Module 46 - Humanistic Theories and Trait Theories

three ways of thinking about psychology

1. psychodynamic

2. behaviorism

3. humanist + trait social cognitive

humanistic theories

Abraham Maslow’s self-actualizing person

Carl Rogers’s person-centered perspective

Abraham Maslow’s self-actualizing person

focused on the potential for healthy personal growth and people’s striving for self-determination and self-realization

people are motivated by a hierarchy of needs and strive for self-actualization and self-transcendence

Carl Rogers’s person-centered perspective

posited that characteristics of growth-promoting environment include genuineness, acceptance, and empathy

unconditioned positive regard and self-concept are key components

Abraham Maslow

viewed human motives as pyramid; hierarchy of needs

at the base are basic physiological needs (need to satisfy hunger and thirst); at the peak are the highest human needs (need to find meaning and identity beyond the self)

not universally fixed: culture; national income

humanistic psychologists

sometimes assessed personality using questionnaires to evaluate self-concept

some rejected any standardized assessments and relied on interviews and conversations —> depersonalization

Rogers sometimes used questionnaires in which people described their ideal and actual selves, which was later used to judge progress during therapy

some researchers today believe our identity may be revealed using the life story approach

pervasive

influence of humanistic theories has been _______

influenced counseling, education, child raising, and management

laid the groundwork for positive psychology

renewed interest in the concept of self

criticism of humanistic theories

present vague and subjective concepts

advance individualism and self-centered values

offer naively optimistic assumptions

Gordon Allport

trait theorist

described personality in terms of fundamental traits (people’s characteristic behaviors and conscious motives)

saw personality as a stable and enduring pattern of behavior

concerned less with explaining individual traits than with describing them

use factor analysis to identity clusters of behavior tendencies that occur together

suggest that genetic predispositions influence many traits

Isabel Briggs Myers and Katharine Briggs

attempted to sort people according to Carl Jung’s personality types, based on their responses to 126 questions

created Myers-briggs Type Indicator

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

ongoing popularity in business and career counseling

limited proven scientific worth; lack of validity as a job performance predictor (NRC)

remains mostly a counseling and coaching tool, not a research instrument

factor analysis

statistical procedure used to identify clusters (factors) of test items to tap basic components of a trait

Hans Eysenck and Sybil Eysenck

theorized that many individual variations can be reduced to two dimensions:

extraversion-introversion

emotional stability-instability

created Eysenck personality questionnaire

don’t provide middle ground —> unreliable, limited

individual variations

extraversion-introversion

emotional stability-instability

extraverts’ brain activity scans

indicate that they seek stimulation due to relatively low normal brain arousal

dopamine and dopamine-related neural activity

tend to be higher in extraverts

personality inventory

is a questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors

self-report

test items empirically derived; tests objectively scored

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

big five factors

most widely accepted test of personality; specifies place on five dimensions

can also be used to understand both psychological flourishing and dysfunction

CANOE:

conscientiousness

agreeableness

neuroticism

openness

extraversion

CANOE in big five factors

conscientiousness

agreeableness

neuroticism

openness

extraversion