Human Motivation: Chpt 15: Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology

Parents difficulty

Are placed in difficult positions when their child expresses a somewhat socially undesirable characteristic such as shyness, moodiness, irritability or an explosive temper. Conditional positive regard implies rejection and retraining for the child's temperament in the name of promoting social inclusion and popularity. But unconditional positive regard implies acceptance of and support for the child's natural environment. The difficult position the parents face manifests itself in the dilemma of avoiding psychological costs (depression) versus avoiding social costs (e.g. Peer rejection) to the developing child.

Growth seeking individuals

Center their personal Strivings around learning, improving, and reaching potential. Seeking growth leads one to adopt a pattern of thinking in which situations and relationships are seen as opportunities for personal growth, learning or self improvement. Negative outcomes fail to usher in adjustment problems because they simply identify and communicate information about life areas that need improvement.*

Control oriented personality

Characterized by Extrinsic regulation and interjected regulation as the forces that cause behavior are environmental rewards and constraints (Extrinsic regulation), and beliefs and values that have been forced onto the self (introjected regulation). Because of its close relationship to self determination in personality; the autonomy orientation like self determination in general correlates positively with measures of positive functioning such as self actualizing, ego development, self esteem, openness to experience, attitude behavior consistency and acceptance of one's true feelings.

Autonomy-oriented personality

Characterized by intrinsic motivation and identified regulation as the forces that cause behavior are personal needs and interests (intrinsic motivation) as well as beliefs and values that have been integrated into the self (identified regulation).

Positive psychology

Endorses meaning, authenticity, and the passion to learn builds on our strength and wellness

Relatedness to others

One index of healthy psychosocial development is the extent to which the individual accepts social conventions, accommodates the self to the society, internalized cultural values, cooperates with others, shows respect for others. Rather than being independent, selfish, and socially detached, self actualizers are actually good citizens. What motivates the willingness to accommodate the self to others is the need for relatedness. In which one feels emotionally connected to another. It comes with a price, a hidden agenda in which one person asks for compliance from the other before granting love or approval. Conditions of worth are contingent on compliance with socialized standards and norms. Vs unconditional acceptance and support.

Way to discover what self-actualization needs

One way to discover what self-actualization needs are is Kay attention to the pathological state that arises when the person is deprived or each metaneed. When deprived of the need for wholeness, the person feels a sense of aliveness, the person suffers through a sense of just going through the motions day after day. A man deprived of the need for uniqueness might speculate that he wife could easily find another mate that would be just as good a husband as he. In other words, sometimes it is easier to hear people's pathological stares of disintegration, deadness, sameness, dishonesty, humorlessness, and despair than it is to hear people's actualization states of wholeness, aliveness, uniqueness, truth, playfulness and meaning.

Fully functioning individual

Open to experience and accepts the experiences they encounter

Benevolent value system

Other humanists disagree with Rogers. A benevolent and malevolence is part of everyone. A person needs a value system to support and complement the organismic valuation process.

Humanistic psychologists

Rejecting one's nature in favor of social priorities places personal growth and psychological well being at risk.

What is wrong with the individual's effort to reject one's nature in favor of social priorities?

Rejecting one's nature in favor of social priorities puts personal growth and psychological well-being at risk.

How do relationships support the actualizing tendency

Relatedness to others: 1) the quality of your relationships 2) Ainsworth research (secure, insecure avoidant, insecure ambivalent) Freedom to learn: 1) we need to do self discovery and self evaluation 2) humanistic education involves 2 things: 1) the facilitator functions as a structuring agent in an open classroom 2) students take responsibility for initiating their own learning 3) students learn cooperatively and in a context of the peer group

Two fundamental directions that characterize self actualization as a process

1) autonomy 2) openness to experience Autonomy means moving away from heteronomy and toward an ever increasing capacity to depend one's self and to regulate one's own thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Openness means receiving information (including feelings) such that it is neither repressed, ignored or filtered. Or distorted by wishes, fears or past experiences. Through openness, one leaves behind timidity and defensive appraisals. Through autonomy; one leaves behind a dependence on others and mixes toward self-realization.

3 characteristics of extraverts

1) extraversion 2) sensation-seeking 3) affect intensity

Personal strengths investigated as the subject matter of positive psychokogy

1) happiness 2) enjoyment 3) resilience 4) capacity for flow 5) personal control 6) optimism 7) optimistic explanatory style 8) hope 9) self efficacy 10) goal setting 11) meaning 12) the passion to know 13) wisdom 14) authenticity 15) toughness 16) self determination 17) forgiveness 18) compassion 19) empathy 20) altruism 21) humor 22) spirituality The building of these strengths yield two interrelated outcomes 1) fostering personal growth and well being and 2) preventing human sickness (e.g. Depression, suicide) from ever taking root within the personality. For insight, consider optimism, meaning and eudaimonic well being (see below)

