Theories of Personality
[Cont.]

l. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970). Idea of self-actualization. Studies of people living unusually effective lives. An interest in people using almost all of their talents and potentials. Albert Einstein, William James, Jane Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, John Muir, and Walt Whitman. Then he moved on to directly study artists, writers, poets, and other creative individuals. His thinking changed radically along the way. It became clear that a housewife, carpenter, clerk, or student could live creatively and make full use of his or her potentials. His primary contribution was to draw attention to the possibility of continued personal growth. He considered self-actualization an ongoing process, not a simple end point to be attained only once.

Characteristics of Self-Actualizers:

l. Efficient perceptions of reality. Were able to judge situations correctly and honestly and were very sensitive to the face and dishonest.

2. Comfortable acceptance of self, others, nature. Were able to accept their own human nature with all its shortcomings. The shortcomings of others and the contradictions of the human condition were also accepted with humor and tolerance.

3. Spontaneity. Extended their creativity into everyday activities. They tended to be unusually alive, engaged, and spontaneous.

4. Task centering. Had a mission to fulfill in life or some task or problem outside of themselves to pursue. Humanitarians such as Albert Schweitzer or Mother Therese represent this quality.

5. Autonomy. Were free from dependence on external authority or other people. They tended to be resourceful and independent.

6. Continued freshness of appreciation. The self-actualizer seems to constantly renew appreciation of life's basic goods. A sunset or a flower will be experienced as intensely the one-thousandth time as it was the first. There is an "innocence of vision," like that of an artist or child.

7. Fellowship with humanity. Felt a deep identification with others and the human situation in general.

8. Profound interpersonal relationships. Marked by deep, loving bonds.

9. Unhostile sense of humor. This refers to the wonderful capacity to laugh at oneself. It also refers to the kind of humor a man like Abraham Lincoln had. Lincoln probably never made a joke that hurt anybody. His wry comments were a gentle prodding at human shortcomings.

10. Peak experiences. Reported the frequent occurrence of peak experiences. These were marked by feelings of ecstasy, harmony, and deep meaning. Reported feeling at one with the universe, stronger and calmer than ever before, filled with light, beautiful and good, and so forth. In short, self-actualizers feel safe and unanxious, accepted, loved, loving, and alive.

2. Carl Rogers (1902-1987). The fully functioning person, he said, is one who has achieved an openness to feelings and experiences and has learned to trust inner urges and intuitions. He believed that this attitude is most likely to occur when a person receives ample amounts of love and acceptance from others. He based his theory on clinical experience. Rogers' theory of personality centers on the concept of the:

Self. A flexible and changing perception of personal identity that emerges from the :

Phenomenal Field. The person's total subjective experience of reality. The self is made up of those experiences identified as "I" or "me" that are separated from "not-me" experiences.

According to Rogers, experiences that match the self-image are symbolized (admitted to consciousness) and contribute to gradual changes in the self. Information or feelings inconsistent with the self-image are said to be incongruent. It is incongruent, for example, to think of yourself as a considerate person if others frequently mention your rudeness. Experiences seriously incongruent with the self-image can be threatening, and they are often distorted or denied conscious recognition. Blocking, denying, or distorting experiences prevents the self from changing and creates a gulf between the self-image and reality. As the self-image grows more unrealistic, the incongruent person becomes confused, vulnerable, dissatisfied, or seriously maladjusted.

When your self-image is consistent with what you really think, feel, do, and experience, you are best able to actualize your potentials. Rogers also considered it essential to have congruence between the self-image and the ideal self (similar to Freud's ideal ego --an image of the person you would like to be). The greater the gap between the way you see yourself and the way you would like to be --the greater the tension and anxiety experienced. The Rogerian view of personality can therefore be summarized as a processs of maximizing potentials by accepting information about oneself as realistically and honestly as possible. In accord with Rogers' thinking, researchers have found that people with a close match between their self-image and ideal self tend to be socially poised, confident, and resourceful. Those with a poor match tend to be anxious, insecure, and lacking in social skills.

Incongruence - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Congruence

Possible selves. The ideal self or the person we would most like to become, as well as other selves we could become or are afraid of becoming. Possible selves translate our hopes, fears, fantasies, and goals into specific images of who we could be. Law students may envision a successful attorney, husband in a troubled marriage might picture himself as a divorcee, a person on a diet might imagine both slim and grossly obese possible selves. Such self-images tend to direct future behavior. They also give meaning to current behavior and help us evaluate it. Upsetting images might "move" one to do something about something.... Even day-to-day decisions may be guided by possible selves. Purchasing clothes, a car, cologne, membership in a health club, and the like may be influenced by images of a valued future self. Everyone over the age of 30 has probably realized that some cherished possible selves will never be realized.

Humanistic view of development. Rogers' theory suggests mirrors, photographs, tape recorders, and the reactions of others hold such fascination and threat for people because they provide information about one's self. The development of self-image depends greatly on information from the environment. It begins with a sorting of perceptions and feelings: my body, my toes, my nose, I want, I like, I am, and so on. Soon it expands to include self-evaluation: I am a good person, I did something bad just now, and so forth.

Conditions of worth. Rogers believed that positive and negative evaluations by others cause children to develop internal standards of evaluation called conditions of worth. We learn that some actions win our parents' love and approval --some are rejected. This learning to evaluate some experiences or feelings as "good" and others as "bad" is directly related to a later capacity for self-esteem, positive self-evaluation, or ^positive self-regard. To think of yourself as a good, lovable, worthwhile person, your behavior and experiences must match your internal conditions of worth. The problem is that this can cause incongruence by leading to the denial of many true feelings and experiences.

Organismic valuing. Rogers believed that congruence and self-actualization are encouraged by replacing conditions of worth with organismic valuing --a direct, gut-level response to life that avoids the filtering and distortion of incongruence. It is the ability to trust one's own feelings and perceptions --to become one's own "locus of evaluation." Most likely to develop, Rogers felt, when children (or adults) receive "unconditional positive regard" from others. When they are "prized" just for being themselves, without any conditions or strings attached.

IV. OVERVIEW AND COMPARISON OF PERSONALITY THEORIES:
The meaningful organization of observations of human behavior in each theory adds to our understanding of personality. None of the major theories can be proved or disproved. If any could be proven as true, it would no longer be a theory --it would be a law. The implications and predictions of theories are also neither true nor false. Judge in terms of usefulness for explaining behavior, for stimulating research, and for suggesting ways of treating psychological disorders. Each theory has fared differently in these areas.

Psychoanalytic Theory. By present standards, psychoanalytic theory seems to over-emphasize sexuality and biological instincts. These distortions were corrected somewhat by the neo-Freudians, but problems remain. Psychoanalytic theory is good at explaining things after they occur, but offers little help in predicting future behavior. For this reason, many psychoanalytic concepts are difficult or impossible to test.

Behavioristic Theory. Learning theories have provided a good framework for personality research. Behaviorists have made the best effort to rigorously test and verify their ideas. They have been criticized for understating the impact that temperament, emotion, and subjective experience have on personality. To a degree, social learning theory is an attempt to answer such criticisms.

Humanistic Theory. Great strength of humanists is the light they have shed on positive dimensions of personality. As Maslow (1968) put it, "Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be. It is as if Freud supplied us with the sick half of psychology and we must now fill it out with the healthy half." However, humanists can be criticized for using imprecise concepts that are difficult to measure or study objectively. Even so, humanistic thought has encouraged many people to seek greater self-awareness and personal growth.