What even is "Self-Actualization"? - Humanistic Theory

what separates us humans from animals is it our opposable thumbs our complex language the fact that we can farm our own food well in the world of early personality psychology really not much actually separated us from animals experiments were conducted on animals and then the conclusions were applied to humans many psychologists found this process to be very demeaning and ultimately pessimistic or we basically just trained smart monkeys in a zoo are we Pavlov's dogs just with a bit more mental capacity do we actually have any control over our personality and who we become enter Abraham Maslow the father of the humanistic perspective on personality his theory separates humans from animals and offers hope that humans can exercise control over their personality traits and the behaviors that they want to change if you've ever heard of Maslow's named before you're one step closer to understanding the humanistic perspective Maslow created something called the hierarchy of needs and this theory shows that the evolution of humans needs goes from the most basic like food water and shelter to the more complex like safety self-esteem love and belonging now as we satisfy our most basic needs those on the bottom of the pyramid are more motivated to seek out more complex needs at the top of the pyramid at the top of the pyramid is self-actualization and for a long time I actually struggled to know what this really meant self-actualization is a process by which people fulfill their potential or they seek internal growth you can call it enlightenment you can call it personal development or whatever you want to call it it's the final thing that we are motivated to seek in life so imagine for a second that you can become the best version of yourself possible who would that person look like how much money would they make how many people would they help well the path to that best imaginary person is the act of self-actualization here's a definition of self actualize the process by which people fulfill their potential for goodness and maximize their internal growth so how does that tie in to personality well Maslow started to develop these theories in response to the more negative and pessimistic views on personality at the time many behaviorist believe that humans had little control over their personalities and they could be subjected to conditioning just like any other species of animal on the planet Maslow disagreed he believed that humans could take control of their personalities as they attempted to achieve self-actualization well in order to work toward self actualize humans have to reflect on who they currently are and what they need to do or to change in order to move forward Carl Rogers was a humanist psychologist who focused on this process the hate for the most part agreed with Maslow's theories but he pushed further to study how people actually satisfy these complex needs what do you actually do what thought processes are happening Maslow focused on what in Carl Rogers focused on how so whatever a person thinks about the personality they may tell themselves that they are honest generous and agreeable now these traits are all subjective and may not be the way that other people see this type of person's deeds or personalities now this disconnect or in congruence can prevent people from reaching self-actualization and can actually cause some form of anxiety so how does this happen well our brains are very picky about what they choose to see what they choose to process and to remember so a person who only believes that they are agreeable may unconsciously choose to remember positive agreeable interactions or they might even misinterpret situations in which they were not actually displaying agreeable behavior their whole perspective changes so where does this in congruence come from how can we develop a more objective sense of ourselves within this world and actually try to reach self-actualization let's talk a little bit about humanistic studies for the answer to these types of questions Maslow and Rogers studied people who they believed to reach some form of self-actualization these people were very successful and spent their lives working to elevate humanity as a whole I personally think someone like Elon Musk would be someone who they might study in today's world now this approach of studying healthy successful people was a big change in the world of personality psychology and religious psychology in general before that behaviorist and other personality psychologists at the time turned to study more people who made poor decisions in their life or maybe had poor mental health humanists took a more optimistic approach with their subjects and people that they studied so what do we need to actually do to become self actualized and positive members of society well Carl Rogers concluded that people need to live in an environment with the following qualities openness opportunities for self disclosure acceptance and empathy if someone grew up in this type of environment they're much more likely to hold congruent views of themselves that actually match how the rest of the world sees them there's not going to be too much cognitive dissonance conversely if someone grew up in a more hostile or negative environment they're more likely to only see the things that they want to see now Rogers uses the example of parents showing conditional and unconditional love when children grow up in a household with unconditional love they were more likely to hold congruent views of themselves and actually be on a better path toward self-actualization are the children who received conditional love were more likely to block out times in which they were not loved an example of conditional love would be a parent showing love to a child who gets good grades but they stop showing love whenever the child brings home a C now this pattern is likely to continue as an adult the process of only seeing parts of a situation or maybe misconstruing a situation is likely to continue as input in more positive environment so as I wrap up this video you need to remember that the humanistic approach to personality is very positive humanists believe that with openness empathy and a genuinely positive environment anyone can start to develop congruent views of themselves and who they are and actually move forward towards self-actualization humanistic psychology has had a very positive impact on the world of psychology people can visit a therapist that uses a humanist approach to their practice now this is often called Gestalt therapy Gestalt therapy uses an approach that views patients and the therapist as equals the therapists rather than being an authority figure or someone like that who looks down on their patient instead of doing that they empathize they used humanist ideas to create a positive environment remember that's what we talked about earlier that focuses on the present and positive emotions rather than bad and negative incidents from the past is your view of who you are congruent well the process of discovering that your view of ourselves maybe in congruent with the world isn't always easy supportive friends groups and therapists are very crucial to understanding where you fit in in the world think about how you see yourself and how you behave when friends or family try to offer opposing perspectives how does this behavior contribute to your overall personality how can you create and put yourself in an environment that encourages an open genuine look at yourself through the eyes of the world for a lot of people a lot of problems they have because they can't see themselves the way that other people in the world might and there's not really much else to explain about the humanist perspective of personality psychology so if you enjoy this video feel free to watch some of the other videos in this personality series I've worked very hard on them and if you want to learn more about your own personality I've actually created a three-in-one personality quiz that you can take in the description below it basically combines three of the May your personality quizzes into one test that you can take in under ten minutes and hopefully I'll be able to predict some things about you like your political stance your relationship style and maybe even your health thank you so much for watching and I hope you enjoyed this video

Channel: Practical Psychology

Views: 211,919

Keywords: humanistic theory, humanistic perspective, humanist, personality psychology, self actualization, what is self actualization, carl rogers, maslow, self love, pratical psychology, what is personality, maslows hierarchy of needs

Id: jzHuKow-cns

Length: 6min 55sec (415 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 21 2019