motivational and humanistic theories

According to Murray’s motivational theory, what is a need, a motive, and environmental press?

• Need: Physiochemical (biological) force in the brain that organizes perception/action to transform unsatisfying situation to more satisfying + strongest need → weakest need creates hierarchy of needs that characterizes personality

  • need is not consciously experienced

    • Need Types:

      • Viscerogenic (physiological; food, water) vs. Psychogenic (psychological; achievement)

      • Adience (approach; food) vs. Abience (avoidance; harm avoidance)

      • Reactive (react to a trigger; harm avoidance) vs. Proactive (spontaneous; food)

• Motive: elicited by a need, directs thought and behaviour toward or away from objects, people, and goals

  • consciously felt

• Environmental Press: environmental factor that increases or decreases motive expression and thus influences thought and behaviour

How are needs measured?

• Thematic Apperception Test + picture story exercise:

  • present participants w/ images of ambiguous situations + assume participants ‘project’ their needs when interpreting

  • ‘what has led up to event, what is happening, what characters are thinking/feeling, what is outcome’

  • Assesses implicit needs + dominant needs (Participants’ dominant needs form the defining characteristics of their personality)

• Personality Research Form:

  • self-report measure

  • assesses explicit (self-attributed) needs

• Multi-Motive Grid:

  • Combines both

  • projective test: images of ambiguous situations

  • self report measure that assesses the big 3 needs (achievement, affiliation, power)

  • assesses implicit and explicit needs

What are the primary assumptions of humanistic theories of personality?

Assumptions:

1. Humans have free will + can determine the course of events in their lives

   1. Unlike behaviorist theories, evolutionary theories (sex differences are hardwired, biological deterministic), or Freuds psychoanalytic theory (id impulses drive behavior unconsciously and out of control)

2. Conscious experience is the primary determinant of behaviour and personality

   1. More like nonanalytic than psychoanalytic

3. Humans are inherently good and innately strive for growth and improvement

According to Rogers’ person-centered theory, what is a fully functioning person?

• roger’s person centred theory:

  • all motives are characterized by one ‘master motives’ which determines all other needs

  • The actualizing tendency (pattern of the active process of life - directional tendency toward growth) - can be thwarted and warped, but not removed

• fully functioning person:

  • is engaged in self-actualization (as a process, not an “end state”)

  • exhibits personality characteristics that facilitate self- actualization:

    • openness to experience (doesn’t distort experience, sees reality as it is)

    • existential living (time competence)

    • organismic trust (trust of ones judgement; inner direction)

    • experiential freedom (autonomy in actions)

    • creativity (adapt to circumstance)

    • harmoniousness in relationships with others (minimal conflict, accept others as they are)

How does an individual become a fully functioning person?

• becomes fully functioning if they:

  • experience unconditional positive regard

    • Acceptance, love, and affection that are given without conditions

• An individual who experiences unconditional positive regard in childhood develops unconditional positive self- regard: An ability to view the self favorably under all conditions

  • An individual with unconditional positive self-regard accepts personal experiences, trusts their judgments, and acts in accordance with their desires and wishes

• an individual with unconditional positive self-regard develops personality characteristics that facilitate self-actualization

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What needs did Maslow identify in his theory of self- actualization?

• 5 conative (basic) needs

  • physiological needs: biological maintenance (e.g. food, oxygen, sleep, water)

    • only needs that can be fully satisfied, even though they will re-occur

    • for survial

  • safety needs: physical security (e.g. protection, shelter, stability)

    • in chaotic environments, anxiety will occur

  • belonging needs: affiliation (e.g. friendships)

  • esteem needs: public recognition and self-esteem (e.g. prestige, status, self-respect)

    • avoids a sense of inferiority (can link to erikson conflict: industry v inferiority)

  • self-actualization needs: self-fulfillment (e.g. pursuit of intrinsic motivations)

    • for avoiding meta pathology (restlessness, frustration, and disintegration)

  

• D needs (deficiency needs): belonging, safety, physiological

• B needs (being needs): needs linked to growth; esteem, self actualization

• A needs do not have to be fully met in order to begin meeting needs of a higher order

Is self-actualization universally achieved?

