Chapter 11 Self-Actualization and Self-Determination PDF

Chapter 11 Self-Actualization and Self-Determination Learning Objectives 11.1 Analyze the intrinsic tendency toward self-actualization 11.2 Contrast between self-determined behavior and the behavior that is controlled in some manner 11.3 Analyze how a disorganization in the sense of self can be...

Chapter 11 Self-Actualization and Self-Determination Learning Objectives 11.1 Analyze the intrinsic tendency toward self-actualization 11.2 Contrast between self-determined behavior and the behavior that is controlled in some manner 11.3 Analyze how a disorganization in the sense of self can be reduced by two kinds of defenses 11.4 Relate Maslow's hierarchy of needs to the principles that the hierarchy follows 11.5 Identify the key principle of the existential psychology 11.6 Examine the use of a Q-sort in assessment 11.7 Outline the logic behind the client-centered therapy as a solution to problems 11.8 Evaluate the strengths and the weaknesses of the approaches of self-actualization and self-determination Julia spends most of her waking hours doing things for others. She talks often with her mother, who always wants more from her than she can give. She sometimes feels as though she's being drawn into quicksand, but she never complains. Then there's Eric, a guy she used to date. Eric's life is a mess, and he often calls her late at night for advice. Although she needs her sleep, she never refuses him a sympathetic ear. Julia always seems to be setting her own life aside for the benefit of others, as though she thinks she's unworthy unless she does so. Deep inside, a small voice says she's wrong about that, but she's usually too busy to hear. Sometimes, just sometimes, she has the feeling that a different destiny awaits her, if she could only free herself to find it. The experience of being human is mysterious and challenging. You experience events, feelings, thoughts, and choices that are different from those of any other person who ever has lived or ever will live. You are continuously "becoming," evolving from a simpler version of yourself into a more complex version. It's sometimes mystifying, because you don't always understand why you feel what you're feeling. But the fact that the life you're living is your own---a set of sensations that belongs to you and nobody else---makes the experience also vivid and compelling. How does your self know how to "become"? As you change, how do you still remain yourself? Why do you sometimes feel as though part of you wants to grow in one direction and another part wants to grow in another direction? What makes this experience of being human so special? What are our responsibilities to ourselves? These are among the questions raised by the theorists whose ideas about self-actualization and self-determination are in this chapter. Some of the theories discussed in this chapter are associated with the term humanistic psychology (Schneider, Bugental, & Pierson, 2001). This term reflects the idea that everyone has the potential for growth and development. No one---no one---is inherently bad or unworthy. A basic goal of humanistic psychology is to help people realize this about themselves, so they'll have the chance to grow. Some of the ideas in this chapter are also referred to with the term phenomenological. This term reflects an emphasis on the importance of one's own personal experiences. 11.1: Self-Actualization 11.1 Analyze the intrinsic tendency toward self-actualization An important figure in humanistic psychology was Carl Rogers. His ideas provide a way to talk about how potential is realized and how that can fail to happen. In his view, the potential for positive, healthy growth expresses itself in everyone if there are no strong opposing influences. This growth is termed actualization. Actualization is the tendency to develop capabilities in ways that maintain or enhance the organism (Rogers, 1959). In part, this actualizing tendency is reflected physically. For example, your body actualizes when your immune system kills disease cells. Your body actualizes when it grows bigger and stronger. The actualizing principle also applies to personality. Maintenance or development of the self is called self-actualization. Self-actualization enriches your life experiences and enhances creativity. It promotes congruence, wholeness or integration within you, and it minimizes disorganization or incongruence. Rogers believed that the actualizing tendency is part of human nature. This belief is also reflected in another term he used: the organismic valuing process. He believed that the organism automatically evaluates its experiences to tell whether they are promoting actualization. If they aren't, the organismic valuing process creates a nagging sense that something isn't right. Rogers used the phrase fully functioning person to describe someone who is self-actualizing. Such people are open to experiencing their feelings and not threatened by them, no matter what the feelings are. Fully functioning people trust their feelings. They are also open to experiencing the world. Rather than hide from it, they immerse themselves in it. The result is that they live lives filled with meaning, challenge, and excitement but also a willingness to risk pain. A fully functioning person isn't a particular kind of person. It's a way of functioning that can be adopted by anyone who chooses to live that way. 11.1.1: The Need for Positive Regard Self-actualization isn't the only influence on human behavior, however. People also need to have the acceptance, love, friendship, and affection of others---particularly, others who matter to them. Rogers referred to this acceptance using the term positive regard. Positive regard can come in two ways. Affection given without special conditions---with "no strings attached"---is called unconditional positive regard. Sometimes, though, affection is given only if certain conditions are satisfied. The conditions vary from case to case, but the idea is the same: I'll like you and accept you, but only if you act in a particular way. This is conditional positive regard. Much of the affection people get in their day-to-day lives is conditional. We all have a strong need to experience positive regard from others---to feel wanted, appreciated, and respected. Another term used here is conditions of worth. These are the conditions under which people are judged worthy of positive regard. When people act to conform to a condition of worth, they're doing so not because the act is intrinsically desirable, but to get positive regard from other people. Rogers argued that having conditions of worth applied to us by people around us causes us to start applying the conditions to ourselves (Sheldon & Elliot, 1998). We give ourselves affection and acceptance only when we satisfy those conditions. This pattern is called conditional self-regard. Conditional self-regard makes you behave so as to fit the conditions of worth you're applying to yourself (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001). Conditions of worth have an important effect: Choosing your behavior, values, or goals to get acceptance can interfere with self-actualization. Because self-actualizing is more important than fulfilling conditions of worth, it should get first priority. But the need for positive regard is so salient that its influence is often felt more keenly. Consider a couple of examples. Joel has decided to give up a possible career in music because his father needs help in the family business. In doing this, Joel is responding to conditions of worth imposed by his family. Bowing to these conditions of worth, however, may mean denying something that's important inside him, something that's truly a part of who he is. The same kind of conflict is being experienced by Julia, in the chapter opening. Recall that Julia spends much of her time and energy giving to others. Her actions, however, seem driven by a need to prove she's worthy as a human being. She seems to be applying conditions of worth to herself. By trying to live up to them, Julia prevents herself from hearing the voice of self-actualization and growing in her own way. Mary feels a strong desire for a career, but her parents want her to marry and raise a family. If her parents won't fully accept her unless she bends to their wishes, they're creating conditions of worth for her. Accepting this condition may interfere with Mary's self-actualization. Remember that conditions of worth aren't always imposed from outside. It's possible that Mary's desire for a career may itself be a condition of worth---a self-imposed condition (just like Julia's need to prove her worthiness by giving to others). Mary may have decided she won't accept herself as a complete person unless she has a career. It can be very hard to distinguish a true desire from a condition of worth (Janoff-Bulman & Leggatt, 2002). What defines a condition of worth is that it's a precondition for acceptance, either by others or by oneself. A condition of worth is always coercive: It pushes you into doing things. Such conditions can prevent self-actualization. When parents place such conditions on their children, the result is resentment and less well-being (Assor, Roth, & Deci, 2004). 