CARL ROGERS AND

MASLOW THEORY
BY: JAGRITI VOHRA
NISHTHA SETH
TEESHA JAIN
HARSHLEEN KAUR
MALVIKA WADHAWN
 Rogers’ Humanistic Theory of Personality:
Carl Rogers’ humanistic personality theory emphasizes the importance of the self-
actualizing tendency in forming a self-concept.
Carl Rogers was a prominent psychologist and one of the founding members of the
humanist movement. Along with Abraham Maslow, he focused on the growth potential
of healthy individuals and greatly contributed to our understanding of the self and
personality. Both Rogers’ and Maslow’s theories focus on individual choices and do not
hold that biology is deterministic. They emphasized free will and self-determination,
with each individual desiring to become the best person they can become.

Humanistic psychology emphasized the active role of the individual in shaping their
internal and external worlds. Rogers advanced the field by stressing that the human
person is an active, creative, experiencing being who lives in the present and
subjectively responds to current perceptions, relationships, and encounters. He coined
the term actualizing tendency, which refers to a person’s basic instinct to succeed at his
or her highest possible capacity. Through person-centered counseling and scientific
therapy research, Rogers formed his theory of personality development, which
highlighted free will and the great reservoir of human potential for goodness.
Rogers believed that every person could achieve their goal. This means that the person is in
touch with the hereTheand
Fullynow, hisPerson
Functioning or her subjective experiences and feelings, continually
growing and changing.

In many ways, Rogers regarded the fully functioning person as an ideal and one that people
do not ultimately achieve. It is wrong to think of this as an end or completion of life’s
journey; rather it is a process of always becoming and changing.

Rogers identified five characteristics of the fully functioning person:

1. Open to experience: both positive and negative emotions accepted. Negative feelings are
not denied, but worked through (rather than resorting to ego defense mechanisms).

2. Existential living: in touch with different experiences as they occur in life, avoiding
prejudging and preconceptions. Being able to live and fully appreciate the present, not
always looking back to the past or forward to the future (i.e., living for the moment).

3. Trust feelings: feeling, instincts, and gut-reactions are paid attention to and trusted.
People’s own decisions are the right ones, and we should trust ourselves to make the right
choices.
4. Creativity: creative thinking and risk-taking are features of a person’s life. A person does not play safe
all the time. This involves the ability to adjust and change and seek new experiences.

5. Fulfilled life: a person is happy and satisfied with life, and always looking for new challenges and
experiences.

For Rogers, fully functioning people are well adjusted, well balanced and interesting to know. Often such
people are high achievers in society.

Critics claim that the fully functioning person is a product of Western culture. In other cultures, such as
Eastern cultures, the achievement of the group is valued more highly than the achievement of any one
person.
 PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
Personality development is the development of the organized pattern of
behaviors and attitudes that makes a person distinctive. Personality
development occurs by the ongoing interaction of temperament character,
and environment.

In 1956, psychiatrist Erik Erikson provided an insightful description as to how

personality develops based on his extensive experience in psychotherapy with
children and adolescents from low, upper, and middle-class backgrounds.
According to Erikson, the socialization process of an individual consists of
eight phases, each one accompanied by a "psychosocial crisis" that must be
solved if the person is to manage the next and subsequent phases
satisfactorily. The stages significantly influence personality development, with
five of them occurring during infancy, childhood, and adolescence .
INFANCY - During the first two years of life, an infant goes through the first stage: Learning Basic Trust or Mistrust
(Hope) . Well-nurtured and loved, the infant develops trust and security and a basic optimism. Badly handled, the
infant becomes insecure and learns "basic mistrust."

TOODLER HOOD - The second stage occurs during early childhood, between about 18 months to two years and
three to four years of age. It deals with Learning Autonomy or Shame (Will) . Well-parented, the child emerges
from this stage with self-confidence, elated with his or her newly found control. The early part of this stage can
also include stormy tantrums , stubbornness, and negativism, depending on the child's temperament.

