The Third Force
- The psychological humanistic perspective was bought about in the 1950s as a welcomed counterpoint to the other orientations in Psychology (behaviourist and psychoanalysis)
- What differentiates this theory to the other two ‘forces in psychology’ is that it is neither scientific nor deterministic.
- Unlike behaviourists and psychoanalysis, humanistic psychologist attribute personality and behaviour is the responsibility of the individual as it is them who are in control rather than being controlled by external forces.
Carl Rogers
- Carl Rogers published Client-centred therapy in 1951, it is a psychodynamic approach that focuses on the uniqueness of the individual and the potential of each person for self- determination and self-actualisation
- Human development and personal growth is only possible when an individual receives unconditional positive regard from another individual.
- As the individual has the unconditional love they are therefore free to stop striving for social approval and seek self-actualisation.
- Conditional love from a significant other can lead to maladjustment.
The Q-sort method
This is a way of assessing the self-concept and the ideal self.
- An individual is presented with a pile of cards, each of which contains a personal statement (e.g. “I’m a friendly person”, “I’m tense most of the time”
- The individual puts the statements in order of what describes them best to least.
- The same procedure is followed with respect to the ideal self.
- The experimenter works out the gap between the statements selected as descriptive of the self and the ideal self.
Problems with the Q-sort method
- The method cannot shed any light on those aspects of the self about which there is no conscious awareness.
- There are possibilities of deliberate distortion (an individual may not want to admit to being unfriendly).
- People may possess a number of self-concepts when the Q-sort method is designed to assess a single self-concept.
Abraham Maslow- Hierarchy of Needs
Evaluation