Six Behaviors that encourage self-actualization

1) make growth choices: see life as a series of choices, forever toward progression and growth versus regression and fear. The progression growth choice is a movement toward self actualization whereas the regression-fear choice is a movement away from self-actualization. For instance, enroll in a difficult but skill-building college course rather than in a safe and easy A course. 2) be honest: dare to be different, nonpopular, nonconformist. Be honest rather than not, especially when in doubt. Take responsibility for your choices and the consequences of those choices. For instance, at a bookstore, pick a book that reflects your personal but necessarily popular interest rather than a book featured on the best seller's list. 3) situationally position yourself for peak experiences: set up conditions to make peak experiences more likely. Get rid of fakes notions and illusions. Find out what you are not good at and learn what your potential is by learning what your potentials are not. Use your intelligence. If you are talented and interested in playing the piano, then spend more and more time in that domain and less and less time in more socially-rewarding domains in which you lack talent and interest 4) give up defensiveness: identify defenses and find the courage to give them up. For instance, instead of using fantasies to prop up the self and to keep anxiety at bay, drop the indulgent fantasy and get to work on developing the skills needed to actually become that sort of person. 5) let the self emerge: perceive within yourself and see and hear the innate impulse voices. Shut out the noises of the world. Instead of only looking to others to tell you who to become, also listen to your own personal interests and aspirations of who you want to become 6) be open to experience: experience fully, vividly, selflessly with full concentration and total absorption. Experience without self consciousness, defenses, or shyness. Be spontaneous, original and open to experience. In other words, stop and smell the roses. 7) importance of relationships: intimate and fulfilling relationships rather than the all-too-common superficial ones--as the soil for cultivating perks experiences. Setting up conditions to foster growth in our lives involved not only enacting the sort of behaviors listed above but also involved engaging ourselves in relationships that support both autonomy and openness.

Three themes about the nature of human needs

1) needs arrange themselves in the hierarchy according to potency or strength. The lower the need is in the hierarchy, the stronger and more urgently it is felt 2) the lower the need is in the hierarchy; the sooner it appears in development. Young People experience only the lower needs in the hierarchy, while older people are more likely to experience the full range of the hierarchy 3) needs in the hierarchy are fulfilled sequentially, from lowest to highest, from the base of the pyramid to its apex Theme 1 proposes that the survival based needs dominate as the strongest motives whereas the needs are the weakest. In theme 1, Maslow wanted to make the point that self actualization needs are relatively quiet urges that are easily overlooked in the rush of one's day-to-day affairs. Theme 2 communicates that the lower needs (safety and security) characterize Needs typical of nonhuman animals and of children, whereas the higher needs (e.g. Esteem) are uniquely human and pertain to adults. Theme 3 stipulates that satisfying lower needs is a prerequisite to satisfying higher needs. Hence before people experience the needs for esteem and peer respect, they must first sufficiently gratify their physiological; safety and belongingness needs

Hierarchy of human needs

3 themes: 1) needs arrange themselves in the hierarchy according F to strength 2) the lower the need, the quicker it appears in development 3) needs are fulfilled sequentially

Congruence

Accept the full range of your personal characteristics, ability, desires and beliefs

Fully functioning individual

According to Rogers, when fully functioning, the individual lives in close and confident relationship to the organismic valuation process trusting that inner direction. Congruence is a constant companion. Furthermore, the fully functioning individual spontaneously communicates inner impulses both verbally and nonverbally. He is open to experiences as they are and expresses those experiences in an unedited and authentic manner. To characterize the moment-to-moment experience of the fully functioning individual.

Temperament to express itself

Adults who express something other than their childhood temperament will show maladjustment. That is, the prediction is that when the culture tries to replace a person's 'a inner nature with a socially values style---that is, when the culture tries to socialized the introvert into becoming an extravert, then what follows is maladjustment

Rogers

All human needs serve the collective purpose of maintaining, enhancing and actualizing the person. 1) experiences seen as maintaining or enhancing us are positively valued 2) experiences seem as regressive are valued negatively

The growth process of self emergence

All humanistic thinkers continue to emphasize that the process of self emergence is an inherently stressful and anxiety provoking process because it always makes the person face the insecurities of personal responsibility. When a person works towards self emergence, she typically feels isolated and to some degree alone or what Erich Fromm called the unbearable state of powerlessness and aloneness. Facing such insecurity and facing the burden of having personal responsibility for one's freedom and personal growth, many people like Joann seek escape. Maslow recognized the contradiction between his proposition that self actualization was innate and therefore operative in all human beings and his observation that few among us actually gratify self actualization needs.

Actualizing tendency

An innate presence that guides us toward our potentials

Rogers viewed the child's motivation toward conditions of worth

And away from organismic valuation as antithetical to the development of the actualizing tendency. When the developing individual adheres to conditions of worth, he moves farther away from an inherent ability to make the behavioral choices necessary to actualize the self. The overall process and consequences of adherence to either the organismic valuation process or socialized conditions of worth are summarized in figure 15.2. The way to interfere with organismic valuation is to provide unconditional positive regard rather than the conditional positive regard that emanates from conditions of worth. If given unconditional positive regard, a child had no need to internalize societal conditions of worth. Experiences are judged as valuable to the extent that they enhance oneself. If parents approve of, love and accept their child for who she naturally is rather than for who the parents wish her to be (conditional positive regard), then the child and the child's self structure will be relatively transparent representation of his preferences, talents, capacities, and potentialities. A condition of worth arises however when the positive regard of another is conditional (depends on some way of being or some way of behaving). Here, experiences are judged as valuable to the extent that they are approved of by others.

