Humanistic Psychology Assumptions
A further assumption is then added - people are basically good, and have an innate need to make themselves and the world better. The humanistic approach emphasizes the personal worth of the individual, the centrality of human values, and the creative, active nature of human beings. The approach is optimistic and focuses on noble human capacity to overcome hardship, pain and despair.
Both Rogers and Maslow regarded personal growth and fulfillment in life as a basic human motive. This means that each person, in different ways, seeks to grow psychologically and continuously enhance themselves. This has been captured by the term self-actualization, which is about psychological growth, fulfillment and satisfaction in life. However, Rogers and Maslow both describe different ways of how self-actualization can be achieved.
Central to the humanistic theories of Rogers (1959) and Maslow (1943) are the subjective, conscious experiences of the individual. Humanistic psychologists argue that objective reality is less important than a person's subjective perception and understanding of the world. Because of this, Rogers and Maslow placed little value on scientific psychology, especially the use of the psychology laboratory to investigate both human and animal behavior.
Humanism rejects scientific methodology like experiments and typically uses qualitative research methods. For example, diary accounts, open-ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews and unstructured observations. Qualitative research is useful for studies at the individual level, and to find out, in depth, the ways in which people think or feel (e.g. case studies). The way to really understand other people is to sit down and talk with them, share their experiences and be open to their feelings.
Humanism rejected comparative psychology (the study of animals) because it does not tell us anything about the unique properties of human beings. Humanism views human beings as fundamentally different from other animals, mainly because humans are conscious beings capable of thought, reason and language. For humanistic psychologists’ research on animals, such as rats, pigeons, or monkeys held little value. Research on such animals can tell us, so they argued, very little about human thought, behavior and experience.
Humanistic psychologists rejected a rigorous scientific approach to psychology because they saw it as dehumanizing and unable to capture the richness of conscious experience. In many ways the rejection of scientific psychology in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s was a backlash to the dominance of the behaviorist approach in North American psychology.
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