11.1.2: Contingent Self-Worth Jennifer Crocker and her colleagues have conducted a good deal of research on the idea that people place such conditions of worth on themselves (Crocker & Knight, 2005; Crocker & Park, 2004; Crocker & Wolfe, 2001). People who use their performance in some area of life as a condition for self-acceptance are said to have contingent self-worth (which means essentially the same thing as conditional self-regard). Conditions of worth come in many forms. Some people are demanding about their academic performance, others about their appearance. Contingencies can be motivating. People who impose an academic condition of worth do study more than other people; people who have an appearance-based condition of worth exercise more and shop for clothes more often than others (Crocker, Luhtanen, Cooper, & Bouvrette, 2003). When a failure happens, though, it's more upsetting if you have a contingency in that domain. The failure can then result in loss of motivation. Consistent with the view expressed by Rogers, holding oneself to these conditions has costs. It's stressful and disrupts relationships (Crocker & Knight, 2005). It causes people to be more upset by negative interpersonal feedback (Cambron & Acitelli, 2010; Cambron, Acitelli, & Steinburg, 2010; Park & Crocker, 2008). It can also make people more likely to become victims of relationship violence (Goldstein, Chesir-Teran, & McFaul, 2008). Perhaps most important, it keeps people focused on a particular condition of worth, rather than letting them grow freely. 11.2: Self-Determination 11.2 Contrast between self-determined behavior and the behavior that is controlled in some manner Rogers's ideas are echoed in a more recent theory of self-determination proposed by Ed Deci and Richard Ryan (1980, 1985, 1991, 2000, 2008; Ryan, 1993; Ryan & Deci, 2001). Deci and Ryan believe that having a life of growth, integrity, and well-being means satisfying three needs. The needs are for autonomy (self-determination), competence, and relatedness. People in general also see these needs as being most important to them (Sheldon, Elliot, Kim, & Kasser, 2001). The theory begins with the idea that behavior can reflect two underlying dynamics. Some actions are self-determined: done either because they have intrinsic interest for you or are of value to you. Other actions are controlled: done to gain payment or to satisfy some pressure. A behavior can be controlled even if the control occurs entirely inside your own mind. If you do something because you know you'd feel guilty if you didn't, you're engaging in controlled behavior. Whether behavior is controlled or self-determined can have several consequences. An important one concerns how long you'll stay interested in the behavior. People stay interested longer when they see their actions as self-determined. People lose interest in activities when promised a reward for working on them (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999). This effect has been found in children as well as adults. In children, it's been called "turning play into work" (Lepper & Greene, 1975, 1978). It's not the reward itself that does this. Rather, it's whether people see their actions as self-determined. Telling people they're going to be paid for something often seems to make them infer that their behavior isn't self-determined. As a result, they lose interest. In some circumstances, however, expecting reward increases motivation instead of undermining it (Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1994; Harackiewicz, 1979; Henderlong & Lepper, 2002). Why? Because reward has two aspects (Deci, 1975). It has a controlling aspect, telling you that your actions are not autonomous. It can also have an informational aspect, informing you about yourself. If a reward tells you that you're competent, it increases your motivation (Eisenberger & Rhoades, 2001; Koestner, Zuckerman, & Koestner, 1987). It's even possible for a reward to promote a sense of self-determination, under the right conditions (Henderlong & Lepper, 2002). But if the reward implies a condition of worth, or if it implies you're acting just for the reward, then the controlling aspect will stand out and motivation will fall off. Deci and Ryan believe that people want to feel a sense of self-determination in everything they do. In this view, accomplishments such as doing well in your courses are satisfying only if you feel self-determination in them. If you feel forced or pressured to do these things, then you'll be less satisfied (Flink, Boggiano, & Barrett, 1990; Grolnick & Ryan, 1989). Indeed, pressuring yourself to do well can also reduce motivation (Ryan, 1982). This fits the idea that people can impose conditions of worth on themselves. The importance of the sense of self-determination has been shown in quite diverse contexts. For example, when mothers become involved in their children's education, the impact of that involvement is far better when the mothers perceive it as being autonomous (Grolnick, 2015). When spouses take care of a family member with cancer, the caretakers' adjustment is better when they believe that they are doing so for autonomous reasons (Kim, Carver, Deci, & Kasser, 2008). 11.2.1: Introjection and Identification Deci and Ryan and their colleagues have used several more terms to describe degrees of control and self-determination (see Figure 11.1). Especially important are introjected and identified regulation. Figure 11.1 Degrees of control versus self-determination. In Deci and Ryan's view, regulation of behavior can range from extremely controlled (left side) to extremely self-determined (right side). The ideal is intrinsic motivation, but extrinsically motivated actions can also be self-determined if the person consciously values them or has integrated them in the self-structure. Other types of extrinsic motivation (external and introjected regulation) are controlled behavior.  The diagram shows extrinsic and intrinsic motivation for regulation of behavior as follows: Extrinsic motivation External regulation (Focus on external pressures) Interjected regulation (Focus on approval from self) Identified regulation (Conscious valuing and endorsement) Integrated regulation (Congruence with self) Intrinsic motivation Inherent interest, enjoyment, and satisfaction. The diagram also shows external regulation and introjected regulation as controlled behavior and identified regulation and integrated regulation as self-determined behavior. Introjected regulation occurs when a person treats a behavior as a "should" or an "ought"---when the person does it to avoid guilt or gain self-approval. If you try to do well in a class so that you won't feel guilty about wasting your parents' tuition money, that's introjected behavior. Introjected behavior is controlled, but the control comes from inside. If you try to do well so that your parents won't look down on you, that's also controlled, but it's externally imposed rather than introjected because the control is outside you (see Figure 11.1). In identified regulation, in contrast, the person has come to hold the behavior as personally meaningful and valuable. If you try to do well in a class because you believe that learning is important to your growth, that's identified regulation. Identified regulation is self-determined. It's not quite as self-determined as integrated regulation (in which the goal is integrated within the self) or intrinsically motivated behavior (for which the interest is naturally there), but it's pretty close (see Figure 11.1). In general, as people mature, they regulate less by introjected values and more by identified and integrated (autonomous) values (Sheldon, 2005). These ideas have many applications. For example, think about what you want out of life. There's evidence that wanting financial success (which generally reflects controlled behavior) relates to poorer mental health, whereas wanting community involvement relates to better mental health (Kasser, 2002; Kasser & Ryan, 1993). Of course, why the person has the aspiration is also important (Carver & Baird, 1998; Sheldon & Krieger, 2014). Wanting community involvement for controlling reasons (e.g., because it will make people like you) is bad. Wanting financial success for truly self-determined reasons (because the process itself is intrinsically enjoyable) can be good. The pressures that lead to introjected behavior stem from the desire to be accepted by others or to avoid a sense of guilt over doing things you think others won't like. This fits with Rogers's belief that the desire for positive regard can disrupt self-actualization. A lot depends on whether others place conditions of worth on you. Restrictive parenting produces adults who value conformity instead of self-direction (Kasser, Koestner, & Lekes, 2002). Having a sense of autonomy also seems to foster further autonomy. In one project, medical students who thought their professors were supportive of their own autonomy became even more autonomous in their learning over time (Williams & Deci, 1996). They also felt more competent, and they acted toward others in ways that supported those others' autonomy. 