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(Ceylan et al., 2016). Others maintain that the unconscious consists of material that is
not brought to awareness, or else is forgotten, for strictly cognitive reasons (Barbosa,
Vlassova, & Kouider, 2017; Greenwald, 1992; Kihlstrom, Barnhardt, & Tataryn, 1992).
As discussed throughout this book, psychologists today are busily studying a wide
range of unconscious processes such as perception without awareness, implicit
learning and memory, subliminal influences, and implicit social stereotypes.
Throughout the course of several experiments, Pyszczynski and colleagues (2015)
have found that when people are confronted with fleeting thoughts of death—a
source of anxiety that Freud wrote about—they engage in a host of defensive
processes, desperately trying to suppress thoughts about their own mortality.
According to their provocative terror-management theory, this deeply rooted fear of
death highly motivates people to consider themselves as valuable members of
society, to believe their own cultural worldviews as good and correct, and to harbor
contempt and prejudice for others who are different. Major and colleagues (2016)
suggested that terror-management-theory be integrated into psychotherapy.
This leads us to a second enduring legacy of Freud’s theory: his analysis of
defense mechanisms. Based on the resistance shown by so many of his patients,
Freud argued that people distort reality to ward off anxiety. Research shows that he
was absolutely right. Some of us may be more defensive than others, but everyone
harbors illusions about the self. We perceive ourselves in inflated terms, we have an
exaggerated sense of control over uncontrollable events, we compare ourselves to
others who are less fortunate, and we think more optimistically than we should about
our own future—and these illusions may help us cope with adversity (Taylor & Armor,
1996). These forms of coping are defense mechanisms much like those Freud had
described (Baumeister, Dale, & Sommer, 1998; Cramer, 1998). Indeed, Phebe
Cramer (2000, 2015) notes that Freud’s view of unconscious defense mechanisms is
now supported throughout psychology in various studies of attention, thinking,
feeling, memory, psychopathology, denial, and coping without awareness.
LEARNING CHECK
Mixed Sigmund
Try to repress any slips as you match each Freudian term in the left column to its
closest description in the right column.
(Answers: 1. c; 2. k; 3. j; 4. g; 5. d; 6. b; 7. a; 8. i; 9. l; 10. h; 11. e; 12. f.)
THE COGNITIVE SOCIAL-LEARNING APPROACH
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Contrast psychoanalysis with the cognitive social-learning approach.
Describe the principles of learning that laid the foundation for an alternative
approach to personality.
Determine if you have an internal or external locus of control.
Connect self-efficacy to wellness.
In contrast to psychoanalysis, cognitive social-learning theory is an approach
that views personality as the product of a continuous interaction between persons
and their environments. This theory has its roots in the behavioral principles of
classical and operant conditioning, social-learning theory, and cognitive psychology.
Let’s trace the evolution of this important approach.
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cognitive social-learning theory. An approach to personality that focuses on
social learning (modeling), acquired cognitive factors (expectancies, values), and the
person-situation interaction.
Principles of Learning and Behavior
As psychoanalysis was emerging in Europe, a second movement was being
conceived in animal laboratories in the United States and Russia. At the time, animal
researchers were discovering some very powerful principles of learning and were
spreading the new word of behaviorism—a scientific approach to psychology that
focuses on environmental determinants of observable behavior. To the hard-core
behaviorist, personality was a nonscientific figment of the Freudian imagination. After
all, behaviorists had refused to muddy the scientific study of behavior by speculating
about inner states of “mind.” The first spokesperson for this countermovement was
John Watson (1925), whose message was loud and clear:
Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified
world to bring them up in, and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and
train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer,
artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his
talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his
ancestors. (p. 104)
At the same time that Freud was writing his classic book on dreams, animal
researchers were discovering five simple but very powerful principles of learning:
classical conditioning, operant conditioning, stimulus generalization, discrimination,
and extinction (these are described more fully in the chapter on learning).
The first, classical conditioning, was based on Ivan Pavlov’s finding that the dogs
in his laboratory would start to salivate before they were fed, in anticipation of the
meal they were about to eat. By repeatedly pairing a sound with the presentation of
food, Pavlov found that eventually the dogs would salivate as soon as they heard the
noise even if food was not present. Thus, the animals were trained to react to a
neutral stimulus that was associated with food, which is an unconditioned stimulus
that naturally elicits the reaction. The second major principle was operant
conditioning, first shown by Edward Thorndike’s finding that organisms repeat
behaviors that are rewarded. Working with cats and, later, with humans, Thorndike
found that whatever solution succeeded for a subject on one puzzle was later tried on
other puzzles as well. A few years later, B. F. Skinner tested the effects of
reinforcement schedules on behavior by training rats to press bars and pigeons to
peck at keys for food.
