| What is key assumption 1: | Free will |
| What does key assumption 1 believe? | - You have a choice in how we act and behave - we are an active agent
- We are ‘self-determining’ and free from the causal influences of the past.
- Separates out what is the intention of an individual from what has been created by other causes outside our control |
| What is key assumption 2? | Self-actualisation and Maslow's hiearchy |
| What is Maslow's hiearchy? | Physiological needs, saftery and security, love and belonging, self-esteem, self actualisation |
| What does the 2nd assumption believe? | Everyone has the too fulfil their full potnetial, innate desire to achieve thier full potential, personal growth is essential for humans but not everyone is capable, barriers etc |
| What is key assumption 3? | The self, congurence and conditions of worth |
| What is the self? | The ideas and values that charactersises I and Me and includes perception and valuding of 'what I am' and 'What I can do'. Development of the self must be similar to the ideal self, what to do in the future |
| What is congruence? | Self-concept and ideal self are seen to braodly match, Rogerian therapy.
Incongurance can lead to depression, gap means that self acctulisation is not possible. To reduce the gap: client centred therapy cope with everyday life problmes, most problmes in adult life is due to childhood |
| What id conditions of worth? | When a parent places limits or boundaires on thier love of their children : 'I will only love you if you are a doctor' |
| What is a strength of the humanistic approach? | -Maslow's research to support self-actulisation
-Eg: Maslow looked at 18 biographies of famous poeple Maslow viewed as being self-actualised eg: Albert Einstien.
-Concluded they possessed 15 characteristics of a self-actulised person, like being highly creative and having an unusal sense of humor
-However, the categories aren't operationalised and highly subjective with Maslow, research being conduted subjectivey as he assumed these qualities in people |
| Another strength of the humanistic approach? | -Take an idiographic approach in understanding beahviour
-Not creating 'laws' and 'rules' of what human behaviour looks like, like the nomothetic approach, uses more detailed analysis of personalised behaviour, giving more in-depth analysis
-Approach acknowledges free will and therefore understands that each person's behaviour differs, which allows for the development of person centred therapies.
-But, a problem with this is that it can be said that it doesn't meet the scientific method of psychology as it is too subjective about human behaviour |
| Weakness of Humanistic approach? | -Not compatible with the aims of science, uses a subjective method of investiagion
-Eg: self-actualisation critics can be seen to lack opertionalisation of what 'achievement' looks like for earch person, eg: creativity can differ from each peron and the approach doesn't outline a stand
-Doens't fit with the terms of natural sciene as it makes it unable to test and generate objective research to understnad human behaviour as a whole as it uses a idiogrpahic approacch
-Reduce the credibilty of psycholoy within the scientific field as it it too subjective |
| Another weakness of the humanistic approach? | -Seen to have a culture bias
-Eg: the idea of self-actualisation can be baised in individualistic cultures which places importance on the idea of independence
-This can be seen through the idea of self-actualisation in which collectivst culture may see as selfish and against the norms of society
-Therefore, Maslow's hierarchy within the holistic approach is culturally bound and can't be applied to socieites outside individualistic cultures |