11.2.2: Need for Relatedness Deci and Ryan also believe that people have an intrinsic need for relatedness (see also Baumeister & Leary, 1995). At first glance, it might seem that a need for relatedness should conflict with the need for autonomy. However, it's important to be clear about Deci and Ryan's use of the word autonomy. It doesn't mean being separate from or independent of others. Rather, it means having the sense of free self-determination (Deci & Ryan, 1991, 2000). True relatedness doesn't conflict with this. Several studies have confirmed that autonomy and relatedness can exist side by side. One project found that autonomy and relatedness were complementary: Each related independently to well-being (Bettencourt & Sheldon, 2001; see also Beiswenger & Grolnick, 2010). Another study found that a measure of autonomy was tied to more relatedness, in the form of having open and positive communication with significant others. People who regulated their lives in a controlled way were the ones who interacted defensively with others (Hodgins, Koestner, & Duncan, 1996). Other research has found that being autonomous promotes the use of relationship-maintaining coping strategies and positive responses in discussing relationships (Knee, Patrick, Vietor, Nanayakkara, & Neighbors, 2002). The result was less defensiveness and more understanding responses when conflict did occur (Knee, Lonsbary, Canevello, & Patrick, 2005). Support for autonomy is a powerful force (see Sheldon & Gunz, 2009). When relationship partners are supportive of autonomy, they experience the relationship as better and richer (Deci, La Guardia, Moller, Scheiner, & Ryan, 2006). They act more authentically (Didonato & Krueger, 2010). Supporting your partner's autonomy also makes the relationship feel better to you (Deci et al., 2006). Still, the need for relatedness does have some resemblance to the need for positive regard. Why, then, doesn't it interfere with self-actualization? The answer seems to be that Deci and Ryan's conception of relatedness implies a genuine connection to others, an unconditional acceptance, rather than a connection based on pressure and demand. It might be more accurate to equate this need to a need for unconditional regard. 11.2.3: Self-Concordance Self-determination theory has important implications for thinking about the goals people pursue in their lives. Elsewhere in this book, you'll read about personality being expressed in the goals people adopt (see Chapters 5 and 13). But goals are not equal in their contributions to well-being. It's important to pursue goals that are self-concordant, or consistent with your core values (Sheldon, 2014; Sheldon & Elliot, 1999). You care more about such goals, and you benefit more from attaining them than from goals that don't connect to your core values. Support for this view comes from several sources (Brunstein, Schultheiss, & Grässmann, 1998; Greguras & Diefendorff, 2010; Sheldon & Elliot, 1999; Sheldon & Kasser, 1998). There's even evidence that pursuit of self-concordant goals can create a longer-term spiral of benefit (Sheldon & Houser-Marko, 2001). When you try to reach self-concordant goals, you try harder, you have more satisfying experiences, and you attain better well-being. This experience promotes greater motivation for the next self-concordant goal, and the cycle continues. 11.2.4: Free Will Humanistic psychologists emphasize the idea that people have freedom to decide for themselves how to act and what to become. In Rogers's view, people are free to choose whether to act in self-actualizing ways or to accept conditions of worth. In Deci and Ryan's view, people exert their will when they act in self-determination. When we are prevented from doing something that we want to do, our desire to do it increases even more. The concept of free will is interesting and controversial. It's nearly impossible to know for sure whether people have free will, but they certainly seem to think they do. Consider the phenomenon called reactance (Brehm & Brehm, 1981). Reactance happens when you expect to have a particular freedom and you see it as being threatened. The result is an attempt to regain or reassert it. Thus, young children who've been told they can't do something want to do it all the more. In a romantic relationship, "playing hard to get" can increase someone's attraction to you. Certainly, people often resist being told what to do. Much evidence supports the idea that reactance leads to reassertion of freedom. Although people think they have free will, it's not clear whether we actually do. In a complicated study, Wegner and Wheatley (1999) showed that people could be led to believe they had intentionally caused something to happen that someone else had actually caused. Put differently, the people claimed to have exerted their will in a situation in which they had not. This and other evidence led Wegner (2002) to argue that free will is an illusion. This issue, of course, will continue to be debated. 11.3: The Self and Processes of Defense 11.3 Analyze how a disorganization in the sense of self can be reduced by two kinds of defenses We now turn to the concept of self. Rogers is sometimes called a self theorist, because he stressed the importance of the self. As the person grows, the self becomes more elaborate and complex. It never reaches an end state but continues to evolve. Rogers used the term self in several ways. Sometimes, he used it to refer to the subjective awareness of being (Rogers, 1965). At other times, he used it interchangeably with self-concept. The self-concept is the set of qualities a person views as being part of himself or herself. Many ­distinctions can be made among the elements of the self-concept. One of them is between the actual (or real) self and the ideal self. The ideal self is the image of the kind of person you want to be. The actual self is what you think you're really like. Recall that self-actualizing is supposed to promote congruence. Congruence means "fitting together." One kind of congruence is between actual and ideal selves. Thus, as self-actualization occurs, it creates a closer fit between the actual and the ideal. It leads you to become more like the self you want to be. A second kind of congruence that's important is between the actual self and experience. That is, the experiences you have in life should fit with the kind of person you think you are. For example, if you think you're a kind person and you find yourself doing something unkind, there's an incongruity between self and experience. If you think you're a smart person but find yourself doing poorly in a course, there's an incongruity between self and experience. Self-actualization should tend to promote a closer congruence here, as well (see also Box 11.1). Box 11.1 How Can You Manage Two Kinds of Congruence Simultaneously? This section of the chapter emphasizes the importance of two kinds of congruence: between the actual self and the ideal self and between the self-concept and one's experience. Often, these two kinds of congruence can be managed fairly easily at the same time. In some circumstances, though, the desire to avoid one kind of incongruence can plunge you right into the other. What circumstance would do that? An example is suggested by the work of William Swann and his colleagues on self-verification (e.g., Swann, 1987, 1990, 2012). The idea is that once people have a picture of what they're like, they want to have that self-concept confirmed by other people's reactions to them. That is, people want their experience to be congruent with their self-concept. For example, if you think you're a good athlete, you want others to think so, too. If you think you're shy, you want others to realize it. It may seem odd, but the desire to verify beliefs about yourself applies even to beliefs that are unflattering (Swann, Wenzlaff, & Tafarodi, 1992). If you think you're homely, you'd rather have someone else agree than say the opposite. Here's the problem: For the person with a negative self-view, there's a built-in conflict between self-verification and self-protection. Self-verification is trying not to have incongruity between self and experience. Self-protection is trying not to be aware of incongruity between one's desired self and actual self. Attempts to diminish these two incongruities can pull a person in opposite directions. Swann and his colleagues argue that both of these forces operate in everyone. Which force dominates at a given moment depends on your options. Keep in mind that most people's self-concept has both positive and negative qualities (Swann, Pelham, & Krull, 1989). Suppose, then, you had the chance to obtain information about yourself (from another person or from a personality test). Would you prefer to get information about what you view as your best quality or about what you view as your worst? Most people would prefer to learn about something they view as desirable. This fits the self-protection tendency. But suppose you know that the information you're going to get is about a quality you perceive as bad. Would you rather get information that says you're bad in that quality or that says you're good? The answer obtained by Swann et al. (1989) was that people tend to seek the bad information. In sum, the self-protection and self-enhancement tendencies seem to influence where you look (and where you don't look) when you consider the relationship between your actual and desired selves. People prefer to look at their favorable self-aspects. Even so, when they look at some self-aspect in particular, the self-verification tendency influences the kind of information they focus on. They want information that confirms their view of who they are---that fits the experienced self to the actual self. In each case, the effect is to enhance perceptions of congruence, consistent with the ideas proposed by Rogers. 