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Even though this dog has not tasted the treat, it cannot help but salivate in
anticipation. Pavlov used this natural response to his advantage when developing his
theory of classical conditioning.
iStock.com/stevecoleimages
Both classical- and operant-conditioning researchers made parallel discoveries
not yet relevant to the study of personality. The first was stimulus generalization, the
principle that once a response is learned in one situation, it may also be evoked in
other, similar situations—as when Pavlov’s dogs learned to salivate to tones that
were similar but not identical to the conditioned stimulus. The second, opposite
principle is discrimination: the learned tendency to distinguish between a conditioned
stimulus and other stimuli—as when a child learns that having tantrums works on
parents but not on teachers and friends. The third principle is extinction, the tendency
for a conditioned response to diminish if not reinforced. Pavlov’s dogs eventually
stopped salivating to the buzzer if it was no longer followed by meat, and Skinner’s
animals stopped pressing bars when food pellets were no longer forthcoming.
These principles of learning and behavior were momentous discoveries in
psychology, the new science of behavior. But what did drooling dogs, puzzled cats,
and key-pecking pigeons have to do with personality? In a crude first attempt to
answer this question, John Watson and Rosalie Rayner (1920) conducted a wellknown but ethically questionable demonstration. As described in the chapter on
learning, Watson and Rayner brought a 9-month-old boy named Albert into contact
with a harmless white rat, then repeatedly made a loud sound every time the boy
reached for the animal. Soon poor Albert was terrified not only of the rat but of
rabbits, dogs, and a white furry coat. Watson published this groundbreaking study at
the age of 42, and it launched his career (Benjamin, Whitaker, Ramsey, & Zeve,
2007).
What was the point? Poking fun at Freud and his followers, Watson declared that
one day a psychoanalyst would meet a man named Albert with a fur-coat phobia,
analyze his dreams, and conclude that his fear is related to a scolding he received
from his white-haired mother. Such were the pitfalls of a nonscientific approach to
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p pp
personality, said Watson. Looking back, Mark Rilling (2000) notes an interesting
paradox: Despite Watson’s anti-Freudian bias, Watson popularized psychoanalysis
and pioneered the scientific study of its concepts.
Picking up where Watson’s behavior experiments left off, B. F. Skinner emerged
as behaviorism’s most forceful and dedicated proponent. He coined the term operant
conditioning, studied different schedules of reinforcement, and wrote about how these
principles could be used to socialize children, increase worker productivity, extinguish
behavioral disorders, and build a better society. As far as Skinner was concerned,
personality is nothing more than a collection of behavior patterns acquired,
maintained, and—if necessary—modified by one’s unique history of reinforcement.
As a child, were you reinforced for staying quiet and keeping to yourself? If so,
according to Skinner, that explains why you are introverted. Nothing more. Nothing
less.
John Watson
JHU Sheridan Libraries/Gado / Contributor/Archive Photos/Getty
Images
Social-Learning Theory
Although behaviorists offered a change of pace from psychoanalysis, many
psychologists found their pointed focus on behavior too narrow and rejected their
unwillingness to explore thoughts, feelings, motivations, and the richness and texture
of the human personality. At the very least, it seemed that behaviorism had to be
extended in two ways. Enter social-learning theory, an approach that examines the
social and cognitive factors involved in learning and the development of personality.
Leading the way were Albert Bandura, Julian Rotter, and Walter Mischel.
The first important extension was to account for the fact that people often acquire
new behavior patterns without personal experience with reward and punishment.
According to Bandura (1977), people learn by observing and imitating others, a
process called modeling. Children, for example, absorb what their parents say and
how they act, pay close attention to TV characters and sports heroes, and emulate
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peers whom they admire. Research shows that modeling is a multistep process: We
observe, we learn, and we store in memory (learning). Then, if we are capable and
motivated, and if the time is right, we imitate (performance). Bandura thus reminded
us that learning takes place in a social context and that people can learn to become
aggressive, helpful, fearful, moral, and so on by observing others.
modeling. The social-learning process by which behavior is observed and
imitated.
