The Humanistic Approach to Personality and Individuality and The Character's Strength

Essays on Psychology of Development and Individual Differences
Student Name
Class Name
Professor Name
University Name
Date
Word Count: 2016
Essays on Psychology of Development and Individual Differences
1 Critically discuss the humanistic approach to personality and individual differences
1 Introduction
The humanistic perspective on personality is linked to individual qualities of optimal well-being and development. The approach focuses on the reductionistic explanation of personality based on isolated personality differences starting from the existential assumption that people have free will to achieve their potential and self-actualisation (Nykyporets & Herasymenko, 2018). The humanistic approach was developed after overviewing different limitations of behaviourist and psychodynamic psychology, and Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers have a considerable contribution to the humanistic approach to personality development (Anufrieva et al., 2020). The essay discusses the role of the humanistic approach on personality differences and development. Later, it discusses the critique by the opposing school of thought on the humanistic approach for a sound evaluation.
1.2 Maslow's and Roger's Approaches to Personality
Humanism is a third force of psychology. The previous two forms compared the psychological disturbance and behaviours where individuals act like robots caused by behaviouralist theories (Montag et al., 2020). Abraham Maslow opposed the view and believed in healthy, creative, and productive individuals. He believed that individuals share similar characteristics like being open, spontaneous, and concerned for others. He presented the hierarchy of needs theory which believes that needs among individuals are common at a different level and must be met in a certain way (Yahya et al., 2018). The self-actualisation need is the highest, showing that the person has achieved their full potential.
Maslow's theory is based on the analysis of personality, subjective experiences, free will, and innate drive to self-actualization. He has expanded the humanistic perspective and demands of humans in the individual lifespan and their influence on personality development. He emphasised individual differences from the basic needs to needs of self-actualization. Self-actualisation is the last stage achieved after all stages, leading to satisfying nature (McCleskey & Ruddell, 2020). Self-actualisers are different from others as they achieve the coherent personality syndrome, representing their optimal health and functioning.
Another humanistic, Carl Rogers, believed in the self-concept, thoughts, and feelings. When a person has a positive attitude toward others, he would feel good while discussing with him, and if the response is negative, he might feel unhappy with him. The categories divided by Rogers are the ideal and authentic self, which is the difference between what the person is and what he wants to be (Charnofsky & Sayani, 2020). Based on the idea, people need to achieve consistency in their behaviour rather than differences between actual and ideal selves. The reason is that the self-concept is accurate.
The humanistic approach leads to high congruence and productive life. For example...