Humanistic perspective

Concerns Strivings 1) toward growth and self-realization and 2) away from facade, self-concealment and the pleasing and fulfilling of the expectations of others. In every page authored by humanistic thinkers, the reader can hear a commitment to personal growth as the ultimate motivational force.

Internalized conditions of self-worth

Create the potential for motivational conflict. With conditional self regard, conflict between the actualizing and self-actualizing tendencies create a tension and internal confusion since some aspects of behavior are regulated by the actualizing tendency, while other aspects of behavior are regulated by the self actualizing tendency. Self actualization when evaluated and directed by conditions of worth rather than organismic valuation, can paradoxically lead a person to develop in a way that is incongruent, conflicting and maladaptive. Thus self actualization does not necessarily lead to result in health and growth. Sometimes the pursuit of a self actualization leads to and results in maladjustment as when conditions of worth define and direct self actualization processes. Health and growth occur only when the actualizing tendency and the self actualizing tendency are in synchronization and when all experiences are evaluated internally within the framework of organismic valuation.

Incongruence

Deny and reject your characteristics, abilities, desires and beliefs

Congruence or Incongruence

Describes the extent to which the individual accepts (congruence) or denies and rejects (incongruence) the full range of his personal characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. Psychological incongruence is essentially the extent of discrepancy or difference between the self as perceived and the actual experience of the organism. The individual might perceive himself as having one set of characteristics and a different set of feelings. Conflict between experience-expression reveals incongruence; Harmony between experience-expression reveals congruence.

When you try to change your behavior's?

Do you rely on internal guides (personal goals) or external guides (relationship pressures)? What behavior's make you decide differently?

Helping others

Does not involve an expert rushing in to solve problems to fix things, to advise people or to mold and manipulate them in some way. Instead helping involves letting other people discover and then be himself. This last insight communicates the antithesis of conditions of worth.

Overview

Each of us is born with a dispositional temperament. Our biologically inherited temperament predisposes us to act in ways that are naturally inhibited and introverted or in ways that are naturally impulsive and extroverted. But cultures have preferences for about how people should behave. For example, the typical college campus values extraversion, emotional intensity and being exciting and entertaining while it relatively devalues introversion, emotionally calm and being a wallflower. Thus each of hears two messages of how to behave socially, one from our biological temperament and another from cultural priorities. This dual message is not much of a problem for extraverts. Just act naturally and the culture will value you. The dual message is a problem for introverts.

Meaning

Existentialism is the study of the isolation and meaninglessness of the individual in an indifferent universe. It had been studied in one of two ways--the gloom and doom pessimism of Sartre or the optimism and sense of purpose of Victor Frankl. Frankl stated in his logotherapy that there is no meaning in life in general but there was great meaning within each individual. Meaning was a need of discovery and accomplishment that each individual needed to strive for and it was as fundamental a human need as was hunger. When confronted with the awareness of the existential vacuum (my life is meaningless), Frankly argued that this awareness simply signaled that our will toward meaning was alive and well. From a motivational point of view, meaning in life grows out of three needs. The first need is purpose. It helps people generate future oriented goals. Connecting the activity with a future goal endows the day to day activity with a sense of purpose it otherwise would not have. The second need is for values. Values define what is good and what is right and when we internalize or act on a value we affirm a sense of goodness in us. The third need is efficacy. Having a sense of personal control or competence is important because it enables us to believe that what we do makes a difference. Collectively, a sense of purpose, internalized values and high efficacy to affect changes in the environment are the motivational means to cultivate meaning in life. Creating meaning is an active process in which people interpret the events in their lives; find the benefit in these events and discover the significance of what happens to them. So meaning arises as much out of the specific events in our lives--what happens to us--as it does the needs for purpose, values and efficacy.

Humanistic psychology

Focuses on the self and its Strivings toward fulfillment. Discovering human potential and encouraging its development.

Positive psychology therapy

Four happiness exercises: 1) gratitude visit: write and deluded in person a letter of gratitude to someone who has. Even especially kind to you but never really thanked 2) three good things in life: each day, write down three things that went well and identify the cause of each 3) you at your best: write about a time when you functioned at your best. Reflect on the personal resources that made that functioning possible 4) identify signature strengths: identify up to five personal signature strengths and find a way to use each in a new way (see figure 15.3)

Growth needs

Given satisfaction of all deficiency needs, growth needs surface and render the person restless and discontent. The person no longer feels hungry, insecure, isolated or inferior but he instead feels a need to fulfill personal potential. Growth needs or self actualization needs--provide energy and direction to become what one is capable of becoming. Self-actualization is a abstruse term. It is actually a master motive that coalesces 17 "metaneeds" such as longing for a sense of wholeness, aliveness, uniqueness and meaning.