11.3.1: Incongruity, Disorganization, and Defense Incongruence is disorganization, a fraying of the unitary sense of self. You don't always know it consciously, but your organismic valuing process senses it. Rogers said that incongruence---either perceiving a gap between real and ideal or experiencing something that doesn't fit your self-image---leads to anxiety. The experience of incongruence can also make people vulnerable to yet further problems. Incongruity between the actual and ideal selves leads people to underestimate how much their significant others care for them (Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 2000; Murray, Holmes, Griffin, Bellavia, & Rose, 2001). This misperception can make them react poorly to their partners. They feel pessimistic about the relationship and may act in ways that aren't genuine. Ultimately, the relationship is less likely to flourish. It isn't always possible to have complete congruence. Rogers assumed that people defend themselves against even the perception of incongruence, to avoid the anxiety it creates. Defenses against perceptions of incongruity form two categories, which aren't so different from some of the defenses addressed by psychoanalytic theory (see Chapter 8). One kind of defense involves distortion of experience. Rationalization is one such distortion: creating a plausible but untrue explanation for why something is the way it is. Another distortion is seeing an event as being different from how it really is. For instance, if you say something that makes someone else feel bad, you may protect yourself by believing the other person wasn't really upset. The second kind of defense involves preventing threatening experiences from reaching awareness. Denial---refusing to admit to yourself that a situation exists or an experience took place---serves this function. A woman who ignores overwhelming evidence that her boyfriend is unfaithful to her is doing this. You can also prevent an experience from reaching awareness indirectly, by not letting yourself be in a situation in which the experience would be possible. By taking steps to prevent it from occurring, you prevent its access to consciousness. This is a subtle defense. For example, a person whose self-image is threatened by having sexual feelings toward attractive strangers may avoid going to the beach or nightclubs, thereby preventing the feelings from arising. 11.3.2: Self-Esteem Maintenance and Enhancement Defenses act to maintain and enhance the congruity or integrity of the self. Another way to put it is that defenses protect and enhance self-esteem. The idea that people go out of their way to protect self-esteem has been around for a long time. It's been an active area of study under several labels (for review, see Alicke & Sedikides, 2010). It's often said that two conditions are required to make someone concerned about maintaining or enhancing self-esteem (Snyder, Stephan, & Rosenfield, 1978). First, an event must be attributable to the person. If not, it's not relevant to you. Second, the event must be good or bad, thereby having a potential impact on self-esteem. What happens when there's a threat to self-esteem? Just as Rogers argued, people either distort their perceptions or distance themselves from the threat. They minimize the negativity of the event. They also try to prevent the event from being attributed to permanent qualities of the self, thereby denying its relevance. Consider failure. Failure (academic, social, or otherwise) makes most of us feel inadequate. What do people do when they fail? They make excuses (Snyder & Higgins, 1988). They blame it on things beyond their control. They attribute it to task difficulty, to chance, to other people, or (in a bind) to a lack of effort (e.g., Bradley, 1978; Snyder et al., 1976, 1978). People respond in these ways whether the event is as trivial as failure on a laboratory task or as profound as the experience of divorce (Gray & Silver, 1990). Blaming something or someone else creates distance between the failure and you. Given enough distance, the failure doesn't threaten your self-esteem. People can also protect their self-esteem after failure by distorting perceptions in another way. An event is relevant to self-esteem only if its impact is either good or bad. You can protect your self-esteem by discounting the impact. Making a bad impression on someone isn't a problem if that person isn't worth bothering with. Doing poorly on a test doesn't matter if the test isn't important or valid. People who are told they did poorly on a test say exactly that: It's not so important and not so valid (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1982). When you experience success, on the other hand, you have the chance to enhance your self-esteem. You can do this by ascribing the success to your abilities (Agostinelli, Sherman, Presson, & Chassin, 1992; Snyder et al., 1976, 1978; Taylor & Brown, 1988). Indeed, there's even evidence that people think that any positive personal qualities they have are under their own control, allowing them to claim credit for being the way they are (Alicke, 1985). 11.3.3: Self-Handicapping People protect their self-esteem in some very strange ways. One of them is called self-handicapping (e.g., Arkin & Baumgardner, 1985; Higgins, Snyder, & Berglas, 1990; Jones & Berglas, 1978; Jones & Pittman, 1982). Self-handicapping is acting to create the very conditions that tend to produce a failure. If you have a test tomorrow, it's self-handicapping to party all night instead of studying. If you want to make a good impression on someone, it's self-handicapping to show up drunk or drenched in sweat from playing basketball. Why would you do such a thing? If you want to reach a goal, why create conditions that make it harder? The theory is that failing to attain a goal threatens self-esteem. You can't really fail, though, if success is prevented by circumstances beyond your control. Given such conditions, the stigma of failing goes away. If you fail the test or make a poor impression---well, no one could do well in those conditions. So it wasn't really a failure. Consistent with this reasoning, people self-handicap more when they expect bad outcomes (Lovejoy & Durik, 2010). Self-handicapping prevents awareness of failing. Note that for this strategy to be successful, you need to be unaware that you're using it. If you realize you're setting up barriers for yourself, they won't have the same meaning. Self-handicapping may be common, but it's not a good strategy. People who tend to self-handicap cope poorly with stress (Zuckerman, Kieffer, & Knee, 1998). Indeed, self-handicapping and maladjustment reinforce each other (Zuckerman & Tsai, 2005). Furthermore, if people think you're self-handicapping, they react negatively to you (Hirt, McCrea, & Boris, 2003). Finally, don't forget that self-handicapping helps create the very failure it was intended to protect against. 11.3.4: Stereotype Threat Another concept that connects to the ideas we've been discussing is called stereotype threat. It was first proposed and studied by Claude Steele and his colleagues (Pronin, Steele, & Ross, 2004; Steele, 1997; Steele & Aronson, 1995). It begins with the fact that some groups are stereotyped in ways that lead to expectations of poor performance of some sort. For example, the negative stereotype of African Americans includes an expectation that they will perform poorly on intellectual tasks. The negative stereotype of women includes an expectation that they will perform poorly in math. The negative stereotype of elderly people includes an expectation that they will perform poorly on memory tasks. Members of these groups can be threatened by being viewed through the stereotype, rather than as individuals. The sense of being prejudged occupies the person's mind and promotes negative thinking (Cadinu, Maass, Rosabianca, & Kiesner, 2005). All of this can interfere with performance (e.g., Cheung & Hardin, 2010; Chung, Ehrhart, Ehrhart, Hattrup, & Solamon, 2010; Fischer, 2010; Rydell, Shiffrin, Boucher, Van Loo, & Rydell, 2010). When performance is poor, the stereotype is confirmed. If this happens frequently, even worse things follow. Steele (1997) argued that the person begins to disidentify with the domain in which the threat is occurring---to stop caring about it. This protects self-esteem by denying that the experience is relevant to the self. Failure doesn't matter if the test isn't important. But disidentifying also has negative results. As does self-handicapping, disidentifying makes poor performance more likely (due to lower effort). Furthermore, it ultimately causes people to stop caring about important areas of endeavor in which they may actually have considerable skill (Bergeron, Block, & Echtenkamp, 2006). 