks at the differences between our natural temperaments/biology and how we act in accordance to societal expectations that go against our natural selves. Individuals who are naturally introverted are naturally more reserved and quiet. They are less likely to speak out and more likely to take more time to contemplate an issue before speaking. This is part of their natural character and it may come across as being shy. However, in college and social settings it may be seen as being more beneficial to be more extroverted and conform to the social expectations of speaking out and being more outgoing. The introverted may therefore be pressured to go against their natural personality/biological temperament and change to fit society. By doing this/conforming, they inhibit or prevent personal growth. Positive psychology is recognized in this chapter as being the study of positive things in thoughts, motivations, and emotions. It is about enforcing optimism and personal satisfaction-natural happiness and not conformity.
Chapter 15 also looks at humanistic psychology and the holistic approach that looks at things more from the “top-down” rather than the “bottom-up” (like positive psychology). This approach, recognized by Roger’s , is about increasing one’s potential and growth by encouraging individuals to avoid behaviors that are focused on meeting the expectations of others rather than yourself, or self-concealment. The humanistic approach encourages self-realization in which the individual looks at what makes them happy or “whole”. A caveat may be, however, that humanistic psychology is not extremely empirically supported. Positive Psychology seems to have more empirical testing or hypothesis that provide more support.
Another huge point of chapter 15 was about self-actualization. This connects wonderfully with the idea of being true to your natural self and temperament. Self-actualization is about working hard to reach and understand your own natural potential, talents, and personal beliefs that ‘make you, you’. Autonomy is a part of self-actualization. It’s important to have independence and personal control over your own self-regulations. Also, openness is important when faced with new opportunities. This openness is the idea of looking at and thinking about what your possible potential is and working toward the achievement of your full potential.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs looks at needs that we all have going from the bottom of a pyramid up starting with the most important points that are essential to develop first. The bottom and most essential needs are the ones, for the most part, we learned about first in this class (physiological, security, esteem, and belonging). It is imperative that these needs are met so that one can function normally. When the bottom layer of the hierarchy/pyramid is met (the needs just mentioned), self-actualization and growth needs are able to be practiced. Another caveat* Despite little empirical support, Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is still incredibly popular. Also while looking at self-actualization, another point is addressed in chapter 15 called the Organismic valuation process. This process is the process in which our experiences are looked at and judged at to whether growth in that area should be promoted or stopped/reversed.
A final and extremely important point of discussion in this chapter was about the emergence of self. The emergence of self is the personal growth in complexities such as positive feedback. Positive feedback often comes when we are able to feel a sense of worth internally or internalize a condition of worth. This emergence of self is all about creating a balance and finding a point in which we can choose and develop our natural temperaments and decided whether or not we want to change to the social expectation in order to get approval from individuals, potentially including our parents. Conditional positive regard is the outcome of what may happen when we conform to societal expectations. In conforming to social expectations on may learn the value of obeying, but they may also become anxious and frustrated or angry as they are working to please others and not necessarily themselves.
Congruence is the acceptance of characteristics, beliefs, and abilities of individuals. It/congruence is something that can be built upon or improved with intrapersonal relationships that are genuine and supportive of another person’s self-determinations. It is about not trading your true self to fit society’s “acceptable” impression or cover.
Finally, causality orientation is basically one’s regulation of behaviors. Internal/intrinsic behaviors or motivations are integrated regulation that establish autonomy causality orientation. External or extrinsic behaviors/ motivation are interojected regulations that establish control causality orientations.
If there is something that would stick with me or perhaps even shock me the most about this chapter is that conforming to society ultimately seems to make us unhappy, anxious, and depressed. It is good to fit in and be accepted by society. However, it is better to be accepted while acting naturally and remaining true to ourselves. When we adjust to fit in, we often lose sight of who we are and we go again who and what we naturally want to be. If we follow our natural temperament we are most likely to be happy. This makes such simple sense, but it still shocked me and it is what I am most likely to take away from this chapter.
Terms: motivation, wholeness, natural temperaments, biology, societal expectations, introverted, extroverted, holistic approach, self-actualization, positive psychology, humanistic psychology, “top-down”, “bottom-up”, self-concealment, Roger’s (humanistic approach), self-realization, self-regulations, autonomy, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, physiological, security, esteem, belonging, empirical, Organismic valuation process, meaning, potential, emergence of self, positive feedback, internalize, conditional positive regard, causality orientation, behavior regulation, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, internal, external, control, interojected, integrated regulations.