Growth motivation vs deficiency motivation

Growth Need and motivation: 1) self actualization Deficiency Needs and survival needs 2) esteem needs 3) love and belongingness needs 4) safety and security needs 5) physiological needs

Growth seeking vs validation seeking

Growth seeking individuals: strive to learn, improve and reach potential 1) negative outcomes help you learn where you need to improve 2) the more you strive for growth, the more likely you are to have high self esteem, low anxiety and low depression 3) this grows out of supportive, nonjudgmental and accepting parenting

Eudaimonic well-being

Hedonic well being is the experience of pleasure, the absence of problems and the living of a relaxed and good life. While eudaimonic well being is the experience of seeking out challenges,exerting effort and being fully engaged and experiencing flow in what one is doing, acting one one's true values and feeling fully alice and authentic. It is self realization. The more people focus on psychological needs and intrinsic goals, the greater their eudaimonic well being. The need that most reliably forecasts eudaimonic well being is relatedness (shows why the presence of warm, trusting, intimate, and supportive interpersonal relationships in one's life are such solid predictors of eudaimonic well being. Self endorsed or self concordant goals are aligned with one's true self. This is so because subjective experience of autonomy, competence and relatedness function as the psychological nutrients that underlie personal growth and eudaimonic well being.

Self-Definition and social definition

How individuals conceptualized who they are. Socially defined people accept external definitions and instead favor internal definitions of the self. Self defined individuals individuals resist these external definitions and instead favor internal definitions of the self.

Holism and Positive Psychology

Human motives can be understood from many different perspectives, ranging from the most objective viewpoints of objectivism, behaviorism and logical positivism to the most subjective viewpoints of existentialism, gestalt psychology, and holism. Along with existentialism and gestalt psychology, holism asserts that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized while rather than as a series of differentiated parts. It is the whole organism that is motivated rather than just some part of the organism, such as the stomach or brain. In holism, Amy event that affects one system affects the entire person. To borrow a phrase from Maslow, it is John Smith who desires food, not John Smith's stomach.

Actualizing tendency

Humanistic psychology's emphasis on holism and self-actualization can be represent D by Carl Roger's often cited quotation: "The organism has one basic tendency and striving: to actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing self." Fulfillment of physiological needs maintains and enhances the organism, as does the fulfillment of needs for belongingness and social status. Furthermore, a motive such as curiosity enhances and actualize the person via greater learning and the development of new interests. Overall, Rogers recognized the existence of specific human motives and even the existence of clusters of needs like those proposed by Maslow's hierarchy but he emphatically stressed the holistic proposition that all human needs serve the collective purpose of maintaining, enhancing and actualizing the person.

Criticisms

Humanistic theorists utilize poorly defined constructs Why is there continual prejudice, crime and war when we should nurture human nature? What is the actualizing tendency? Feelings are the royal road to the true self.

How do relationships support the actualizing tendency

Humanistic therapy: therapist brings warmth, genuineness, empathy, interpersonal acceptance and confirmation of the client's capacity for self determination Helping others: letting the client or friend/spouse discover and then be themselves

Criticisms

If human nature is something to be nurtured rather than constrained, then one wonders why hatred, prejudice, crime, exploitation and war persist throughout history without interruption Also there are a number of vague and ill defined constructs such as organismic valuation process and a fully functioning individual. Lastly, how is one to j is what is really wanted or what is really needed by the actualizing tendency.

Theme of this chapter

If this essential core, inner nature, of the person is frustrated, denied, or suppressed, sickness results. If this essential core is nurtured, appreciated, and supported, health results.

Research of positive psychology

Inner guides like meaning; authenticity, and the passion to learn add reservoirs of strength and wellness and further that it is the effort to develop these personal strengths rather than the effort to realized cultural priorities that make us happy.

Validation seekinf

Intention, deliberate and bend over backwards pursuit of high esteem. Fraught with important and debilitating long-term costs, including costs to ones personal autonomy (through ego involvement), sacrifices to one's learning, costs to one's relationships with others, costs to physical health; and costs to mental health. Seeking validation is the pursuit to restore one's deficiency needs whereas as growth is the pursuit of looking for opportunities to realize one's potential. Conditional positive regard vs unconditional positive regard.

Causality orientations

Internal guides: autonomy causality orientation: 1) internal locus of control 2) intrinsic motivation and identified regulation External guide: control causality orientation Focus on behavioral incentives, Extrinsic regulation and introjected regulation

Goal of positive psychology

Investigate positive subjective experiences such as well being, satisfaction, hope, competence, love, altruism, nurturance of others Ask questions: how can we develop and amplify people's strengths

Autonomy orientation

Involves a high degree of experienced choice with respect to the initiation and regulation of behavior. When autonomy oriented, people's behavior proceeds with a full sense of volition and an internal locus of causality. Needs, interests and personally valued goals initiate the person's behavior and needs and interests and goals regulate his decision in persisting or quitting. Autonomy oriented individuals pay closer attention to their needs and feelings than they do environmental contingencies and pressures.

The control orientation

Involves s relative insensitivity to inner guides as these individuals prefer to pay closer attention to behavioral incentives and social expectations. When control oriented, people make decisions in response to the presence and quality of incentives, rewards, social expectations and social concerns (e.g. Pleasing others). A central ingredient in the determination of control oriented people's ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving is a sense of pressure to comply with what is demanded or with what should be done. Environmental factors such as pay and status are very important. Goals that energize and direct their behavior involve the pursuit of financial and material success.