11.4: Self-Actualization and Maslow's Hierarchy of Motives 11.4 Relate Maslow's hierarchy of needs to the principles that the hierarchy follows Another theorist who emphasized the importance of self-actualization was Abraham Maslow (1962, 1970). He was interested in the qualities of people who seem to get the most out of life---the most fully functioning of persons, the healthiest and best adjusted. Maslow spent most of his career trying to understand how these people were able to be so complete and so well adapted (see Box 11.2). Box 11.2 The Theorist and the Theory: Abraham Maslow's Focus on the Positive Abraham Maslow focused his work almost exclusively on the positive side of human experience. He was interested in what causes some people to succeed and even achieve greatness in their lives. He cared about issues of personal growth and the realization of human potential. It's clear that these interests were influenced by events in his own life. Maslow was born in 1908 in Brooklyn, New York, the oldest of seven children of Russian Jewish immigrants. His home life definitely did not foster personal growth. His father thought little of him and publicly ridiculed his appearance. This led young Maslow to seek out empty cars whenever he rode the subway, to spare others the sight of him. If Maslow's father treated him badly, his mother was worse. The family was poor, and she kept a lock on the refrigerator to keep the children out, feeding them only when she saw fit. Maslow once characterized her as a "cruel, ignorant, and hostile figure, one so unloving as to nearly induce madness in her children" (Hoffman, 1988, p. 7). He later said that his focus on the positive side of personality was a direct consequence of his mother's treatment of him. It was a reaction against the things she did and the qualities she ­represented (Maslow, 1979, p. 958). Thus, from a life begun in hardship came a determination to understand the best in human experience. Maslow entered college intending a career in law, but he quickly became disenchanted, because law focuses so much on evil and so little on good. He turned to psychology. According to Maslow, that was when his life really started. His doctoral work, done under the direction of well-known primate researcher Harry Harlow, focused on how dominance is established among monkeys. Thus, even while conducting animal research, Maslow was interested in what sets exceptional individuals off from others who are less special. Maslow shifted this research interest to humans during the period surrounding World War II. New York in the 1930s and 1940s was a gathering place for some of the greatest intellectuals of Europe---many of whom were escaping Nazi Germany. Maslow was impressed by several of them and tried to find out everything he could about them. In his search to understand how these people came to be exceptional, Maslow was sowing the seeds of more formal work he would conduct later. Maslow was deeply moved by the suffering and anguish caused by World War II. He vowed to devote his life to proving that humans were capable of something better than war, prejudice, and hatred. By studying the process of self-actualization, he proceeded to do just that. As part of this effort, Maslow eventually came to examine how diverse motives are organized. His view of motivation was very different from the view discussed in Chapter 5. Maslow came to view human needs as forming a hierarchy (Maslow, 1970), which is often portrayed as a pyramid (see Figure 11.2). He pointed out that needs vary in their immediacy and power. Some are extremely primitive, basic, and demanding. Because they're so fundamental, they form the base of the pyramid. These needs are physiological---pertaining to air, water, food, and so on---things obviously necessary for survival. Figure 11.2 Maslow's theoretical hierarchy of needs. Needs lower on the hierarchy are more demanding and animalistic. Needs higher on the hierarchy are more subtle but more distinctly human.  The needs at the next higher level are also necessary for survival but less demanding. These are safety and (physical) security needs----shelter from the weather, protection against predators, and so on. Maslow considered this second class of needs less basic than the first class, because they require satisfaction less frequently. You need to get oxygen every few seconds, water every few hours, and food once or twice a day. But once you've found an apartment, you have physical shelter for a while (as long as you pay the rent). If both your apartment and your air supply became inaccessible, you'd surely try to regain the air first and worry about the apartment later. At the next level of the hierarchy, the needs start to have more social qualities. The level immediately above safety needs is the category of love and belongingness. Here, the needs are for companionship, affection, and acceptance from others (much like the need for positive regard). Needs of this type are satisfied through interaction with other people. Higher yet on the pyramid are esteem needs: needs bearing on evaluation (and self-evaluation). Esteem needs include the need for a sense of mastery and power and a sense of appreciation from others (Leary & Baumeister, 2000). Notice that this differs from acceptance and affection. Acceptance may not be evaluative. Appreciation is. You're appreciated and esteemed for some quality or qualities that you possess. The need for appreciation is thus more elaborate than the need for acceptance. At the top of the hierarchy stands self-actualization. Maslow used this term much as Rogers did, to mean the tendency to become whatever you're capable of becoming, to extend yourself to the limits of your capacities. This, to Maslow, is the highest of human motives. The pyramid is a visual analogue for Maslow's core assumptions. He assumed that low-level needs are more primitive and more demanding than needs higher on the hierarchy. The need for air is more demanding than the need for shelter. Maslow also assumed that the need for physical shelter is more demanding than the need to have a sense of being accepted, and that the need for a sense of belonging is more demanding than the need to be appreciated or powerful. Maslow thus held that the power of the motive force weakens as you move up the pyramid. On the other hand, as you move up, the needs are also more distinctly human and less animalistic. Thus, Maslow saw a trade-off between the constraints of biology and the uniqueness of being human. We have needs that make us different from other creatures. Self-actualization is the highest and most important. But we can't escape the needs we share with other creatures. Those needs are more powerful when they're unsatisfied than the needs that make us special. In general, people must deal with the needs they have at lower levels of the pyramid before they can attend to higher needs. Two implications follow. First, if a need begins to develop at a lower level while you're trying to satisfy a higher one, the lower-level need can cause you to be pulled away from the higher one. Your attention, in effect, is pulled downward, and you're forced to do something about the lower need (Wicker, Brown, Wiehe, Hagen, & Reed, 1993). The second implication concerns how people move up through this set of needs. It may be precisely the freeing of your mind from the demands of low-level needs that lets you hear the very quiet voice of self-actualization. Remember, the further up the pyramid you go, the more subtle and less survival-related the motive. Self-actualization---the highest motive---is the last to be taken into account. Only when the other needs have been quieted can this one be attended to. The levels of the hierarchy also differ in one more sense. Maslow (1955) said that the motives low on the pyramid are deficiency-based motives, whereas those high on the pyramid (particularly, self-actualization) are growth-based motives. That is, lower needs arise from deprivation. Satisfying them means escaping unpleasant conditions. Self-actualization is more like the distant call of your unrealized potential as a person. Satisfying this isn't a matter of avoiding an unpleasant state. Rather, it's the seeking of growth (see also Sheldon et al., 2001). Finally, compare Maslow's ideas to those of Rogers. Recall that Rogers emphasized two motives: the self-actualizing tendency and the need for positive regard (affection and acceptance). It's possible to see a similarity between those ideas and Maslow's more elaborate structure (see Figure 11.2). The bottom two levels of Maslow's pyramid refer to needs that Rogers ignored. Rogers focused on social needs, which for Maslow begin at the third level. Maslow believed, as did Rogers, that the need for acceptance could be more demanding than the need for self-actualization. The structure of the pyramid clearly implies that people can be distracted from self-actualization by the need for positive regard. The intermediate level of Maslow's pyramid---esteem needs---can be viewed as an elaboration on the need for positive regard. Esteem needs seem similar, in many ways, to Rogers's conditions of worth. The two theorists differed in how they saw this motive. To Rogers, bowing to conditions of worth is bad. To Maslow, esteem needs are part of being human, although less important than the need for self-actualization. The two theorists agreed, however, that esteem needs can get in the way of self-actualization. In sum, despite the fact that Rogers and Maslow had unique ideas about personality, their theoretical views also have much in common. 