Chapter 15 was about growth motivation and positive psychology. The first issue discussed was holism. This is a humanistic approach and it is similar to gestalt and existentialism and sees things as a whole instead of individual pieces. This uses a bottom-up process and focuses on motives one at a time and isolates them instead of focusing on a lot at once. The purpose of holism is to grow in self-realization and to stray away from self-concealment and submitting to the expectations of others. The next aspect is positive psychology which emphasizes having a good life. This uses empirical evidence to try and see what behaviors lead to personal well-being and having a life full of happiness. Some of the qualities that are included are optimism, love, hope, perseverance, creativity, talent , satisfaction, and many other positive things. This is being used to help individuals with issues like depression and substance abuse. Positive psychology is attempting to give individuals a happy life which can lead to a longer life.
The next section talked about self-actualization which is the highest part of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and it is the striving towards fulfillment. Maslow’s hierarchy goes from the bottom which are physiological needs. These needs are required for survival and are instinctive, and as it goes up the needs are definitely important but are more focused on personal growth. An example of self-actualization is for an individual who wants to become a dentist, have a husband and 3 kinds, with a dog and happiness and when they finally achieve this they have achieved their self-actualization according to Maslow. The only way that one can self-actualize is by meeting all of their previous needs in the hierarchy. This is a popular hierarchy to teach however it is not empirical, simply anecdotal, so a lot more research needs to be done to see if it stands true, needs to be changed, or just rejected. Maslow thought that less than 1% people reach self-actualization, but this has no empirical support, and I think that self-actualization to one person does not look like it does to another.
The next section is about actualizing tendency that was theorized by Carl Rogers, who took a more holistic approach to actualization. Rogers said that we evaluate whether we grow or revert back through the organismic evaluation process. This makes an individual want to do challenging things so that growth is experienced. For example an individual may decide to go get their Masters degree because they want to experience the challenge and the growth from that experience. Rogers argues that unconditional positive regard should be given to children instead of conditional. If a parent uses love for obedience this can lead a child to to have a long-term motivational dysfunction. Individuals have congruence (agreement) or incongruence (disagreement) when it comes to assessing their characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. Rogers says that individuals who have a congruent view are fully functioning individuals and see things the way they actually are.
The next topic is causality orientations. Individuals have differing degrees to which they are knowledgeable of what causes their various behaviors. An example is the autonomy causality orientation which is relying in internal guides an example of this would be being a psychology major because you are truely passionate about the material and a career in psychology. Control causality orientation which is the extent to which an individual relies on external guides and follows social cues, an example of this is would be deciding to go to a movie with your friends who are pressuring you to go instead of staying in and going to sleep early if that is what they desire to do. Individuals do not solely follow internal or external guides, but it is usually a combination of both. An example would be trying to achieve a goal of training for a marathon, an individual needs internal guidance from themselves and then external guidance from the support of their friends and family.
Validation seeking is when an individual finds their self-worth, competence, and likability in other people. This can be very dangerous though because a negative social situation can lead to negative beliefs of one’s self in those areas causing mental illness like anxiety or depression. Growth seeking individuals base themselves around their personal achievement, learning, and improving. An individual with this style would find great self-worth and growth in graduating from college. These individuals are typically healthier and would be considered higher on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. To test these qualities there is the Goal Oriented Inventory that can be taken to see where you fall.
Relationships support self-actualizing tendencies because they allow for autonomy. Relationships also create mature and integrated experiences allowing us to help our friends and be helped by them. Relationships also help us with relatedness and our connections with other individuals, but this can also allow us to be hurt since it is a vulnerable position, so deception can occur. This allows for self-discovery and learning, or allows for teaching which also allows learning to occur. Another aspect that falls in this section is self-definition and social definition. These are fairly self-explanatory but an example of self-definition may be a confident person, and an example of a social-definition for that individual may be an arrogant person.
There is definitely a problem with evil in this world. I personally believe that humans are evil and I base that off of my faith and what the bible says about human nature. No one is capable of not doing something evil or sinful in our day, which is why we need Jesus to die for our sins. One of the humanistic views of this is that evil is not inherent but learned through life. The other view is that it is human nature to do evil, which is why we have moral standards to counteract the evil so that we aren’t all barbaric. There is much debate about which one is right, but regardless evil is definitely prevalent in this world which is agreed upon by most individuals.
