THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

Summary of Concepts

HUMANISTIC/ EXISTENTIAL THEORIES

THEORY PROPONENT CONCEPTS

HOLISTIC/ DYNAMIC ABRAHAM MASLOW Hierarchy of needs - it assumes that lower-level needs must be
THEORY satisfied or at least relatively satisfied before
higher-level needs become motivators.
Conative needs; - It is the five needs that compose the hierarchy
which shows the striving or motivational
character of each individual.
Higher level: Self- -Self-actualization; self-fulfillment and the realization of
actualization, Esteem, all one’s potential, and a desire to become creative in the
Love and belonging full sense of the word.
- Esteem; self-respect, confidence, competence, and the
knowledge that others hold them in high esteem.
- Love and belonging; desire for friendship; the wish for a
mate and children; the need to belong to a family, a club,
a neighborhood. It also includes the aspects of sex and
human contact as well as the need to both give and
receive love.
Lower level: Safety and - Safety and security: physical security, stability,
security, physiological dependency, protection, and freedom from
needs threatening forces.
- Physiological Needs: It includes the most basic
needs of individuals such as; food, water, oxygen,
maintenance of body temperature.
B-values (Trust, Beauty, - self-actualizing people are motivated by “eternal
Oneness, Justice) verities.”
- ”meta needs”
- expressive rather than coping behavior.
- Truth, goodness, beauty, wholeness, aliveness,
uniqueness, perfection, completion, justice,
simplicity, totality, effortlessness, humor,
autonomy, truth.
THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
Summary of Concepts
Aesthetic needs-beauty
and order; Cognitive
needs-know and
understand; Neurotic
needs- leads to pathology;
Instinctoid needs-innate
needs)
*Instinctoid needs- some human needs are innately
determined even though they can be modified by
Criteria for self-
actualization
Everette Shostrom’s
personal inventory
- Aesthetic Needs: It is not universal. People are
being motivated by the need for beauty and
aesthetically pleasing experiences. They need to
desire beautiful and orderly surroundings, and
when these needs are not met, they become
sick.
- Cognitive Needs: It is the desire to know, to
solve mysteries, to understand, and to be
curious. When these needs are not met,
Maslow’s hierarchy is threatened because
knowledge is necessary to needs by knowing
how to relate to people.
- Neurotic Needs: It leads to stagnation and
pathology. It serves as compensation for
unsatisfied basic needs.
learning.
1. They were free from psychology.
2. Self-actualizing people had progressed
through the hierarchy of needs. They had
no everpresent threat to their safety.
3. Embracing of the B-values.
4. Full use and exploitation of talents,
capacities, potentialities.
- It consists of 150 forced-choice items.
- It has 2 major scales and 10 subscales. The first
major scale is called the Time Competence/Time
Incompetence scale which measures the degree
to which people are present-oriented. The
second major scale is called the Support scale
which is “designed to measure whether an
individual’s mode of reaction is characteristically
‘self’ oriented or ‘other’ oriented.”
 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

Summary of Concepts
Jonah Complex - the person is not willing to take risks.
- A person tries to run away from risks.
THEORY PROPONENT CONCEPTS
PERSON-CENTERED CARL ROGERS Formative Tendency - there is a tendency for all matter, both organic
THEORY and inorganic, to evolve from simpler to more
complex forms
Actualizing Tendency - the tendency within all humans (and other
animals and plants) to move toward completion
or fulfillment of potentials
Sense of self - The closer our self-image and ideal-self are to
each other, the more congruent we are and the
higher our sense of self will be.
- can be shaped by parental demands that level
conditions under which the child feels valued or
not
- trying to meet the conditions may alienate the
developing personality from the true self,
resulting in feelings of anxiety and conflict
Needs - A child has two basic needs: positive regard from
other people and self-worth.
Need for Positive regard- find satisfaction from if given,
and frustrated if not.
Positive Self-Regard- Self-originating. It is a result when
persons give or receive positive self-regard to and from
others.
Maintenance Needs - similar to the lower steps on Maslow’s hierarchy
of needs
- includes basic needs
- also includes the tendency to resist change and
to seek the status quo
- its conservative nature is expressed in people’s
desire to protect their current, comfortable self-
concept
THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
Summary of Concepts
Enhancement needs - willing to learn and change even though they
- become more, to develop and to achieve growth
- people’s willingness to learn things that are not
Conditions of worth
Psychological Stagnations
Congruence
desire to maintain status quo
immediately rewarding
- perceive that their parents, peers or partners
love and accept them only if they meet their
expectations
- external valuations - our perceptions of other
people’s view of us
1. INCONGRUENCE - when organismic
experiences are not accurately
symbolized into awareness because they
appear to be inconsistent with our
emerging self-concept
2. VULNERABILITY - the greater the
distance between our perceived self and
our organismic experience, the more
vulnerable we are
3. ANXIETY - a state of uneasiness or
tension whose cause is unknown
4. THREAT - awareness that self is no
longer whole or congruent
5. DEFENSIVENESS - protection of the self-
concept against anxiety and threat by
the denial or distortion of experiences
inconsistent with it
6. DISORGANIZATION - when people’s
defenses fail to operate properly, their
behavior becomes disorganized or
psychotic
- exists when a person’s organismic experiences
are matched by an awareness of them and by an
 THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

Summary of Concepts
ability and willingness to openly express these
feelings
Unconditional Positive - Love is granted fully and freely. It is not
Regard dependent on somebody’s behavior. It is also
reciprocal.
- the need to be liked, prized or accepted by
another person
Empathy the temporary settlement within the lives of others
without making any judgements from it
THEORY PROPONENT CONCEPTS
EXISTENTIAL THEORY ROLLO MAY Dasein the union between an individual and
environment
Umwelt a type of simultaneous mode that revolves around the
environment around us
Mitwelt a type of simultaneous mode that revolves around our
relations with other people
Eigenwelt a type of simultaneous mode that revolves our relations
whe have with ourselves
Normal Anxiety type of anxiety that is correlated to the threat that does
not involve repression, promotes growth, and can be
confronted consciously
Neurotic Anxiety type of anxiety that is not proportionate to the threat
and involves the usage of defense mechanisms
Guilt the end result when individuals deny own potentials, fail
to perceive others, and remain dependent on the natural
world
Intentionality framework that allows individuals to provide meaning to
personal experiences and make decisions about their
future
Care recognizing other people are also fellow human beings
Love to seek delight within the presence of others and be
concerned about their development as if it is one’s own
Will the ability to direct oneself towards a certain goal
THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

Summary of Concepts
Forms of love how love is represented and defined in certain
relationships
Sex a biological function that can be achieved through sexual
intercourse that ears power of procreation
Eros the desire to establish a long lasting union that is created
through care and tenderness
Philia an nonsexual yet intimate friendship amongst two
people
Agape an altruistic love that is deeply concerned for the welfare
of other regardless of what they may gain from it
Forms of freedom manifestations of one’s attitude towards change
Existential Freedom type of freedom that involves action on the choices that
one decides on
Essential Freedom the freedom of being or freedom that is within us despite
of physical constraints
Destiny the holistic design which is given by the universe to speak
through us and involves limitations from the
environment and personal characteristics