HUMANISTIC APPROACH: (WK33):

APPROACHES TO THE SELF:

  • emphasises the importance of the self, which is who you believe ‘you’ are

  • the self consists of your personality, formed by the interpretation of the experiences we have in life

  • there are three components of the self

    • 1) descriptive component

    • 2) evaluative component

    • 3) social component

1) DESCRIPTIVE COMPONENT:

  • self-concept = forms to answer: who am i?

  • it concerns things like ‘what do i like right now?’ and ‘who have i been, and who will i be?’

  • it is a person’s self-understanding regarding past, present and future aspects

  • we have multiple selves depending on the context

    • you may act differently with your parents compared to your friends

    • they are activated in these contexts

  • concerning the future, there are two selves:

    • ideal self = who we would like to be, consisting of our goals and ambitions. it is forever changing, you may want to be a doctor as a child but as an adult wish to be an artist

    • ought self = focused on obligations, including the way we believe others would want us to be and social obligations

  • self-image is how we see ourselves as individuals → important to good psychological health

  • it has an effect on how we think, feel and behave

2) EVALUATIVE COMPONENT:

  • self-esteem = it concerns how much we value ourselves as a person

  • also influenced by the reaction of others to us and the comparisons made of us by other people

  • research on self-esteem:

    • Brown & Button (1995) questioned how high and low self-esteem is affected by criticism and personal failures

      • participants instructed to complete a task, researcher scores the task when completed and gives them failure feedback

      • results: low-self esteem people are more likely to perform poorly and give up on later tasks, high-self esteem people instead take failure as a spur and are less likely to give up

    • Baumeister et al. (1996) argued that high self-esteem being threatened by someone may cause violent reactions

      • results: prisoners who had a history of violent offences were sig higher on narcissism than those with no history of violence

      • extremely high self-esteem can sometimes result in aggressive responses

    • Taylor et al. (2000) questioned about protecting vs. enhancing the self

      • participants took an intelligence test and led to believe they did much better or much worse than they did, on the next test they had the opportunity to receive more or less feedback

      • results: when participants believed they did worse, low self-esteem people did not want more feedback, but high-self esteem people did not avoid more feedback

      • low self-esteem people are motivated to protect their self-concept by avoiding failure

3) SOCIAL COMPONENT:

  • social identity = self that we show to others, part of ourselves that we use to create impressions and let others know what to expect from us

  • different from self-concept as it involves elements that are socially observable

  • e.g. ex, ethnicity, height etc

  • self-complexity = people who have multiple complex and distinctive selves

    • react less to threats of a particular identity than those who are low in self-complexivity

  • identity crisis = the anxiety that accompanies efforts to define or redefine one’s individual or social reputation

    • can occur at any time, most often in adolescence

    • during midlife, they may act as adolescence again

    • two main types:

      • identity deficit = arises when a person has not formed an adequate identity, resulting in trouble making major decisions. this may lead to vulnerability to propaganda or influences of other people

      • identity conflict = involves an incompatibility between to or more aspects of identity, feeling as though they have let down themselves and others

    • how do we resolve these? → a person must decide which values are most important to them, then transform abstract values into desires and behaviours

HUMANISTIC APPROACH:

  • focuses on how we find meaning for our existence and what motivates us to keep living

  • emphasises the uniqueness of human beings and free will

  • personal growth = motivated by a need to grow and develop in a positive way

  • Carl Rogers

    • a founding figure in humanistic psychology

    • caring and respectful of others, found value in achievements but was humble

  • person-centred

    • there is a focus on the ‘here and now’ and personal responsibilty

    • we have the power to shape our own lives, our future goals influencing our current behaviour

  • self-actualisation

    • the innate, positive drive to develop and realise our true potential

    • without it, the ability to cope with life would be incredibly difficult

  • unconditional positive regard

    • the need to be liked and loved by others, accepting us as we our and valuing us just for being

    • it is rare in it’s unconditional form