Creating meaning

Is an active process

Holism

It derives its name from "whole" or "wholeness" and therefore concerns itself with the study of what is healthy or unbroken. In contrast, a broken view of personality emphasizes human beings as fragmented sets of structures or forces that oppose one another. For instance, a broken view speaks of the conflict between an ideal self and an actual self. In psychoanalytic theory, a broken self manifests itself in a sort of psychological competition among the three personality structures or is, ego, and superego (psychodynamics). In contrast, humanism identifies strongly with the holistic perspective, as it stresses too down master motives such as the self and its Strivings toward fulfillment.

Self-Actualization

It is an inherent developmental striving. It is a process of leaving.behind timidity, defensive appraisals, and a dependence on others that is Oakes with the parallel process of moving toward courage to create, make realistic appraisals and achieve autonomous self-regulation. It is an underlying flow of movement toward constructive fulfillment of its inherent possibilities. It refers to an ever fuller realization of one's talents, capacities and potentialities.

Positive Psychology

It seeks to articulate the vision of the good life (psychologically) and it uses the empirical methods of psychology to understand what makes life worth living. The goal is show what actions lead to experiences of well being, to the development of positive individuals who are optimistic and resilient, and ark the creation of nurturing and thriving institutions and communities. The subject matter of positive psychology is therefore the investigation of positive subjective experiences such as well being, contentment, satisfaction, enjoyment, hope, optimism; meaning; flow, competence, love, passion for work; hope, courage, hope, perseverance, self determination, interpersonal skill, talent, creativity, originality, authenticity future mindedness, wisdom, interpersonal responsibility, good citizenship; altruism; tolerance and civility, a strong work ethic and the nurturance of others.

Freedom to learn

Learning follows having one's interests identified, facilitated and supported. Self discovery and self evaluation are of prime importance while criticisms and evaluations by teachers are inconsequential or harmful. Education is not something a teacher can give to or force on a student. Rather education must be acquired by the student through an investment of his energies and interests.

Rogers' views

Like Maslow, he believed that the actualizing tendency was innate, a continual presence that quietly guides the individual toward genetically determined potentials. This forward moving pattern of development was characterized by "struggle and pain." Ex of communicating the self actual information tendency's path toward development and growth. The 9 month old infant has the genetic potential to walk but must struggle to advance from crawling to walking. The struggle to make those first steps inevitably includes episodes of falling and feeling frustrated, hurt and disappointed. Despite the struggle and pain, the child nevertheless persists toward walking and away from crawling. The pain and disappointment undermine and discourage the child's motivation to walk, but the actualization tendency, "the forward thrust of life," supports the child ever forward. The actualizing tendency is the source of that energy that motivates development "toward autonomy and away from heteronomy." All experiences within the struggle and pain of actualizing one's potential are evaluated in accordance with an organismic valuation process, an innate capability for judging whether a specific experience promotes or reverses growth. Experiences perceived as maintaining or enhancing the person are positively valued. Such growth-promoting experience are given the metaphorical green light by the organismic valuation process and subsequently approached. Experiences perceived as regressive are valued negatively. Such growth blocking experiences are given the metaphorical Tello or Ted light. H the organismic valuation process and are therefore subsequently avoided. In effect, the organismic valuation process provides an experiential feed-forward system that allows the individual to coordinate life experiences in accordance with the actualization tendency. The actualizing tendency motivates the individual to want to undertake new and challenging experiences and the organismic valuation process provides the interpretive information needed for deciding whether the new undertaking is growth-promoting or not. The feed forward system of the organismic valuation process is an interesting addition to a privations analysis of behavior as it complements the many feedback systems already discussed (e.g. Physiological stop system in chapter 4, goal feedback system in chapter 9). With a feedback system, information follows behavior to affect continuing motivation and subsequent persistence, with a feed forward system, information precedes behavior to communicate a proverbial green, yellow or Ted light as to one's intention to act and hence applies mainly to the initiation (rather than the persistence) of behavior.

Index maladjustment

Look at anxiety, depression, hostility, feelings of inadequacy, and physical/somatic troubles. Studies showed that the greater the discrepancy, the greater the adult's maladjustment. People who were pressured--willingly or unwillingly--into acting in ways that contradicted their biologically based temperaments encountered problems.

Hierarchy of Human needs

Maslow' understanding of motivation is the proposition that human needs can be organized into 5 clusters. The first set of needs contains physiological needs. All the other needs in the hierarchy are psychological needs (safety and security, love and belongingness, esteem and self actualization

Strive for growth

More people strive for growth, the more likely they are to experience low interaction anxiety, low fear of failure, high self esteem, high task persistence and low depression. They see themselves more likely to be living in the present* (highly time competent) and behaving in accordance with one's own principles

Optimism

Most people are neither realistic nor accurate in how they think. Wishful thinking can do more harm than good and it is often illusory. Still empirical evidence supports the conclusion that people who are optimistic live more worthwhile lives than do people who are not optimistic. Optimists experience better psychological and physical health, undertake more health promoting behaviors, show greater persistence and more effective problem solving and are more socially popular. The reason is because optimism gives people a sense of hop and motivation that their future can indeed be improved. Optimism is responsive to reality while delusions are not. It can be taught and learned. Hot cards example: pushing buttons, the person is to try to identify the immediate, automatic and pessimistic thoughts that are triggered. Then the person is to evaluate the evidence for the thought and then generate an alternative and optimistic interpretation of the event. When equipped with greater optimism, our more positive expectations and emotions open the door to ways of coping and performing that are more productive than are our more sanguine ways of coping and performing.

