PSY 3109 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Humanistic Psychology, Positive Psychology, Achievement Orientation
28 Apr 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
November 30, 2017
Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology
Humanist and Positive Psychology
Both are based on holism
A human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole, rather than as a series of differentiated parts
-Any event that affects one system affects the entire person
-A top-down approach to motivation (master motives): the self and the strivings of the self are what guide people’s
actions and behaviours
•Different from bottom-up approaches, which focus on smaller, more specific motives
-Strivings toward growth and self-realization, and away from facade, self-concealment, and the pleasing of others
(Rogers, 1966)
•Focuses on how you can achieve your full potential
•Commitment towards personal growth is the ultimate motivational experience
Positive psychology: emerging field of psychology that seeks to articulate the vision of the good life and uses the
empirical methods of psychology to understand what makes life worth living (Seligman and Csikzentmihalyi, 2000)
-Its subject matter is the investigation of positive subjective experiences (ex. happiness, well-being, optimism,
resilience, compassion, helping others, etc.)
-Focuses on personal strength, growth, and well-being
-It looks at a person and asks “What could be?”
•Focus on developing personal strengths and competencies
-Similar to humanistic psychology, except positive psychological places a much greater importance on empirical
data
•Humanistic psychology was more theoretical
Self-Actualization
What is self-actualization?
-An underlying flow of movement towards constructive fulfilment of its inherent possibilities (Rogers, 1980)
-An ever-fuller realization of one’s talents, capacities, and potentialities (Maslow, 1987)
-Process of leaving behind timidity, the tendency to be defensive, and reliance on others that is paired with moving
towards creating and achieving autonomous self-regulation
Two fundamental directions that characterize self-actualization as a process are autonomy and openness to
experience
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-Autonomy: moving away from heteronomy (being defined by others) and toward and ever-increasing capacity to
depend on one’s self and to regulate one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours so to move toward greater self-
realization (Deci & Ryan, 1991)
-Openness: receiving information such that it is neither repressed, ignored, or filtered, nor distorted by wishes, fears,
or past experiences (Mittelman, 1991)
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs
Human needs can be arranged into clusters
-Physiological needs: hunger, thirst
-Psychological needs: all the other clusters
•Safety and security needs
•Love and belongingness needs
•Esteem needs
•Self-actualization needs
-Go from survival to growth needs
The three themes about the nature of human needs:
-Theme I: needs arrange themselves in the hierarchy according to potency or strength
•The lower the need, the stronger and more urgently it is felt
•Physiological needs dominate as the strongest motives while self-actualization needs are relatively quiet urges
that are easy to overlook in the rush of daily life
-Theme II: the lower the need is in the hierarchy, the sooner it appears in development
•Young people and non-human animals experience only the lower needs, while older people are more likely to
experience the full range (higher needs are unique to human adults)
-Theme III: needs in the hierarchy are fulfilled sequentially, from lowest to highest
Self-
actualization
needs
Esteem needs
Love and belongingness
needs
Safety and security needs
Physiological needs
Growth needs
Survival needs
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Deficiency vs. Growth needs (Sheldon et al., 2001)
-Deficiency needs: people need them because their absence inhibits growth and development
•All needs, except for self-actualization needs, are deficiency needs
•Presence of any unsatisfied deficiency needs indicates that the person is in a state of deprivation
-Can be physiological, safety, or social, or status deprivation
•It’s only when all deficiency needs are satisfied that growth needs will surface
-Growth needs: provide energy and direction to provide motivation to become what one is capable of becoming
•Render the person restless, discontent, and wanting something more from life
•The person needs to be able to engage in their talents and potential
-Ex. A musician needs to make music
Criticisms:
-Main issue: potential and achieving self-actualization is very vague and not well-defined
-Has found very little empirical support (ex. Younger children are concerned with higher level needs, such as self-
esteem)
•However, collapsing the five-level hierarchy into a dual-level hierarchy of deficiency and growth needs has been
empirically supported
-Collapse of the physiological, safety, belongingness and esteem needs into the category of deficiency needs
-Growth needs = self-actualization
However, Maslow was correct on some things
-Estimated that roughly 1% of the population actually achieves self-actualization - everyone strives for it, but not
everyone achieves it
-People fail to reach their potential because of a non-supportive internal or external environment
•Internal: anything to do with the person (ex. Chronic back pain prevents athleticism)
•External: everything else, environmental factors (ex. Neglect, abuse)
-People tend to get in their own way - is an anxiety-producing process because it forces people to confront their
insecurities
•Introspection can be distressing
Behaviours for Encouraging Growth
Make growth choices: progression-growth choice is a movement towards self-actualization
-See life as a series of choices and focus on choices that allow for growth
-Ex. Take a hard course instead of an easy-A course
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Document Summary
A human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole, rather than as a series of differentiated parts. Any event that affects one system affects the entire person. A top-down approach to motivation (master motives): the self and the strivings of the self are what guide people"s actions and behaviours: different from bottom-up approaches, which focus on smaller, more speci c motives. Strivings toward growth and self-realization, and away from facade, self-concealment, and the pleasing of others (rogers, 1966: focuses on how you can achieve your full potential, commitment towards personal growth is the ultimate motivational experience. Positive psychology: emerging eld of psychology that seeks to articulate the vision of the good life and uses the empirical methods of psychology to understand what makes life worth living (seligman and csikzentmihalyi, 2000) Its subject matter is the investigation of positive subjective experiences (ex. happiness, well-being, optimism, resilience, compassion, helping others, etc. ) Focuses on personal strength, growth, and well-being.