The second important extension of behaviorism was to examine how our thoughts
can influence the effects of reinforcement on behavior. Skinner had insisted that
behavior is determined by actual reinforcement contingencies, but Julian Rotter
(1954) argued that what matters is how we perceive, interpret, and value the rewards
in our lives. According to Rotter, human behavior in any given situation is determined
by two broad factors: our subjective expectancy that a specific act will be reinforced,
and the value to us of that reinforcement, as illustrated in Figure 8.6. If you expect
that reading the rest of this text will help you learn psychology and earn a high grade
for the course—and if these outcomes strike you as desirable—you’ll probably read
on. If you don’t expect to learn from this text, or if you don’t really care, this may be
the last paragraph you read. As far as personality is concerned, Rotter and
colleagues (1972) found that individuals differ both in the amount of control they
expect to have over outcomes in their lives and in the kinds of outcomes they value.
Figure 8.6 Driven by Reinforcement
iStock.com/tracielouise; iStock.com/Instants
Expanding on Rotter’s model, Walter Mischel (1973) proposed a cognitive sociallearning theory. According to Mischel, it is important to consider five “person
variables” to understand how individuals interact with their environment:
Competencies. Our mental and physical abilities, social skills, and creative
talents, all of which influence what we strive for and what we can do.
Encoding strategies. How we process information about other people and
situations (for example, whether we tend to evaluate others in terms of their
intelligence, friendliness, power, or physical appearance).
Expectancies. Our beliefs about the causes of success and failure and other
possible consequences of our actions (there are two types of expectancies:
whether we can perform a particular behavior, and whether it will be reinforced).
Subjective values. The kinds of outcomes we find more or less rewarding
(for example, whether we strive for love, security, respect, or dominance).
Self-regulatory systems. Our ability to set goals, monitor and evaluate our
progress, delay our short-term needs for gratification, and plan for the future.
Self-regulation is an important, highly adaptive person variable. In many years of
research, Mischel and others (1989) have found that preschoolers who show they
can defer their gratification in the laboratory—say, by waiting for a larger but delayed
reward—grow up to become more competent, attentive, and deliberate; less likely to
abuse substances or commit a crime; and better able to cope with real frustrations
later in life (Moffitt et al., 2011; Moffitt, Poulton, & Caspi, 2013). In fact, the number of
seconds a preschool child is willing to wait for two marshmallows—rather than
settling for the one that is available immediately—is predictive of the child’s SAT
scores in high school and body mass index as a 30-something-year-old adult
(Schlam, Wilson, Shoda, Mischel, & Ayduk, 2013). Metcalfe and Mischel (1999) and
Mischel (2014) have suggested that to exercise such self-control, or willpower, we
must learn to use various cognitive strategies that enable us to override the “go”
impulses that can lure us away from our long-term goals. One way to do this is by
working on some task rather than waiting passively for a future reward. Other
research has supported the implementation of a strategy to delay gratification but
demonstrates that additional variables—impulsivity, planning, emotion regulation,
cognitive ability, home environment, and family background—also play a role
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(Neuenschwander & Blair, 2017; Watts, Duncan, & Quan, 2018). This is why the
ability to delay gratification isn’t necessarily a stable trait (Watts et al., 2018).
Locus of Control
According to cognitive social-learning theory, human behavior is influenced not by
actual reinforcements, as Skinner had maintained, but by our perceptions of control.
Think about it. Does getting ahead require hard work and persistence, or is it simply a
matter of being in the right place at the right time? Can individuals influence
government policies or global conflicts, or are we at the mercy of powerful leaders?
And what about the quality of your health, friendships, and financial well-being—are
you in control?
People who believe they have control over their own destinies tend to be more
persistent, play an active role in politics, and use better coping mechanisms than
those who don’t believe they have control over their own destinies.
iStock.com/KrisCole
According to Rotter (1966), individuals differ in their locus of control, defined as
a generalized expectancy for the control of reinforcement. People who have an
internal locus of control believe they are in charge of their own destinies. Those who
have an external locus of control feel they are at the mercy of luck, fate, and powerful
others. To assess these contrasting orientations, Rotter constructed the I-E Scale.
Immediately, psychologists grasped the implications of having an internal or external
locus of control. Over the years, many hundreds of studies using the I-E Scale were
published. Studying people of different ages, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds,
researchers found that internals, compared to externals, are more inquisitive, active,
hardworking, and persistent. They are also more likely to take preventive health
measures, play an active role in social and political affairs, get high grades in school,
and cope actively with stressful life events (Lefcourt, 1982; Rotter, 1990; Strickland,
1989) such as marginalization and the transition into college (Llamas, Consoli,
Hendricks, & Nguyen, 2018), psychological distress following bariatric surgery
(Peterhänsel, Linde, Wagner, Dietrich, & Kersting, 2017), or a cancer diagnosis
(Lima, Moret-Tatay, & Irigaray, 2021), shifts in social status (Becker & Birkelbach,
2018), and raising a child who has an intellectual disability (Rajan, Srikrishna, &
Romate, 2018).
locus of control. The expectancy that one’s reinforcements are generally
controlled by internal or external factors.