• only 1-2% of NAmericans ahceive self-actualization due to

  • sociocultural constraints

  • self constraints (self-imposed restraint, dear of success)

• measures of self-actualization:

  • characteristics of self-actualization scale

  • personal orientation inventory

  • short-index of self-actualization

• note: Contemporary research suggests that self actualization is not associated with age, unlike what Maslow suggested

What therapeutic approach did Rogers develop to help people become fully functioning

• Client-centered therapy (aka nondirective therapy)

  • the therapist creates an environment in which the patient is able to solve their own problem

• idea behind it:

  • Argued that all individuals experience incongruity between self-concept and actual experience. This generates anxiety.

  • To minimize anxiety, individuals attempt to reduce the incongruities b/w self-concept and experience

    • Fully functioning person does this by incorporating new experience into their self-concept

    • Non-fully functioning people reduce anxiety through the use of defence mechanisms

    • Exemplifies an inaccurate perception of reality, undermining openness to experience (one of rogers 6 key attributes of aa fully functioning person)

• not effective for ppl who are:

  • Collectivistic cultures (unconditional positive self regard is not a corner stone to psychological and social functioning, instead self criticism)

  • Authoritarian

  • Unable to verbalize emotions (alexithymia - cant connect to or communicate their emotions)

  • Low in tolerance for ambiguity

• effective for:

  • Depression, bipolar, GAD, PTSD

What is happiness

• Positive psychologists study “positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions to improve quality of life and prevent pathologies”

  • Positive psychologists distinguish between two forms of happiness

    • Hedonic happiness:

      • High satisfaction with life, high positive affect, low negative affect

    • Eudaimonic happiness:

      • Self-actualization (e.g., fulfillment of potential, pursuit of intrinsic motivations, experience of meaning in life)

  • Although theoretically distinct, hedonic and eudaimonic happiness are highly positively correlated (up to .7)

    • Most focus on H and assume that being high in H will mean high in E

What factors predict happiness?

• three broad sources of happiness:

  • set point (abt 50%)

    • a level of happiness we return to despite deviaitons in our lives (after abt 3 months) → hedonic treadmill/ hedonic adaptation of habituating to life circumstances (exceptions are long term unemployment + bereavement

      • hertiability= .4 and .5 (i.e. ‘trait’ happiness being stable)

  • circumstance (abt 10%)

    • (income, educational attainment, martial status, parental status, religiousity, health)

    • income improves H until 60K threshold. then limited increases after

    • negatively correlated with parenthood

  • intentional activity (abt 40%)

    • connecting with others, physical activity, ‘savouring’, learning, giving

• character strengths

  • 6 virtues:

    • wisdom and knowledge

    • courage

    • humanity

    • justice

    • termpance

    • transcendence

identify defense mechanisms that are used by individuals who are not fully functioning

• denial and distortion

describe the three conditions that are necessary for therapeutic change in client-centered therapy

• Therapist congruence

  • Therapist is genuine and authentic in their therapeutic interactions with the client

• Unconditional positive regard

  • Communicate that there are no conditions of worth, no accepting/rejection actions

• Empathetic understanding

  • Communicated by restating comments and feelings shared by the patient (validation)

  • Allows client to listen to their own remarks, clarify them for the therapist, reflect and solve their own problems

distinguish between implicit and explicit (i.e., self- attributed) needs

• implicit needs

  • unconscious motivational tendencies that influence spontaneous behavior and long-term goals.

  • influence naturalistic behavior in ambiguous or unstructured situations (e.g., creative tasks, social interactions)

  • Rooted in early developmental experiences

• explicit needs

  • Conscious motivational values that reflect how people see themselves and what they believe motivates them.