11.4.1: Characteristics of Frequent Self-Actualizers The concept of self-actualization is, in many ways, the most engaging and intriguing of these theorists' ideas. Although Maslow painted a broad picture of human motives, self-actualization most fully occupied his interest and imagination. He devoted much of his career to studying it. According to Maslow, everyone can self-actualize, and everyone has an intrinsic desire to become more and more the person he or she is capable of being. Because self-actualization is so diffuse a quality, it can appear in virtually any kind of behavior. It isn't just the painter, musician, writer, or actor who can be self-actualizing. It's any person who's in the process of becoming more congruent, more integrated, more complete as a person. Despite believing that every person has this potential, Maslow also recognized that some people self-actualize more than others. To better understand the process, he sought out those who displayed self-actualizing properties often. He worked hard to describe them---in part, because self-actualization is such a hard concept to grasp. By describing them, he hoped to help others recognize self-actualizing experiences in their own lives. Maslow came to believe that frequent self-actualizers share several characteristics (Maslow, 1962, 1968). Here are a few of them (for a more complete list, see Table 11.1.) Self-actualizers are efficient in their perception of reality; that is, their experience is in extra-sharp focus. Self-actualizers can spot the confused perceptions of others and cut through the tangles. People who frequently engage in self-actualization are also accepting. They accept both themselves and others. Their self-acceptance isn't smug self-promotion. They realize they're not perfect. They accept themselves as they are---imperfections and all. They also accept the frailties of the people around them as a part of who those people are. Table 11.1  Characteristics of frequent self-actualizers Source: Based on Maslow, 1968. Another characteristic of self-actualizers is a mental spontaneity. This quality is often linked to having a fresh appreciation of life, an excitement in the process of living. This is often reflected in creativity. In one study of this (Amabile, 1985), writers were led to think about the act of creation either from the view of extrinsic incentives (thus, lower on Maslow's hierarchy) or from qualities intrinsic to the act itself (by implication, self-actualization). They then wrote poems. Judges later rated the creativity of each. The poems written after thinking about external incentives were rated lower in creativity than those written from the self-actualizing orientation. The self-actualizing person is often said to be problem centered, but this phrase is a little misleading. Here, the word problem refers to enduring questions of philosophy or ethics. Self-actualizers take a wide view, consider universal issues. Along with this quality is an independence from their culture and immediate environment. Self-actualizers live in the universe, and only secondarily in this apartment, city, or country. Self-actualizers know relationships require effort. They have deep ties because relationships matter to them, but the ties are often limited to a very few others. 11.5: Existential Psychology 11.5 Identify the key principle of the existential psychology So far, we've focused on the ideas that people have a natural tendency toward growth, that they can exert free will to adjust the course of their lives, that they defend against perceptions of incongruence, and that the motive to grow is at the peak of a pyramid of motives. However, there's another side to growth and human potential. The possibilities of self-actualization have a cost. They bring responsibilities. This is a key principle of existential psychology (Koole, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2006). The term existential is related to the word existence. It pertains to a philosophical view that holds that existence is all anyone has. Each person is alone in an unfathomable universe. This view stresses that each person must take responsibility for his or her choices. It fits the phenomenological orientation in emphasizing the importance of the individual's unique experience of reality. 11.5.1: The Existential Dilemma A concept that's central to the existentialist view is dasein, a German word that's often translated as "being-in-the-world." The term dasein is used to imply the totality of a person's experience of the self as an autonomous, separate, and evolving entity (Binswanger, 1963; Boss, 1963; May, 1958). It also emphasizes that people have no existence apart from the world and that the world has no meaning apart from the people in it. To existentialists, the basic issue is that life inevitably ends in death, which can come at any time (Becker, 1973). Death is the event no one escapes, no matter how self-actualizing his or her experiences are. Awareness of the inevitability of death provokes angst---dread, anguish far deeper than anxiety over incongruity. There exist only being and not-being, and we constantly face the polarity between them. How should you respond to this? To existentialists, this is the key question in life. The choice is between retreating into nothingness and having the courage to be. At its extreme, the choice is whether or not to commit suicide, thus avoiding the absurdity of a life that will end in death anyway. To kill oneself is to choose nothingness. But nothingness can also be chosen in less extreme ways. People can choose not to act authentically, not to commit themselves to the goals and responsibilities that are part of who they are. They can drift or go along with some crowd. When people fail to take responsibility for their lives, they're choosing nothingness. What's involved in choosing to be? To the existentialists, life has no meaning unless you create it. Each person with the courage to do so must assign meaning to his or her existence. You assign meaning to your life by acting authentically, by being who you are. The very recognition of the existential dilemma is an important step to doing this. As May (1958, p. 47) put it, "To grasp what it means to exist, one needs to grasp the fact that he might not exist." Exercising this freedom isn't easy. It can be hard to know who you are, and it can be hard to stare death in the face. It's easier to let other people decide what's right and just go along. Existential psychologists believe, though, that we are all responsible for making the most of every moment of our existence and fulfilling that existence to the best of our ability (Boss, 1963; Frankl, 1969; May, 1969). This responsibility is inescapable. Although people are responsible for their choices, even honest choices aren't always good ones. You won't always deal perfectly with the people you care about. You'll sometimes lose track of your connection to nature. Even if your choices are wise, you'll still have existential guilt over failing to completely fulfill your possibilities. This guilt is strongest when a person who's free to choose fails to do so. But people who are aware are never completely free of existential guilt, because it's impossible to fulfill every possibility. In realizing some capabilities, you prevent others from being expressed. Thus, existential guilt is inescapable. It's part of the cost of being. 11.5.2: Emptiness Existentialists also focus on the problem of life's emptiness. They are concerned that people have lost faith in values (May, 1953). For instance, many people no longer have a sense of worth and dignity, partly because they have found themselves powerless to influence forces such as government and big business. The planet warms, and we do nothing to stop it. Businesses need multibillion-dollar bailouts, and we're stuck with the bill. The leaders of our country commit us to wars without justifying them, or even declaring them as wars, and we bear the consequences. When people lose their commitment to a set of values, they experience a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness. When people feel this way, they turn to others for answers. The answers aren't there, however, because the problem is really within each person. This illustrates, once again, the existentialist theme that you must be responsible for your own actions and that truth can come only from within and from your actions. 11.5.3: Terror Management Some of the ideas of existential psychology are reflected in terror management theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986). This theory begins with the idea that an awareness of one's eventual death creates existential angst, or terror (Becker, 1973). People respond to the terror by trying to live lives of meaning and value. This much matches what we said about existential psychology. Terror management theory goes on to suggest, however, that people often don't define the meaning of life on their own. Rather, they use a process of social and cultural consensus. This means that group identity plays an important role in how people affirm the value of their lives. Reminders of mortality lead people to be more protective of their own cultural values (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997). By weaving themselves into a meaningful cultural fabric---a fabric that will last long after they're gone---they affirm their own value as human beings. People respond to reminders of mortality by holding on more strongly to their social fabric. This theory has led to a great deal of research over the past 25 years (Greenberg et al., 1997; Hayes, Schimel, Arndt, & Faucher, 2010). Some of this research has shown that making people aware of their mortality causes them to become more favorable toward those who uphold their worldview and more negative toward those who don't. Mortality salience also makes people adhere more to cultural norms themselves. Americans become more patriotic; jihadists become more devoted to jihad (Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Greenberg, 2002). Mortality salience can make people act more altruistically---for instance, by supporting charities (Jonas, Schimel, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2002)---but