Self actualization

Moving toward courage to create realistic appraisals and autonomous self regulation Two directions: 1) autonomy: ability to depend on one's self and 2) openness: being able to receive information and feelings

Meaning in life

Need for purpose, need for values, need for efficacy

Causality orientations

People vary in their understandings of the forces that cause their behavior. Some people adopt a general orientation that their inner guides and self determined forces primarily initiate and regulate their behavior. Others adopt a general orientation that outer social guises and environmental incentives primarily initiate and regulate their behavior. To the extent that individuals habitually rely on internal guides (e.g. Needs, interests), individuals have an autonomy causality orientation. To the extent that individuals habitually rely on external guides (e.g. Social cues), they have a control causality orientation.

Deficiency needs

Physiological disturbances and needs for safety, belongingness, and esteem are collectively referred to as deficiency needs. They are like vitamins. People need them because their absence inhibits growth and development. The presence of any of the deficiency needs indicated that the j Dick dual was in a state of deprivation, whether that state of deprivation involves food, job security, group membership or social status. Maslow characterized such depreciation as human sickness, a term he used to connote a failure to move growth and actualization.

Humanistic psychology

Plays a key role in motivation by asking people to pause, listen to their inner guides and consider the potential benefits of coordinating their inner guides (interests, preferences, values) with their day-to-day lifestyle.

Research on the need hierarchy

Popular but little empirical support

Growth needs

Provide energy and direction to become what one is capable of becoming

Research of the need hierarchy

Research has actually found very little empirical support for the Need hierarchy. Self actualization ranked the lowest for older adults. College students in order from least to most: esteem, security, belongingness, and physical/physiological . The only findings with some empirical support is the conceptualization of a dual-level (not a five level) hierarchy. In dual level hierarchy, the distinction is between deficiency and growth needs and when researchers make this distinction they do find some empirical support for the two-level hierarchy. Thus, three conclusions from research in the Need hierarchy are to: 1) reject the five level hierarchy 2) collapse the physiological, safety, belongingness, and esteem needs into the single category of deficiency needs 3) hypothesize a simplified, two-level hierarchy distinguishing only between deficiency and growth needs In your mind's eye, erase the three horizontal lines that separate the physiological, safety, belongingness and esteem needs. You will see one large triangle that includes the full ranger of the deficiency needs and one small triangle at the top for the self actualization needs.

The problem of evil

Rogers believes people are inherently good. Human beings behave malevolently only to the extent that they have been injured or damaged by experience.*. Violence reflects a history of relationships steeped in power and control while altruism reflects a history of relationships steeped in empathy and care.

Validation seeking individuals

Seek external validation to measure their personal worth, competence and likeability. The more you strive for validation, the more likely you are to suffer anxiety, depression and low self esteem. This grows out of critical, conditional and perfectionists parenting Ask yourself: instead of enjoying activities and social interactions , most situations to me feel like a major test of my basic worth; competence or likeability: personal growth is more important to me than protecting myself from my fears

Positive psychology

Seeks to build people's strengths and competencies Building strengths fosters personal growth, well being preventing human illness from becoming part of one's personality

Holism overview

Sees little value in a bottom up approach (e.g. focus on specific, individual motives, one at a time, and in relative isolation from one another) and instead prefers a top down approach (e.g. Focus on general, all encompassing motives, seeing how the master motives govern the more specific ones). The chapter, highlights the top down approach while Chapter 3 and 4 highlight the bottom-up approach.

Self definition and social definition

Self defined people resist outside definitions and favor internal definitions of themselves Socially defined people accept outside definitions of who they are

Sound of Music illustration

Shows the process for two young adults as Liesl sings "I'll need someone older and wiser showing me what to do while Rolf becomes an automaton within the powerful authoritarian military force of the day. Rolf's life choice represents a common one in which the person takes the safe route--finding assurance in social authority and then doing only what is needed to be competent enough.

Conditions of worth

Soon after birth, children begin to learn the conditions of worth on which their behavior and personal characteristics (the self) are judged as either positive and worthy of acceptance or negative and worthy of rejection. Eventually, because the need for positive regard sensitized the individual to attend to the acceptances and rejections of others, the child internalized parental conditions of worth into the self structure. Throughout development, the self structure expands beyond parental conditions of worth to include societal conditions of worth as well. By adulthood, the individual learns from parents, spouses, coaches, employers and others what behaviors and which characteristics are good and bad, right and wrong

Survival vs growth needs

Survival: 1) physiological needs 2) safety and security needs 3) love and belongingness needs Growth needs: 4) esteem needs 5) self actualization needs

Emergence of the self

The actualizing tendency begins to emerge The emergence of the self leads us to need positive regard: 1) approval 2) acceptance 3) love from others

Everyday choixe

The choice to follow one's inner nature versus cultural priorities is not a neutral choice. Social preferences and social priorities are communicated to us and strongly enforced as desired ways of acting by all sorts of supports, including incentives, rewards, approval, love, advertising messages, social demands, norms, expectations and all the voices we hear each day that tell us what we should, ought to, have to, and must be. The social message is strong. Inner guides are subtle.Unlike the culture around us, inner guides have no organized lobby to persuade us what to do. So, in every day living, our inner guide are relatively quiet while social expectations and cultural priorities are relatively loud.