PLAY SCHOOL HOOD - The third stage occurs during the "play age," or the later preschool years from about three
to entry into formal school. The developing child goes through Learning Initiative or Guilt (Purpose) . The child
learns to use imagination; to broaden skills through active play and fantasy; to cooperate with others; and to lead
as well as to follow. If unsuccessful, the child becomes fearful, is unable to join groups, and harbors guilty feelings.
The child depends excessively on adults and is restricted both in the development of play skills and in imagination.
SCHOOL AGE
The fourth stage, Learning Industry or Inferiority (Competence) , occurs during school age, up to and
possibly including junior high school. The child learns to master more formal skills:
relating with peers according to rules
progressing from free play to play that is structured by rules and requires teamwork (team sports)

ADOLOSENCE
The fifth stage, Learning Identity or Identity Diffusion (Fidelity) , occurs during adolescence from age 13 or
14. Maturity starts developing during this time; the young person acquires self-certainty as opposed to self-
doubt and experiments with different constructive roles rather than adopting a negative identity, such as
delinquency.
 SELF CONCEPT
Self-concept is generally thought of as our individual perceptions of our
behavior, abilities, and unique characteristics—a mental picture of who
you are as a person.1 For example, beliefs such as "I am a good friend"
or "I am a kind person" are part of an overall self-concept.
 POSITIVE REGARD
According to Carl Rogers, people have two fundamental psychological needs, positive
self regard and self-actualization. Positive self regard refers to the need for love,
affection, and respect from other people. Rogers concluded that most people seem to
satisfy this need in a reasonable manner.
 IDEAL SELF
The Ideal Self is an idealized version of yourself created out of
what you have learned from your life experiences, the
demands of society, and what you admire in your role
models.

For example, your parents are medical doctors who are

respected and admired in the community, and experience
tells you that in order to be happy, you need to be smart and
have a high-paying job. Your Ideal Self might be someone
who excels in science subjects, spends a lot of time studying,
and does not get queasy at the sight of blood. If your Real
Self is far from this idealized image, then you might feel
dissatisfied with your life and consider yourself a failure.
 UNCONDITIONAL
POSITIVE REGARD
Unconditional positive regard is where parents, significant
others (and the humanist therapist) accepts and loves the
person for what he or she is.  Positive regard is not withdrawn
if the person does something wrong or makes a mistake. 
The consequences of unconditional positive regard are that
the person feels free to try things out and make mistakes, even
though this may lead to getting it worse at times.
People who are able to self-actualize are more likely to have
received unconditional positive regard from others, especially
their parents in childhood.
 CONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARD
Conditional positive regard is where positive regard, praise, and
approval, depend upon the child, for example, behaving in ways that the
parents think correct.
Hence the child is not loved for the person he or she is, but on condition
that he or she behaves only in ways approved by the parent(s). 
At the extreme, a person who constantly seeks approval from other
people is likely only to have experienced conditional positive regard as a
child.
 CONGRUENCE
A person’s ideal self may not be consistent with what
actually happens in life and experiences of the person.
Hence, a difference may exist between a person’s ideal self
and actual experience. This is called incongruence.
Where a person’s ideal self and actual experience are
consistent or very similar, a state of congruence exists.
Rarely, if ever, does a total state of congruence exist; all
people experience a certain amount of incongruence.
The development of congruence is dependent on
unconditional positive regard. Carl Rogers believed that for
a person to achieve self-actualization they must be in a
state of congruence.
According to Rogers, we want to feel, experience and behave in ways
which are consistent with our self-image and which reflect what we
would like to be like, our ideal-self.

The closer our self-image and ideal-self are to each other, the more
consistent or congruent we are and the higher our sense of self-worth.
A person is said to be in a state of incongruence if some of the totality
of their experience is unacceptable to them and is denied or distorted
in the self-image.

Incongruence is "a discrepancy between the actual experience of the

organism and the self-picture of the individual insofar as it represents
that experience.
As we prefer to see ourselves in ways that are consistent with
our self-image, we may use defense mechanisms like denial or
repression in order to feel less threatened by some of what we
consider to be our undesirable feelings.

A person whose self-concept is incongruent with her or his

real feelings and experiences will defend because the truth
hurts.
CRITICISMS OF CARL ROGERS THEORY
Carl Rogers was an influential humanistic psychologist who developed
a personality theory that emphasized the importance of the self-
actualizing tendency in shaping human personalities. ... Like Maslow's
theories, Rogers' were criticized for their lack of empirical evidence in
research.

The holistic approach of humanism allows for a great deal of variation

but does not identify enough constant variables to be researched with
true accuracy. Psychologists also worry that such an extreme focus on
the subjective experience of the individual does little to explain or
appreciate the impact of society on personality development.
 Carl Rogers concluded
that
“The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no
standard by which to judge it ". (Rogers, 1961, p. 351)
He have gradually come to one negative conclusion about the good
life. It seems to him that the good life is not any fixed state. It is not, in
his estimation, a state of virtue, or contentment, or nirvana, or
happiness. It is not a condition in which the individual is adjusted or
fulfilled or actualized. To use psychological terms, “it is not a state of
drive-reduction, or tension-reduction, or homeostasis".
And he quoted that "The good life is a process, not a state of being. It
is a direction not a destination".
 WHO IS MASLOW ?
•Abraham Maslow was born on April 1, 1908, in Brooklyn, New York, where he
grew up the first of seven children born to his Jewish parents who emigrated
from Russia. Maslow later described his early childhood as unhappy and
lonely. He spent much of his time in the library immersed in books.

