Week 12 - Self-Actualization and Self-Determination

Actualization

The realization or fulfillment of an organism's talents and capabilities in ways that maintain and enhance the individual.

Self-actualization

Maintenance and enhancement of the self.

Peak Experience

Intense moment of self actualization.

Need for relatedness

Associated with positive and open communication.

Self-concordance

Pursuing goals that are consistent with one's core values.

Organismic Valuing Process

The automatic evaluation of the self to determine whether they are enhancing actualization.

Free will

Freedom to decide how they act and what they want to become.

Reactance

The attempt to regain or reassert one's free will when one feels their free will is being threatened.

Fully Functioning Person

Describes a person who is self-actualizing; they are open to and trust their feelings.

Positive Regard

Affection given without conditions or expectations.

Conditional Positive Regard

Affection given only after fulfilling conditions or requirements- only receiving affection if you act in a particular way.

Conditions of Worth

The conditions imposed on a person (usually by the self) necessary to receive positive regard.

Conditional self regard

Given when we feel we've fulfilled our conditions of worth, and is the reward that drives us to choose our behaviors, values, and goals.

Contingent Self Worth

Refers to using one's performance in something (ex. academics) as a condition of self acceptance.

Introjected Regulation

Sculpting one's behavior because of an external influence or feeling that they 'should' act a certain way.

Identified Regulation

Sculpting one's behavior because of an internal, self-determined value.

Self Esteem

Maintenance & enhancement- use defenses to maintain congruence and integrity of self.

Threat to self esteem

Dealt with by distorting experience to minimize negativity of the threat or prevent attribution to qualities of the self.

Three Conditions for Self-Determination

1. Autonomy 2. Competence 3. Relatedness.

Reward Implications

Can be controlling if one feels that he/she does not have autonomy over his/her actions.

Informational aspect

Can inform you about yourself, either implying a condition of worth or induce an action solely for the purpose of a reward.

Relatedness

People have a desire for open and positive communication with significant others.

Best scenario

When relationship partners support autonomy, improving the quality of the relation.

Congruence

Ideal self and actual self fit together.

Incongruence

Disorganization; fraying unitary sense of self.

Distortion of experiences

A defense mechanism that alters perception of reality.

Rationalization

Creating a plausible but false explanation.

Denial

Refusing to admit that a situation happened.

Avoidance

Not letting you be in a situation that could cause an unwanted experience.

Self-handicapping

Creating conditions that tend to produce failure (ex: going to the gym hours before your interview and arriving unkempt and sweaty).

Stereotype threat

Poor performance is assumed due to being of a certain group (poor performance confirms stereotype).

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Can't have higher needs fulfilled without starting with fulfilling lower ones.

Physiological needs

Air, water, food, and so on.

Safety and Security needs

Shelter from weather, protection against predators.

Love and Belonging needs

Need for companionship, affections, and acceptance (social).

Esteem needs

Sense of mastery and power; sense of appreciation from others.

Acceptance

May not be evaluative.

Appreciation

Esteemed for some quality you possess.

Self-actualization

Tendency to become whatever you're capable of; extend yourself to limits of capacities.

Peak experience

Moment of intense self-actualization (feeling like you are truly living life).

Existential psychology

Existence is all anyone has and life only has meaning if you create one.

Existential guilt

Failing to fulfill your possibilities.

Daesin

Being the world (important to existential psych).

Terror management theory

Is the reason why people view themselves as separate from other animals.

Q-sort

To measure self concept; which qualities are most and least like you.

Goal of therapy

Reintegrate disorganized self; reverse process of defenses; encourage unconditional positive regard, restatement if cognitive content, clarification of feelings.

Client/person centered therapy

Client takes responsibility for improvement and therapist displays empathy/unconditional positive regard.