How relationships support the actualizing tendency

The extent to which individuals develop toward congruence and adjustment depends on the quality of their interpersonal relationships. At one extreme, relationships take on a controlling tone as others force their agenda in other people, pushing them toward heteronomy and a commitment to conditions of worth. At the other extreme, relationships take on a supportive tone as they promote autonomy by affording prime the opportunity and support necessary to move from heteronomy toward autonomy.

Evil

The problem is evil Humanistic therapists have a difficult time with people behaving in evil ways Rogers stated that evil was not inherent in human nature When people desire to act in ways that promote evil, they possess a malevolent personality

People who choose to pursue the American dream

The pursuit of money, fame, and popularity suffer more psychological distress (anxiety, depression, narcissism) than do people who pursue inner guides like self-actualization. This is even true when those who pursuit the dream achieve it.

Optimism

The tendency to see ourselves in a positive light: 1) associates with well being and improved performance 2) optimists 3) optimism and can be taught and learned but it's also inherent

How do people successfully create meaning?

They first frame the life event as a burden or bad event. They then explain how the bad event set in progress a developmental trajectory in which the bad event is ultimately translated into a positive outcome. In doing so, they essentially use the burden as a springboard to create a self endowed with strengths such as purpose, moral goodness and strong efficacy. In contrast, people who do not counter life's burdens with purpose, moral goodness and efficacy are significantly more likely to suffer mental pathology in the wake of the bad event. The act of creating meaning helps prevent future sickness (e.g. Depression).

When people seek to change their behavior

They typically rely on either internal guides (personal goals) or external guides (relationship patterns) to do so. After the program ends, people lose much of their external support for changing their behavior. Thus, the more autonomy oriented the participants were, the more likely it was they they would stay in the program.

Conditional regard as a socialization strategy

To socialize children, adults sometimes go about the effort by creating "internal compulsions" within the socialized to do what the adult wants them to do and to behave what the adult wants them to believe which is conditional regard. Which is offering of love for obedience paired with the withdrawal of love for disobedience. Conditional regard comes in two forms--positive and negative. Positive conditional regard is giving love and affection for obedience and achievement. Negative conditional regard is taking away love and affection for disobedience and failure. While conditional regard uses the potent motivational forces of parental love to gain immediate obedience, it creates negative emotions such as anxiety and anger that lead children and adolescents to long-term motivational dysfunctions (e.g. A-motivation, apathy, resentment) and maladaptive functioning (e.g. Passivity, dropout, perfectionism).

Holism

We are best understood as an integrated, organized while vs differentiated parts. The study of what is healthy.

Encouraging growth

We fail to reach potential in 3 areas: 1) non-supportive environment 2) we fear our own potential 3) we have superficial relationships

Rogers says we live in two worlds

We live in the inner world of organismic valuing and the outer world of conditions of worth. To the extent to which one internalizes conditions of worth, these acquired conditions of worth gain the capacity to substitute for and largely replace the innate organismic valuation process. When governed by conditions of worth, individuals necessarily divorce themselves from their inherent means of coordinating experience with actualizing tendency. No longer is experience judged in accordance the innate organismic valuation process. Rather experience is jusge in accordance with conditions of worth

What does positive psychology look at?

What could be? As a field, positive psychology realizes. It's that people routinely fall short of what could be and also the epidemic-like prevalence of pathologies such as depression, substance abuse, apathy, and violence. It further realizes the important role played by the effort to cure or reverse these human pathologies. Mostly, however, positively psychology devotes attention to the proactive building of personal strengths and competence. To prevent sickness, people need to possess strengths such as hope, optimism, skill, perseverance, intrinsic motivation and the capacity for flow. The question is less, "How can we correct people's weaknesses! And more "How can we develop and amplify people's strengths?

Positive psychology and growth

What could be? It seeks to build people's strengths and competencies. It does not ask that people put on rose colored glasses or adopt Pollyanna as a role model. Instead it makes the case that strengths are as important as weaknesses, resilience is as important as vulnerability and the lifelong task to cultivate wellness is as important as is an intervention attempt to remedy pathology. It encourage flourishing. High levels of emotional, psychological and social well being that grows out of continuous self growth, close and high quality relationships, and a purposive and meaningful life.

The dilemma for introverts

What happens when biological disposition contradicts socialization preference? What happens when an experience feels right and natural but the culture devalues anyone who gravitates toward that experience? Should the introverts follow the cultural press and reject his inner nature and try to substitute a more socially acceptable extroverted style in its place?

