Biological and Humanistic Approaches to Personality

Through the use of this paper the agreement between Maslow and Rogers when it comes to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will be shown. It will also focus on the humanistic and biological approaches to personality. According to Orana (2009), Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a theory that is considered to still be valid today in the areas of management training, personal development, and the understanding of the motivation of humans. This theory was first introduced in the book Personality and Motivation which was published in 1954, and written by Maslow. Maslow

In 1943 Maslow wrote a paper titled “A Theory of Human Motivation”, this is where his concept of a hierarchy of needs was first introduced. The basis of this hierarchy is that each person must be motivated when it comes to fulfilling their basic needs first before they are at all able to move on to the level of needs that will come next. The bottom part of his pyramid of needs covered our most basic of needs such as food and water, and the needs that are considered harder to reach are put on the top. Throughout the progression of the pyramid a person will become my socially and psychologically invested in the needs they are trying to meet. Both Maslow and Rogers believed and put emphasis on what is known as self-actualization. Maslow based his way of reaching this on five levels of needs. The first level is where the basic needs or the physiological needs. This includes the needs that we have for survival such as food, water, and shelter. It was the belief of Maslow that these were the most important of the needs and therefore once the needs were met all other needs could be reached, but not until this needs were met. On the second level we find needs that are called security needs which are considered important for our survival as well.

While important they are not as important to our survival as our basic needs are which is why they are secondary to our basic needs. Some good examples of these types of needs would be stable shelter, gainful employment, and health insurance. Level three focuses on the social needs of a person. Needs such as wanting to belong, of affection, and the need of love all fall into this category. These needs while important are not as important as the ones discussed and therefore have been put on the third tier of the hierarchy. According to Cherry (2010), Maslow believed that the void for acceptance and companionship was filled through the relationships that were formed in this tier. On the fourth level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs esteem can be found, once all of the previous levels have been fulfilled, this is when this level becomes important. This level includes, social recognition, self-worth, accomplishments, and of course self esteem. The fifth and final level is where self actualization is met, and is placed on the top of the hierarchy because it is the hardest to fulfill.

People who have reached this category do not care what other think, they are considered self-aware, and personal growth is of great concern to them (Cherry, 2010). It was Maslow’s belief that when it came to behaviorism and psychoanalysis to much focus was placed on aspects of humans that were negative. In his view the positive aspects such as love, laughter, and happiness should be the concentration because each of these exists within humans and then resilience, growth, and achievement could be emphasized. He disagreed that the big five were the most important personality traits, and argued that it was actual the hierarchy to reach that level of self actualization that was most important. He further believed in what he calls peak experiences, these were moments of rarity that caused rapture due to the experience of some sort of beauty or through reaching excellence. The Humanistic approach which was created by Maslow along with Rollo May and Carl Rogers was considered a “third force” when it came to psychology. It concentrated on the potential of the human and personality and was based on the belief opposite of Freud’s that we as humans are born with healthy bodies, minds, and souls. Rogers

Rogers like Maslow used the ideas of Albert Einstein when it came to creating his theory of self actualization. In his belief a person who has reached self actualization is very centered and feels at ease in social and non social situations alike. In his thoughts the road to fulfillment was just as important as actually becoming fulfilled, and that each of these was define by the experiences they had. Through his use of patients who were already seeking therapy, he was able to concentrate more on the functioning of the individual rather than the dysfunction of the individual itself. Unconditional positive regard is something that was coined by Rogers to describe support or love that is given from one person to another with no strings attached so to speak. He focused this belief on the love between a parent and a child by believing that the correction of a child’s behavior does not have to come at the cost of a parents love. Biological and Humanistic Approaches

The approaches of humanistic and biological are just two of the many different approaches in the world of psychology. A few of the others are trait, cognitive, and psychoanalytic approaches, each offers a different view when it comes to the personality of humans. They each focus how we obtain our personalities and what it is that will affect said personalities. The determination of which approach is used comes from the actual patient’s personality itself as well as the psychiatrist that is treating them. Our personalities will also affect how well the treatment chosen will work on said patient. Biological Approach

It is the belief of those who focus on the biological approach that the personalities that we exhibit are a direct result of our parent’s personalities; basically they believe that the personality that we exhibit is genetic. The belief is centered on the thought that we have a certain foundation for our personalities and that this is present from the day that we are born and it directly stems from the personality of our parents. It all boils down to the belief that through learned behavior we obtain the personalities that we have. Vigil (2010) stated that “a natural selection has predetermined our personality.” This simply means that when we are born we only exhibit a temperament, as opposed to actually being born with a personality. This temperament is what makes us lean toward a certain personality, however we are not in theory going to keep this personality throughout our lives. Each person will either be what is known as inhibited or uninhibited, and this is best seen when seeing a child interact with other children. Children who are inhibited tend to be shy and like to stay in the background, while uninhibited children will interact and play with the other children around them whether they know them or not. Humanistic Approach

The explanation of the control a person has over their personalities is what the Humanistic approach concentrates on. It is the belief of this approach that no one can know a person better hten they know themselves and that we are responsible for all of the action that we exhibit. The person is aware of the problems that they are having and only they have the tools to correct them. The use of what is known as the Q-sort test is how the counselor will determine what the persons actual personality is. We are able to choose our personalities through the actions that we exhibit, being good or bad is also based on what choices or actions that we make or exhibit. Humanist have no concentration on the future or the past, they live for then now, while this seems like it is a good idea, each person still is striving to reach that self actualization and must confront their issues first. Conclusion

Each of these approaches are similar and have the belief that self actualization is the ultimate goal for a person. While one uses the hierarchy of needs and the other seems to use living in the moment the goal is still the same. In my opinion Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is the best description of how we all go through life and how our personalities are actually formed. The road to reaching that ultimate goal of self actualization is going to always be just as important as actually getting to the goal.