HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

Humanistic Psychology

Table of contents

INTRODUCTION3

CONTRIBUTION4

INFLUENCE7

LIMITATIONS OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY IN WORKPLACE8

STRENGTHS9

WEAKNESSES10

CONCLUSION10

REFERENCES12

Humanistic Psychology

Introduction

Humanistic psychology emerged in the 1950s as a reaction to behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis studied the behavior influenced by unconscious motivations while behaviorism focused on the conditioning process that drove behavior. Humanistic psychology thinkers that behaviorism and psychoanalysis were too pessimist ideas, thus they came up with humanistic psychology which focused on each individual's growth and stressed self actualization. Humanistic psychology also addressed the issue of increasing productivity by means of effective listening skills (Argyris, 1957). According to this theory, listening skills can even improve the relations between a manager and his employee. Humanistic psychology's concepts, its contributions and influence have been discussed in this paper. Furthermore, its strengths, weaknesses and limitations have also been discussed.Concept

Humanistic psychology was presented by Carl Rogers (1902-1987) and Abraham Maslow (1908-1970). Maslow called humanistic psychology as the third force; the first force was behaviorism and the second force was psychoanalysis. The key belief of humanistic psychology is that people are innately good and they suffer from social and mental problems due to their different natural tendencies.

The concept of self-actualization was given by Abraham Maslow. He gave the idea of self actualization in his hierarchy of needs theory. According to Maslow (1943, pp. 380), self actualization is, "What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization. It refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming."

In the hierarchy of needs theory, food and shelter are on the lowest levels, security and love are on a level above and the top most level is of self-actualization. Maslow says that in order to attain self-actualization, a man should do what he wants to and what he can do. Attaining self-actualization is very difficult because a man can never be satisfied with whatever he has or with whatever he does. Greed is one major hindrance in attaining self-actualization.According to humanistic psychology, effective listening skills are also an important aspect of this theory. With the help of these skills, managers are able to improve their relations with their employees and can also help in increasing productivity (Maslow, 1954). Treating every worker as an individual and giving him a free hand in working will also help in increasing productivity.

Contribution

The contribution of humanistic psychology has been great during the revolutionary years of 1960s and 1970s. Carl Rogers characterized it as want for close relationships with full expression of emotions. He strongly believed in free will and self determination.

One major contribution of humanistic psychology is Rogers' conflict resolution approach. He used a very emotional, honest conflict resolution approach. The intensity of the situation does not matter; the conflicts should be resolved with the help of casual interaction in private or confidential meetings. Rogers approach to conflict resolution also influenced the international conflicts. His theory made the nations become more ...