•Maslow studied law at City College of New York (CCNY). After developing an
interest in psychology, he switched to the University of Wisconsin and found a
mentor in psychologist Harry Harlow who served as his doctoral advisor.
Maslow earned all three of his degrees in psychology (a bachelor's, master's,
and doctorate) from the University of Wisconsin. Abraham Maslow began
teaching at Brooklyn College in 1937 and continued to work as a member of
the school's faculty until 1951.

•During the 1950s, Maslow became one of the founders and driving forces
behind the school of thought known as humanistic psychology. His theories—
including the hierarchy of needs, self-actualization, and peak experiences—
became fundamental subjects in the humanist movement.

•Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who developed a 

hierarchy of needs to explain human motivation. His theory suggested that
people have a number of basic needs that must be met before people move
up the hierarchy to pursue more social, emotional, and self-actualizing needs.
MASLOW
HIERARCHY OF
NEEDS
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a
motivational theory in psychology
comprising a five-tier model of human
needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels
within a pyramid. From the bottom of the
hierarchy upwards, the needs are:
physiological (food and clothing), safety (job
security), love and belonging needs
(friendship), esteem, and self-actualization.
Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be
satisfied before individuals can attend to
needs higher up.
Maslow first introduced his concept of
a hierarchy of needs in his 1943 paper "A
Theory of Human Motivation" and his
subsequent book Motivation and Personality.
This hierarchy suggests that people are
motivated to fulfill basic needs before
moving on to other, more advanced needs.
COGNITIVE AND AESTHETIC NEEDS
 COGNITIVE NEEDS - Maslow believed that humans have the need to
increase their intelligence and thereby chase knowledge. Cognitive needs is the
expression of the natural human need to learn, explore, discover and create to get
a better understanding of the world around them. This growth need for self-
actualization and learning, when not fulfilled leads to confusion and identity crisis.
Also, this is directly related to need to explore or the openness to experience.

 AESTHETIC NEEDS - Based on Maslow’s beliefs, it is stated in the hierarchy

that humans need beautiful imagery or something new and aesthetically pleasing
to continue up towards Self-Actualization. Humans need to refresh themselves in
the presence and beauty of nature while carefully absorbing and observing their
surroundings to extract the beauty that the world has to offer. This need is a higher
level need to relate in a beautiful way with the environment and leads to the
beautiful feeling of intimacy with nature and everything beautiful.
 The hierarchy of needs five-stage model includes:
•1. Physiological needs - These are biological requirements for human survival, e.g. air, food, drink, shelter,
clothing, warmth, sex, sleep . If these needs are not satisfied the human body cannot function optimally.
Maslow considered physiological needs the most important as all the other needs become secondary until
these needs are met.
•2. Safety needs - Once an individual’s physiological needs are satisfied, the needs for security and safety
become salient. People want to experience order, predictability and control in their lives. These needs can
be fulfilled by the family and society (e.g. police, schools, business and medical care).For example,
emotional security, financial security (e.g. employment, social welfare), law and order .
•3. Love and belongingness needs - After physiological and safety needs have been fulfilled, the third level
of human needs is social and involves feelings of belongingness. The need for interpersonal relationships
motivates behavior . Examples include friendship, intimacy, trust, and acceptance, receiving and giving
affection and love. Affiliating, being part of a group (family, friends, work).

4. Esteem needs are the fourth level in Maslow’s hierarchy - which Maslow classified into two categories:
(i) esteem for oneself (dignity, achievement, mastery, independence) and (ii) the desire for reputation or
respect from others (e.g., status, prestige). Maslow indicated that the need for respect or reputation is
most important for children and adolescents and precedes real self-esteem or dignity.

•5. Self-actualization needs are the highest level in Maslow's hierarchy, and refer to the realization of a
person's potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. Maslow (1943)
describes this level as the desire to accomplish everything that one can, to become the most that one can
be. Individuals may perceive or focus on this need very specifically. For example, one individual may have
a strong desire to become an ideal parent. In another, the desire may be expressed economically,
academically or athletically.
 CRITICISMS OF MASLOW’S

THEORY 
Researchers have proved that there is lack of hierarchical structure of needs as suggested by Maslow, though every
individual has some ordering for his need satisfaction. Some people may be deprived of their lower level needs but
may still strive for self actualization needs. The example of MAHATMA GANDHI is one of the most important. There are
always some people to whom, the need for self-esteem is more prominent than social needs.