Although people differ in their locus of control, there are two important
qualifications. The first is that it is entirely possible to have an internal orientation in
some life situations but an external orientation in others. The I-E Scale asks about
control expectancies for a wide range of domains—including health, academics,
career pursuits, friendships, and remote political and social events. The second is
that individuals also differ in the extent to which they want control. Some of us care
more deeply than others about making our own decisions or having an influence over
others. People with a strong desire for control—regardless of whether they are
internal or external in their expectancies—are more likely to become stressed and
upset in situations that make them feel helpless (Burger, 1991). However, when given
even the illusion of control, those with a strong desire for it can have improved
treatment outcomes (Geers et al., 2013).
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Is an expectation for control adaptive? At first glance, it seems that an internal
orientation is the key to health, success, and emotional well-being—and a great deal
of research supports this point (e.g., Mallers, Claver, & Lares, 2013; Marshall, 1991).
In a classic study of nursing home patients, for example, 93 percent of those who by
random assignment were given more control over minor daily affairs were happier,
more active, and more alert when tested 18 months later (Rodin, 1986). But wait. Is
an internal orientation always adaptive, or are there times when it’s better to perceive
life’s reinforcements as beyond our command?
This is a tough question because there are two exceptions to the rule that it’s
better to be internal than external. First, an internal orientation can cause problems
when we don’t carefully distinguish between truly controllable and uncontrollable
events. For example, people with an inflated sense of control are at risk of losing
money gambling on games of pure chance (Langer, 1975). This inflated sense of
control is an outcome that sports betting advertisements have seemed to rely on
(Lopez-Gonzalez, Estévez, & Griffiths, 2017). And victims of sexual assault and other
crimes suffer more distress when they blame themselves for having been careless or
done something to provoke their attack (Donde & Ragsdale, 2017; Perilloux, Duntley,
& Buss, 2014; Peter-Hagene & Ullman, 2016). Second, an internal orientation can
cause problems if it leads us to develop an overcontrolling, stress-inducing style of
behavior—whether that means always having the last word in an argument, driving
from the back seat of a car, or planning every detail of a leisurely vacation.
Sometimes it is better to practice acceptance and be in the moment, even when life’s
stressors and your lack of control seem overwhelming. Relinquishing control and
practicing mindfulness has been a helpful stress reducer for oil company executives
(Mulla, Govindaraj, Polisetti, George, & More, 2017), persons with chronic illness
(Rush & Sharma, 2016; Simpson, Byrne, Wood, Mair, & Mercer, 2017) and
posttraumatic stress disorder (Woidneck, Morrison, & Twohig, 2013), and prison
inmates (Samuelson, Carmody, Kabat-Zinn, & Bratt, 2007). On this point, Japanese
psychologist Hiroshi Azuma (1984) offers these Japanese proverbs: “Willow trees do
not get broken by piled-up snow” and “The true tolerance is to tolerate the
intolerable.”
TRY THIS!
The Raisin Task: A Simple Exercise in Mindfulness
Can something as simple as focusing on a single bite of food be an exercise in
mindfulness? We are pleased to tell you that it can (Hopthrow, Hooper, Mahmood,
Meier, & Weger, 2017). The Raisin Task is centered on attending to your senses—
sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound—for a total of at least 5 minutes. You have 5
minutes before your next commitment, right? To observe what it’s like to be present in
the moment, TRY THIS: Set a timer to 5 minutes. Take a raisin (or any other small
piece of food) and examine its texture. Look at how the skin folds. What color is it?
Give the raisin a little pinch. How does it feel between your fingers? Smell the raisin.
Does it smell sweet, tart, or slightly fermented? Now, put the raisin in your mouth and
roll it around with your tongue. Allow the raisin to sit in your mouth for 1 minute before
you place it between your teeth and bite into it. Chew slowly.
Next, prepare to swallow the raisin by focusing on what the muscles in your mouth
and neck are doing. Put your hand gently on your neck, underneath your chin, and as
you swallow, take notice of how your neck and areas underneath your jaw react.
Finally, focus on the journey the raisin takes down your esophagus.