only if the charities connect to their own culture. The relationship can also go the other way: Threats to your worldview induce thoughts about death (Schimel, Hayes, Williams, & Jahrig, 2007). Much of the research on this topic examines how people affirm their cultural worldview after being reminded of their mortality. However, at least one study has looked at how people affirm values of the self (McGregor, Zanna, Holmes, & Spencer, 2001, Study 4). After a manipulation of mortality salience, participants completed a measure of identity seeking and an assessment of their goals for the immediate future. Those whose mortality had been brought to mind were higher on the measure of identity seeking than others. They also reported intending to work at projects that were more self-consistent than the projects reported by others. Terror management theory leads to a number of other interesting ideas. One is that terror management is the reason people view themselves as separate from other animals. To think of yourself as an animal is to be reminded of your death, because all animals die. Fitting this idea, mortality salience causes people to favor more strongly the idea that humans are distinct from other animals (Goldenberg et al., 2001). This view also has implications for sexuality (Goldenberg, Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 2000). Sex is one more reminder of your animal nature. This may be one reason many people are nervous about sex: It reminds them of their mortality. People sidestep this reminder in many ways. They ascribe aesthetic value to the sex act. They create romance around it, to distract themselves from its animal qualities (Florian, Mikulincer, & Hirschberger, 2002). They create cultural standards of beauty that are idealized and symbolic. In doing so, the animal is transformed to the spiritual. People struggle against existential terror in many ways. According to terror management theory, propping up self-esteem can establish a sense of one's value and stave off existential angst (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, Arndt, & Schimel, 2004). Additional research has added the idea that confronting mortality motivates people to form close relationships (Mikulincer, Florian, & Hirschberger, 2003). In fact, the push toward affiliation may be even more important than the affirmation of cultural values (Wisman & Koole, 2003). This theory has prompted a great deal of research, extending in many directions. For our present purpose, however, we want to link it back to existentialism. The research makes it clear that reminding people of their eventual death makes them try to affirm the value of their lives. People do this mostly (though not entirely) by embracing the values of the culture in which they live. Only a little evidence indicates that people try to create their own personal meanings. Does this mean that for most people, the response to existential angst is to let others decide what's right and just go along? Surely, this would dismay the existential psychologists. It may simply mean, though, that values are naturally defined more by groups than the existentialists realized. 11.6: Assessment from the Self-Actualization and Self-Determination Perspective 11.6 Examine the use of a Q-sort in assessment A basic issue in personality assessment (Chapter 3) is how to go about it. Various perspectives suggest different approaches to assessment. The humanistic perspective suggests yet another one. 11.6.1: Interviews in Assessment To a self theorist such as Rogers, assessment is a process of finding out what the person is like. This orientation is quite compatible with interviewing as an assessment technique. The interview offers maximum flexibility. It lets the person being assessed say whatever comes up. It lets the interviewer follow stray thoughts and ask questions that might not otherwise occur. It lets the interviewer get a subjective sense of what that person is like from interacting with him or her (see also Box 11.3). Box 11.3 Self-Actualization and Your Life By now, you've read a lot about self-actualization, and it may all sound pretty abstract. To get a more concrete feel for the idea, try spending a few minutes interviewing yourself. Think about how issues surrounding self-actualization apply to your own life. For example, think about how Maslow's hierarchy of needs pertains to your current existence. Which level of the hierarchy dominates your day-to-day experiences? Are you mostly concerned with having a sense of belonging to a social group (or perhaps a sense of acceptance and closeness with a particular person)? Is the need to feel valued and respected what you're currently focused on? Or are you actively trying to grow as close as possible to the blueprint hidden inside you that holds the secret of your possibilities? Now think back to your junior year of high school and what your life was like then. What were your needs and concerns during that period? Since then, has your focus moved upward on the hierarchy or downward? Or are you focused at about the same level? Here's another issue: Think about your current mission in life, whatever gives your life focus and provides it with meaning. Where did it come from? Was it passed down to you by your parents (or someone else)? Or does it come from deep inside you? How sure are you that your goal is your own and not someone else's assignment for you? How sure are you it isn't an assignment you've given yourself? What would it feel like to spend the rest of your life doing "assignments"? Another question: You can't always do what you want. Everyone knows that. Sometimes, you have to do things. But how much of the time? How much of your time---how much of your self---should be used up doing your duty---being obedient to conditions of worth---before you turn to your other needs? How dangerous is it to say to yourself that you'll do these assignments---these duties---for a while, just for a little while, and that after a few weeks or months or years, you'll turn to the things you really want? How sure are you that you won't get in a rut and come to see the assignments as the only reality in life? How sure are you that you'll be able to turn to your own self-actualization, years down the road, when it's become such a habit to focus on fulfilling conditions of worth? Not every experience in life is self-actualizing. Even people who self-actualize extensively get stalled sometimes and have trouble with it. When you find yourself unable to self-actualize, what's preventing it? What barriers to growth do you hit from time to time? Are they the demands of other needs? Do they stem from your relationships with your parents and family? With your friends? Or are they barriers you place in front of yourself? Obviously, these questions aren't easy to answer. You can't expect to answer them in just a few minutes. People spend a lifetime trying to answer them. But these questions are important, and thinking about them for a little while should give you a more vivid sense of the issues raised by the self-actualization approach. Finding out what a person is like in this way requires empathy. After all, the interviewer is trying to enter the other person's private world. Empathy isn't automatic. It requires sensitivity to small changes. As an interviewer, you must repeatedly check the accuracy of your sensing to be sure that you haven't taken a wrong turn. (Empathy isn't important just for interviewing, by the way. Rogers saw it as important to being a fully functioning person.) An extensive interview produces a lot of information. One way to evaluate and organize the information is through content analysis. This involves grouping the person's statements in some way and seeing how many statements fall into each group. For example, in an interview, Susan said 2 things about herself expressing self-approval, 18 expressing self-disapproval, and 15 that were ambivalent. One might infer from this that Susan isn't very satisfied with herself. The flexibility that makes interviews useful also creates problems. Unless an interview is highly structured, it's hard to compare one with another. If Jane expresses more self-disapproval than Sally, is it because Jane dislikes herself more than Sally? Or did the interviewer just happen to follow up a particularly bothersome aspect of Jane's self-image? If Susan expresses less self-disapproval after therapy than before, is it because she's become more satisfied with herself or because the interviewer failed to get into self-critical areas in the second interview? 