 Another problem is that there is a lack of direct cause and effect relationship between need and behavior. One
particular need may cause different type of behavior in different persons. On the other hand, as a particular individual
behavior may be due to the result of different needs. Thus, need hierarchy is not as simple as it appears to be.

 Need and satisfaction of needs is a psychological feeling. Sometimes even the person may not be aware about his own
needs. 

 Some people say that hierarchy of need simply does not exist. At all levels needs are present at given time. An
individual motivated by self actualization needs cannot afford to forget his food. But this criticism is solved by Maslow
by saying that needs are interdependent and overlapping.

 Another problem with Maslow’s theory of motivation is the operationalization of some of his concepts which makes it
difficult for the researchers to test his theory.
SELF ACTUALIZATION
 Abraham Maslow (1943, 1954) stated that human motivation is based on
people seeking fulfillment and change through personal growth. Self-
actualized people are those who were fulfilled and doing all they were
capable of.
The growth of self-actualization (Maslow, 1962) refers to the need for
personal growth and discovery that is present throughout a person’s life. For
Maslow, a person is always 'becoming' and never remains static in these
terms. In self-actualization, a person comes to find a meaning to life that is
important to them.
As each individual is unique, the motivation for self-actualization leads
people in different directions (Kenrick et al., 2010). For some people self-
actualization can be achieved through creating works of art or literature, for
others through sport, in the classroom, or within a corporate setting.
Maslow (1962) believed self-actualization could be measured through the
concept of peak experiences. This occurs when a person experiences the
world totally for what it is, and there are feelings of euphoria, joy, and
wonder.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SELF-ACTUALIZERS
1. They perceive reality efficiently and can tolerate uncertainty;

2. Accept themselves and others for what they are;

3. Spontaneous in thought and action;

4. Problem-centered (not self-centered);

5. Unusual sense of humor;

6. Able to look at life objectively;

7. Highly creative;

8. Resistant to enculturation, but not purposely unconventional;

9. Concerned for the welfare of humanity;

10. Capable of deep appreciation of basic life-experience;

11. Establish deep satisfying interpersonal relationships with a few people;

12. Peak experiences .

 Behaviour leading to self-actualization:
(a) Experiencing life like a child, with full absorption and concentration;

(b) Trying new things instead of sticking to safe paths;

(c) Listening to your own feelings in evaluating experiences instead of the voice of
tradition, authority or the majority;

(d) Avoiding pretense ('game playing') and being honest;

(e) Being prepared to be unpopular if your views do not coincide with those of the
majority;

(f) Taking responsibility and working hard;

(g) Trying to identify your defenses and having the courage to give them up.
Ways to achieve self actualization
 Be present:- Maslow wrote that one of the characteristics of self-actualizing individuals was their un-
self-conscious ability to be wholly absorbed in the present. "Self-actualization," he wrote, "means
experiencing fully, vividly, selflessly, with full concentration and total absorption. It means experiencing
without the self-consciousness of the adolescent. At this moment of experiencing, the person is wholly
and fully human. This is a self-actualizing moment. This is a moment where the self is actualizing itself.“
Get to know yourself:- He said " Rather than consult society, your peers, or the establishment about
how you should feel and think about something, get to know your internal self.
Most of the time, be honest:- Not all of the time — sometimes we need to be diplomatic, or polite.
Maslow argued that being truly honest, especially with oneself, is a method of taking responsibility.
This is one of the great steps. Each time one takes responsibility, this is an actualizing of the self.“
Self-actualize continuously:- "Self-actualization is not only an end state," wrote Maslow, "but also the
process of actualizing one's potentialities at any time, in any amount." Self-actualization is a process,
and it's a difficult one. If you are "meant" to be a fantastic musician or an inspiring leader, you won't be
satisfied with being just a decent musician or a decent leader. Self-actualized individuals are constantly
working to be the best they can be .
 CONCLUSION 
Maslow noted that the order in which these needs are fulfilled
does not always follow this standard progression. For example,
he notes that for some individuals, the need for self-esteem is
more important than the need for love. For others, the need for
creative fulfillment may supersede even the most basic needs.

Maslow's self-actualization studies from the research conducted

he came to the conclusion that self- actualizing people have the
following characteristics:
• They accept themselves and others for who they are.
• They can be concerned with themselves but also are free to
recognize the needs and desires of others.