Write down a quick note that summarizes how you feel after the Raisin Task. Did
you calm down a little bit? Were you more aware of how the raisin tasted than usual?
Would you try this exercise again? Why or why not?
Self-Efficacy
As noted, locus of control refers to the expectation that our behaviors can produce
satisfying outcomes. But people also differ in the extent to which they think they can
perform these reinforced behaviors in the first place. These concepts seem related,
but in fact they refer to different beliefs, both of which are necessary for us to feel that
we control the outcomes in our lives (Skinner, 1996). According to Bandura (1997,
2011), the latter expectations are based on feelings of competence, or self-efficacy.
Although some people are generally more confident than others, Bandura believes
that self-efficacy is a state of mind that varies from one task and situation to another.
In other words, you may have a high self-efficacy about meeting new people but not
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about raising your grades. Or you may have a high self-efficacy about speaking in
public but not about writing a paper.
self-efficacy. The belief that one is capable of performing the behaviors required
to produce a desired outcome.
Bandura (1997, 2011) believes the following: Since life is filled with impediments,
adversities, setbacks, and frustrations, a personal sense of self-efficacy is essential
for success. How do we gain a belief in our own efficacy? Bandura cites four sources:
our own experiences successfully overcoming obstacles and failures; our
observations of similar others who overcome obstacles to succeed; words of
encouragement from family, friends, and others in our lives who urge us forward; and
feelings of relaxation and calm rather than tension during performance.
Numerous studies of self-efficacy indicate that the more of it you have at a
particular task, the more likely you are to take on an activity, try hard, persist in the
face of failure, and succeed. The implications for health are particularly interesting
(Sheeran et al., 2016)—self-efficacy matters. Research shows that college students’
locus of control over their health isn’t enough. They also need self-efficacy and social
support to achieve healthy behaviors (Marr & Wilcox, 2015). Roddenberry and Renk
(2010) also measured college students’ self-efficacy and analyzed how it related to
stress and illness. They found a negative relationship between self-efficacy and
physical symptoms—the lower the self-efficacy, the higher the level of physical
symptoms. Roddenberry and Renk (2010) also found that general stress was
positively related to reports of illness—the higher the student’s stress level, the more
often the student reported days of being sick. Even law students who were optimistic
about their abilities to be successful in earning their juris doctorate degrees had
better immunity than those who were less optimistic about their success (Segerstrom
& Sephton, 2010). People with a high self-efficacy on health-related matters are more
likely to succeed—if they want, and temptations are not too great—to stop smoking
(Pinsker et al., 2018; Simon et al., 2015), abstain from alcohol (Noyes et al., 2018;
Shaw & DiClemente, 2016), or overcome other forms of substance abuse (Bandura,
1999; Litt & Kadden, 2015; Maddux, 1991). However, the value of high self-efficacy is
not universal. The reason is because different cultures may emphasize others more
than self (Klassen, 2004).
Perspectives on Cognitive Social-Learning Theory
Cognitive social-learning theorists believe that personality is rooted in the basic
principles of learning. In contrast to psychoanalysis, this approach rests on the
assumption that human behavior is derived more from external factors than from
instincts and that personality is shaped by reinforcement, observation, and the
development of learned abilities, expectancies, values, and information-processing
strategies.
Although all learning-based theories of personality share this assumption, the
more recent approach has come a long way from that taken by the hard-core
behaviorists. In his facetious call for a dozen healthy infants, Watson claimed that he
could mold people like clay through the use of reward and punishment. Years later,
Skinner similarly argued that human behavior is shaped by external forces, by
reinforcement contingencies beyond our awareness and control. Yet cognitive sociallearning theorists maintain that personality emerges from an ongoing mutual
interaction among persons, their actions, and their environments, a concept that
Bandura calls reciprocal determinism, as illustrated in Figure 8.7. The point is that
environmental forces may help shape personalities, but we can also choose and alter
the situations we encounter and we can interpret these situations in light of our own
points of view. In fact, Bandura (2001) sees human beings as not just reactive to
outside forces, but as generative, creative, proactive, and reflective agents of change.
“The capacity to exercise control over the nature and quality of one’s life,” he states,
“is the essence of humanness” (p. 1).
reciprocal determinism. The view that personality emerges from a mutual
interaction of individuals, their actions, and their environments.