  • Influence deliberate choices and responses in structured settings (e.g., interviews, academic tasks)

  • Shaped by social norms and self-concept

discuss common criticisms of measures of needs

• TAT + picture story exercise

  • Poor inter-rater reliability (high subjectivity for the scoring)

  • Internal consistency across 20 cards is very poor (they say its to be expected because of the pressure they feel not to be redundant, creative, variable images)

• personality research form:

  • Does not assess implicit (unconscious) needs

• multi-motive grid

  • constrained to only 3 needs

distinguish between conative and neurotic needs

neurotic needs:

• contribute to a dysfunctional lifestyle, foster stagnation,

  contribute to pathology

• are reactive; develop in an attempt to compensate for unsatisfied conative needs

identify the correlates of self-actualization

• Time competence (live in the present, can connect past present and future for a sense of time continuity)

• Inner directed (motivated by own principles motivations and morals )

• Internal locus of control (feel that they are in control of outcomes of their life) and a higher environmental mastery (they can change their environment)

• Higher A,C, E, O

• Lower N

• Higher school/ workplace satisfaction

• Higher self-acceptance and esteem

• Higher purpose in life and life satisfaction

• More self-transcendent experience

define Jonah complex

• fear of realizing one’s full potential, of becoming the best version of oneself, and the anxiety or avoidance that can arise when we come close to profound growth, success, or creative achievement.

• fear of the demands^

review the conditions that are necessary to become a non-fully functioning person

• an individual does not become fully functioning if they experience conditional positive regard:

  • Acceptance, love, and affection that are given under conditions (i.e., conditions of worth)

• An individual who experiences conditions of worth in childhood develops conditional positive self-regard:

  • An inability to view the self favorably under all conditions

• An individual with conditional positive self-regard
  distorts personal experiences, disregards their judgments, and acts in accordance with the desires and wishes of others

• Accordingly, an individual with conditional positive self- regard develops personality characteristics that hinder self-actualization

define conditions of worth

• Acceptance, love, and affection that are given under conditions

identify personality characteristics that are related to happiness

• Five-factor model → extraverion, neuroticism (negatively related with hedonic affect), agreeablility (connect w/ other people), O (related to intelligence, learning), C (eudaimonic happiness/ meaning

• optimism → dispositional optimism (trait stable across situations, biological determined), optimisitc attributional style (can be used, not biological)

  • Attribute success to internal stable and global factors

  • Attribute failure to external, unstable, specific factors

• autotelic personalty → characterised by pursuit of intrinsic motivations

  • demonstrates curiosity, inherent enjoyment of activities, narrow concentration, need to achieve, persistence, cooperation, and independence

define autotelic personality and flow

• autotelic personalty → characterised by pursuit of intrinsic motivations

  • demonstrates curiosity, inherent enjoyment of activities, narrow concentration, need to achieve, persistence, cooperation, and independence

  • reports frequent occurrence of ‘flow’

    • intense involvement in moment-to-

      moment activity, focused attention, optimal functioning → Associated with clear goals, a sense of control, distortion of time, and balance between challenge and skill

describe virtues and character strengths

consider research findings on interventions to enhance happiness

• participants received individualzed feedback abt their top 5 (signature) strengths + asked to use one of these top strengths in a new and different way every day for one week

• result: long-term improvement occured participants in the using signature strengths in a new way condition

  • participants in the truncated identifying signature strengths condition showed an effect only at the immediate posttest but not thereafter.”

explain how signature strengths may be used to increase happiness

• must use signature strengths in a new way

  • must implement them, not just identify them

factors that may account for self-actualization in the absence of lower-order need satisfaction

• prior need satisfaction (a temporal factor)

• perceived competence to satisfy lower-order needs (a cognitive factor

• percieved competences emerges from (a) material competence (in due time) and (b) cognitive competence