Malevolent personality

When people desire to act in ways that promote evil, they posses this personality. Evil develops as follows: 1) adults shame and scorn children such that the child comes to the conclusion that he is flawed and incompetent as a human 2) the child incubates a negative self worth and comes to prefer lies and self deceit over critical self examination 3) a transition occurs from being a victim to becoming an insensitive perpetrator 4) the person initiates experimental malevolence 5) the malevolent personality is forged through a rigid refusal to engage in critical self examination The self becomes unwilling to examine itself (e.g. Scapegoating is used as a strategy for sacrificing others to preserve one's own self image). Success in intimidation fosters the self aggrandizement that counteracts the need for self examination. This view argues that evil springs out of a person's grandiosity and damaged concept of self to explain heinous acts. The cause seeks to have its origin in enculturation, not in human nature. Within a supportive interpersonal climate, people's choices move them in the direction of greater socialization, improved relationships and toward what is healthy and benevolent. Therefore murder, war, and prejudice continue unabated throughout human history, the culprit might not be the evil in human nature but alternatively the sickness in culture. As long as society offers people choices, the possibility remains that it's members will internalize a pathological value system that makes possible the descent into evil and the forging of a malevolent personality.

Growth-seeking vs validation seeking

When people identify with and internalize societal conditions of worth, they do more than just adopt socially desirable facades. Quasi-needs emerge. A quasi-need (chapter 7) emerges to the extent that the individual needs social approval directly or symbolically during social interaction. That is valuing oneself among the mines Jd societal conditions of worth leads people into processes of validation seeking. For the person who needs the approval of others to feel good about himself, fulfilling others conditions of worth leads to validation whereas failing to live up to others' conditions of worth leads to a perceived lack of personal worth, competence and likability. During social interaction, people who seek external validation often use interpersonal situations to test or measure their personal worth, competence or likability. Other people are seen as yardsticks by which to measure one's personal worth. Positive outcomes generally leave the validation seeking people feeling F rather accepted and validated. The adjustment problems surface following negative outcomes because these problems imply a lack of personal worth, competence, or like ability .

A facade

When people move toward identifying with external conditions of worth, they adopt facades. A facade is essentially the social mask a person wears, and it relates to ways of behaving that have little to do with inner guides and much to do with a social front to hide behind. Consider the unauthentic smile (the social facade of acting very happy and very friendly). Introverts often find themselves wearing the facade of the unauthentic smile on a regular basis as when they force themselves to smile for hours at a social gathering. Doing so on a regular basis, acting one way yet feeling another way-- predicts proneness to maladjustment including anxiety, depression, self doubt and hypo assertiveness. Adopting socially desirable facades carries its psychological costs.

Encouraging Growth

When talking and theorizing about deficiency needs, Maslow made some mistakes. But when talking about growth needs, he was much more in his element and many of his ideas about growth needs have indeed stood the test of time. Less than 1% of the population have reached self actualization. One is left wondering why everyone does not ultimately self actualize. Maslow reasoned people fail to reach their potential because of a nonsupportife internal or external environment. Maslow reasoned people fail to reach their full potential because of a non supportive internal or external environment. In other cases, the person was responsible for her lack of growth (i.e. Each of us fears our own potential, which Maslow termed the "Jonah complex" after the timid Biblical merchant who tried to felled his great calling.

In humanistic therapy, a client moves towards health and psychological congruence

When the therapist brings the following characteristics into the relationship: 1) warmth: caring for and enjoying spending time with the other 2) genuineness: acknowledges that each person must be fully present in and open to the relationships' here and now 3) empathy: listening to and hearing all the message the other is sending 4) interpersonal acceptance: each person gains the capacity to enter into the private perceptual world of the other and becomes thoroughly at home in the world 5) confirmation of the other person's capacity for self determination Interpersonal acceptance means that each person. In the relationship experiences a basic acceptance and trust from the other (unconditional regard) . Finally, confirmation of the other person's capacity for self determination acknowledges that the other person is capable and competent and possesses an inherently positive developmental direction.

Emergence of the self

With the emergence of the self; a person grows in complexity, and the organismic valuation process begins to apply. Or only to the organism as a whole. It also to the self in particular. The most important motivational implication of the emergence of the self is that the actualizing tendency begins to express itself in part toward that portion of the organism conceptualized as the self. This means that the individual gains a second major motivational force in addition to the actualizing tendency, namely the self-actualizing tendency. Notice that actualization and self actualization are not the same thing as the actualizing tendency and the self actualizing tendency can work at odds with one another. The emergence of the self prompts the emergence of the need for positive regard--approval, acceptance, and love from others. The need for positive regard is of special significance because it makes the individual sensitive to the feedback of other people assume a greater importance in one's life. Over time, evaluating the self from other point's of view becomes a rather automated and internalized process.

Deficiency needs

Without them we are inhibited to grow and develop

Conditions of worth

Young children learn the conditions of worth of their behavior and themselves are judged as either positive and worthy of acceptance or negative and worthy of rejection The child internalizes parental conditions of worth into how they define themselves. As adults, we learn from many people what behaviors are good, bad, desirable and undesirable If given unconditional positive regard, children have no need to internalize societal conditions of worth.