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Description
Figure 8.7 Reciprocal Determinism
To measure personality, cognitive social-learning theorists use fairly direct forms
of assessment. One method is behavioral observation, in which subjects are studied
either in real-life settings or in the laboratory. Another involves asking subjects to
report on their own expectancies, values, and past behaviors using standardized
interviews or questionnaires like the I-E Scale. Whatever the specific technique may
be, information about an individual is measured in ways that are direct and to the
point. No inkblots, no fuzzy pictures. To those in hot pursuit of the unconscious, the
cognitive social-learning approach is doomed to shed light on only the tip of the
iceberg. To others, this approach permits the study of personality in a more
straightforward manner.
THE HUMANISTIC APPROACH
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Investigate whether or not an interaction exists between self-actualization and
unconditional positive regard.
List the tenets of a humanistic approach to personality.
Connect Carl Rogers’s clinical observations to his theories about the self.
Understand how self-discrepancies affect our emotional well-being.
Describe how it feels to be self-actualized.
Faced with a choice between psychoanalysis and behaviorism, many personality
psychologists in the 1940s and 1950s had the uneasy feeling that something was
missing, something vital about human nature. Freud had drawn attention to the
darker forces of the unconscious, and Skinner was interested only in the effects of
reinforcement on observable behavior. But what about the conscious mind, free will,
subjective experiences, and the capacity for self-reflection? If we want to know about
someone, can’t we just ask? Are people really that mechanical? And isn’t there a
brighter side to human nature? In short, where’s the person as we know it in
personality? To fill the void, a “third force” was born—the humanistic theory of
personality. Inspired by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, a group of psychologists
founded the Association for Humanistic Psychology and adopted four basic
principles: (a) The experiencing person is of primary interest; (b) human choice,
creativity, and self-actualization are the preferred topics of investigation; (c)
meaningfulness must precede objectivity in the selection of research problems; and
(d) ultimate value is placed on the dignity of the person.
humanistic theory. An approach to personality that focuses on the self,
subjective experience, and the capacity for fulfillment.
Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers was the first self-proclaimed humanistic theorist. He received his
degree in 1931, the same year that B. F. Skinner got his. Like Freud, Rogers spent
his early years as a therapist treating emotionally troubled “clients.” Yet unlike Freud,
who was impressed by his patients’ efforts to resist their own cures, Rogers was
struck by how often his clients reflected on who they were (“I’d like to be more
independent, but that just isn’t me,” “I just haven’t been myself lately”) and by their
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natural will to get better and reach their full potential. True, Rogers saw signs of
temporary resistance and other ego defense mechanisms. But he was much more
impressed by the self-concept—and by the underlying will to improve. If therapists
provide warmth, a gentle, guiding hand, and a climate of uncritical acceptance, he
said, clients will ultimately solve their own problems and find the road to health,
happiness, and fulfillment. As far as Rogers was concerned, there is in each of us an
inner wisdom.
Rogers’s Theory
The seeds of a new and different approach to personality were planted in fertile
ground. From a humanist’s standpoint, Rogers went on to develop client-centered
therapy (1942) and a theory of personality, as described in his book On Becoming a
Person (1961). According to Rogers, all living organisms are innately endowed with
an actualizing tendency, a forward drive not only to survive but also to grow and
reach their full genetic capacity. For thinking and feeling humans, there is also a
natural need for self-actualization—a drive to behave in ways that are consistent
with one’s conscious identity, inherent capabilities, or self-concept. So far, so good.
But problems arise because we are social animals, born helpless and dependent on
others for approval, support, and love. And therein lies the potential for conflict in the
development of personality.
self-actualization. In humanistic personality theories, the need to realize and
fulfill one’s unique potential.
Rogers believed that although humans are dependent on others for support,
approval, and love, we are driven to grow.
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Because humans are driven by the need for self-actualization and the need for
positive regard, one of two general outcomes is possible. If you’re fortunate enough
to get unconditional positive regard from parents and significant others—that is, if
the important people in your life are loving and respectful despite your failures and
setbacks, no ifs, ands, or buts—then life is rosy. Your need for positive regard is met,
giving you the green light to pursue the all-important need for self-actualization.
However, if you are subject to conditional positive regard—that is, if your parents,
spouse, and close friends withdraw their love when your actions and life choices don’t
meet with their approval—then you get hung up trying to strike a balance between
your true self and the kind of person others want you to become. The result:
frustration, anxiety, and feelings of incongruence or “discrepancy” within the self. This
theory is illustrated in Figure 8.8.
unconditional positive regard. A situation in which the acceptance and love one
receives from significant others is unqualified.
conditional positive regard. A situation in which the acceptance and love one
receives from significant others is contingent on one’s behavior.
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