The last aspect is positive psychologies effect on personal growth. The first is optimism which is most simply defined as positivity. It is shown that having an optimistic view can enhance performance and increase well-being, but it can also be harmful because it can create a false sense of hope. Optimism is not always an innate characteristic, but can be learned over time. I used to be a pessimistic individual, but in the last 5 years I have become very optimistic. Meaning is something that everyone strives for. We all just want to know the purpose of life. This comes from the need for purpose, values, and efficacy. Meaning helps individuals to interpret different things in life and make sense of things. The last is well-being. There is hedonic and eudaimonic happiness. Hedonic is the experience of pleasure and when things are going well. Eudaimonic is when pleasure is experienced when doing challenging things. For example I enjoy doing triathlons because they are challenging, so this is the kind of happiness I get from doing this activity. Focusing too much on wealth can be an issue because it can drive people away from other important needs.
I found this section interesting especially that Maslow’s Hierarchy doesn’t have empirical support to back it up. I definitely agree with a lot in this chapter like individuals who get validation from external sources may have more issues like depression and anxiety. I also enjoyed the section about the debate of evil because it is always interesting to see different opinions. Overall I enjoyed this section.
Terms: Holism, positive psychology, motivation, Maslow’s hierarchy, self-actualization, humanistic, growth, congruence, incongruence, growth-seeking, validation-seeking, Goal Orientation Inventory, relatedness, learning, self-definition, social definition, evil, optimism, hedonic, eudaimonic, gestalt, bottom-up, self-realization, self-concealment, unconditional positive regard, organismic evaluation process, internal, external, well-being,
Chapter 15 is about growth motivation and positive psychology. This approach tends to look for the best in people and prefers a “top-down” approach. Humanistic psychology is about discovery our full potential as humans and promoting its development. Its focus is on growth and self-realization. Positive psychology is similar to humanism. It studies what makes life so grand and worth living. It is more of a science than humanism because it employs empirical research and hypothesis testing more in its approach. It studies concepts live optimism, perseverance, flow, and intrinsic motivation.
Self-actualization is the concept given to us by Maslow. It is the concept of meeting all of needs starting with survival needs all the way up to growth needs. It is a hierarchy of needs that one must build upon. It includes such concepts as physiological needs towards the bottom and esteem needs at the top. This model encourages growth of the individual through pro social behaviors. It is largely a conceptual is nature but is helpful to use as a reference. It is interesting to note that Maslow’s estimated that only about 1% of the population even reach self-actualization. Congruence in this schematic is the extent to which one accepts their own characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. A fully functionally individual is in congruence and open to whatever life may present.
Causality orientations represent to what extent people rely upon external guides to guide and regulate their behavior. People who are control orientated pay greater attention to environmental factors as a source of motivation. Autonomy-orientated personalities are motivated more by intrinsic motivation. The latter correlates higher self-esteem, self-actualization, ego development, openness, and acceptance. There is a difference between growth seeking and validation seeking. Growth seeking behavior is center on learning, improvement, and reaching one’s potential. Validation seekers look towards external sources of stimuli as indicators as a source of measurement.
Our relationship with others has a role in the actualization tendency. Relationships can run the full range being controlling to being supportive. Humanistic therapy incorporates the concepts of warmth, genuineness, empathy, interpersonal acceptance, and confirmation to build a congruent relationship between therapist and client. Helping others involves letting people discover their true self and allowing them to learn through means of interest. People who are self defined conceptualize who they are through internal definitions. Those who are socially defined rely more upon what external sources of information.
Positive psychology looks at the human strengths like optimism and meaning as motivational tools to promote well-being. Optimism is both a quality that is inherent as well as a learned behavior. It is a generally positive attitude and outlook on life. Creating meaning in one’s life helps give life events significance and purpose. It also gives one a high sense of efficacy to affect change.
There are some criticisms to humanistic psychology to keep in mind. Four are presented to conclude the chapter. They are a naïve sense of optimism, the use of vague and ill-defined constructs, the inability to differentiate between what is wanted and what is needs, and feelingism, which is relying on subjective inner guides to give assign value.
Terms: humanistic psychology, positive psychology, self-actualization, congruence, causality orientations, self-definition, social definition, optimism, feelingism