Humanism

Humanistic Viewpoint 

           The humanists tend to understand behaviour rather than to control and manipulate it. Personal choice, creativity and self-actualization are their primary concerns. Maslow (1970) and Rogers (1959) are the chief exponents of humanistic psychology. They think that one of the primary motivational forces is the wish for self-actualization, i.e., the wish to become the kind of person, in actuality, that one is potentially capable of becoming. The actualizing tendency is regarded as an inherited characteristic.

        Self-actualizing adults are full functioning, self aware, creative, open to experience, and self-accepting. They possess social interest and a democratic value system. The life experiences of these people, according to Maslow (1970), are challenging, exciting, and meaningful,’ rather than “happy and satisfied” which are hedonistic terms. Maslow (1970) does concede that some human activity is motivated by the gratification of biological needs, but he rejects the proposition that all human motivation can be explained in terms of deprivation, drive, and reinforcement.

           Maslow’s hierarchical theory of motivation is a unifying concept. It holds that healthy individuals, whose lower order needs for physical health, safety, love and esteem are reasonably satisfied; strive continually and with high intrinsic reward for self-actualization. With an appropriate curriculum their inherent potential desire go learn and to create spurs them on towards achieving their real potentials (Frendsen,1961).

           The higher order needs—the desire to know and understand the aesthetic needs as also self-actualized needs, according to Maslow (1970), can control activity only after the lower order needs or deficiency needs have been gratified.  Satisfaction of self-actualizing needs is expressed in various careers. One person becomes an athlete, another teacher, yet another a soldier, and so on. The people in whom these needs are relatively well satisfied are the healthiest in our society. On the other hand, failure to gratify a deficiency need results in disturbance or dysfunction while gratification remedies the dysfunction.

          Rogers (1959), like Maslow, assumes that self actualization is inborn, but that it can be impeded by social constraints and unfulfilled needs. It can also be facilitated through environmental supports. The humanistic theory has been adopted by many educators. Many teachers use it to identify the ungratified needs of students that may be impeding their urge to gratify the growth needs, thereby causing personal or discipline problems.

         Education must do more than merely cater to the present motives and interests of pupils. The great variety of motives in human behaviour is brought about by learning and it is, therefore, the function of education to stimulate the development of new, more mature and more productive motives, interests, and purposes.

Humanistic Psychology Assumptions

Humanistic psychology begins with the existential assumptions that phenomenology is central and that people have free will.  Personal agency is the humanistic term for the exercise of free will.  Personal agency refers to the choices we make in life, the paths we go down and their consequences.

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 humanist 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.

Reference

Mangal S.K.(2005).Advanced Educational Psychology 2nd .New Delhi: Prentice Hall of India

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http://www.simplypsychology.org/humanistic.html

http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/affect/humed.html