11.6.2: Measuring the Self-Concept by Q-Sort The other core issue in assessment is what qualities to assess. Theorists discussed in this chapter suggest several answers. One answer is to assess the self-concept. A technique Rogers preferred for assessing self-concept is called the Q-sort (e.g., Block, 1961, 2008; Rogers & Dymond, 1954). There are many variations on this procedure, but the basic process is the same. It involves giving the person a large set of items printed on cards. The items often are self-evaluative statements (as shown in Table 11.2), but they can be phrases, words, or other things. The person doing the Q-sort is asked to sort the cards into piles (see Figure 11.3). At one end are just a few cards with statements that are most like you, and at the other end are just a few cards with statements that are least like you. The piles between the two extremes represent gradations and thus have more cards. Table 11.2  Statements commonly used in Q-sort procedures  Figure 11.3 In the Q-sort procedure, you sort a set of cards containing descriptive statements into a row of piles. At one end of the row might be the card containing the single statement that's most like you; at the other end the card containing the single statement that's least like you. The other piles of cards represent gradations between these two points. As you can see from the numbers in parentheses in this example, the piles toward the middle are permitted to have more cards in them than the piles closer to the end points. Thus, you're forced to decide which items really are very much like and unlike yourself. The diagram shows 9 piles of cards in a row with a single on the extreme ends i.e., 1st and 9th position. The number of cards in the piles increases as you move towards the central position from both the ends. The single card at one end is labeled \"Most like me\" while that at the other end is labeled "Least like me." There are rules about how many cards can go in a given pile (see Figure 11.3). Usually, people start by sorting very generally (me, not me, neither) and then sorting further. By the time you're done, you've had to look hard at the statements and decide which one or two are most and least descriptive of you. By comparing qualities, the person is forced into self-evaluation. The Q-sort differs, in this respect, from rating scales in which each response is separate. Rating scales let the person say that all the descriptors apply equally well. This can't possibly happen in a Q-sort. 11.6.3: Measuring Self-Actualization A second type of content for assessment is suggested by the emphasis on self-actualization. Given this emphasis, it would seem desirable to measure the degree to which people have characteristics of frequent self-actualization. The Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) was developed for this purpose (Shostrom, 1964, 1974; see also Knapp, 1976). The POI consists of paired statements. People choose the one from each pair that they agree with more. The POI has two scales. One, called time competence, reflects in part the degree to which the person lives in the present, as opposed to being distracted by the past and future. As the word competence hints, though, this scale also has other overtones. Time-competent people are able to link the past and future with the present effectively. They sense continuity among these three aspects of time. The second scale assesses the tendency to be inner directed in the search for values and meaning. Self-actualizers are believed to have a stronger tendency toward inner direction in determining their values than people who are less self-actualizing. 11.6.4: Measuring Self-Determination and Control Yet another quality that's important to the viewpoints presented in this chapter is the extent to which a person's actions tend to be self-determined versus controlled. A number of self-reports assess this difference among people, with varying degrees of breadth. One of them assesses the extent to which people generally function in a self-determined way in their lives (Sheldon, Ryan, & Reis, 1996). This measure of general self-determination gives a broad sense of a person's behavior across multiple domains. It's been used to show that people high in general self-determination have harmony between their needs and goals (e.g., Thrash & Elliot, 2002). Several other measures focus on how people behave in some specific domain of life. For example, Ryan and Connell (1989) developed a measure of children's academic behavior and prosocial behavior. The items ask children why they do various things and provide potential reasons that had been chosen to reflect controlled or autonomous motivation. In another project, Black and Deci (2000) developed a measure to ask college students their reasons for learning things in their courses. Again, options are provided for reasons that are controlled and reasons that are self-determined. Another such measure was devised to assess the motives underlying religious behavior (Ryan, Rigby, & King, 1993). 11.7: Problems in Behavior, and Behavior Change, from the Self-Actualization and Self-Determination Perspective 11.7 Outline the logic behind the client-centered therapy as a solution to problems How are problems in living conceptualized in this view? Recall that fully functioning people are attuned to the self-actualizing tendency and experience a sense of coherence and consistency. They're not trying to live up to conditions of worth; rather, they're being who they are. To Rogers (and others), lack of congruity within the self creates psychological problems. (For evidence, see Deci and Ryan, 1991; Higgins, 1990; and Ryan, Sheldon, Kasser, and Deci, 1996.) To Rogers, incongruity between experience and self-concept or within the self-concept yields anxiety. Anxiety is a signal of disorganization from the organismic valuing process. Anxiety is especially likely to arise if the person focuses too much on conditions of worth and acts in ways that interfere with self-actualization. When the sense of self is threatened, the person becomes not only more distressed but also more rigid (McGregor et al., 2001). This response seems to be an effort to hold onto the self that existed before. People faced with incongruity in one aspect of the self stress their certainty about other things, apparently trying to compensate for what's been threatened. They become more zealous or extreme in their beliefs and personal values. To Rogers, the process of therapy is essentially one of reintegrating a partially disorganized self. It involves reversing the processes of defense to confront the discrepancies between the elements of the person's experience. Doing so isn't easy, however. Rogers believed that an important condition must be met before such changes can occur. Specifically, the conditions of worth that distorted the person's behavior in the past must be lifted. The person still needs positive regard, but it must be unconditional. Only then will the person feel able to confront the discrepancies. Removing the conditions of worth will allow the person to focus more fully on the organismic valuing process, the inner voice that knows what's good and bad for you. This, in turn, allows reintegration of the self. Consistent with this view, people are less defensive when they're accepted for who they are than when they're accepted in an evaluative, conditional way (Arndt, Schimel, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2002; Schimel, Arndt, Pyszczynski, & Greenberg, 2001). Unconditional positive regard, then, is a key to therapy. But it's a complex key. For it to be effective, it must be given from the person's own frame of reference. That is, it means acceptance for who you think you are. Someone who knows nothing about you or your feelings can't provide meaningful acceptance. This is a second reason it's important for a therapist to be empathic. The first was that empathy is necessary to get an adequate sense of what the client is like. The second is that it's necessary to allow the therapist to show unconditional positive regard for the client in a way that will facilitate reintegration of the client's personality. There's one more potential problem here. Sometimes, people undertake therapy to satisfy a condition of worth, either self-imposed or imposed by someone else. It stands to reason that people who are trying to change for self-determined reasons will do better than people who are trying to make similar changes to satisfy conditions of worth. In at least one domain of change---weight loss---there's evidence that this is true. In one study, people who lost weight for autonomous reasons lost more and kept it off longer than those who had less autonomous reasons (Williams, Grow, Freedman, Ryan, & Deci, 1996). 11.7.1: Client-Centered Therapy Several approaches to therapy have been derived from the humanistic group of theories (Cain & Seeman, 2002; Schneider & Krug, 2010). The one that's best known, developed by Rogers (1951, 1961; Rogers & Stevens, 1967), is called client-centered therapy or person-centered therapy. As the term implies, the client takes responsibility for his or her own improvement. Recall Rogers's belief that the tendency toward actualizing is intrinsic. If people with problems can be put in a situation in which conditions of worth are removed, they should naturally reintegrate themselves. This is a bit like the rationale for putting a bandage on a wound. The bandage doesn't heal the wound, but by maintaining a sterile environment, it helps the natural healing process take place. In person-centered therapy, the therapist displays empathy and unconditional positive regard. This allows the client to escape temporarily from conditions of worth and begin exploring aspects of experience that are incongruent with the self. Throughout, the therapist remains nondirective and nonevaluative, showing no emotion and giving no advice. The therapist's role is to remove the pressure of conditions of worth. By avoiding evaluative comments (e.g., saying that something is good or bad), the effective therapist avoids imposing additional conditions of worth. Rather than be evaluative, the therapist tries to help clients gain clear perspective on their own feelings and experiences. In general, this means reflecting back to the client, in slightly different ways, things the client is saying, so the client can re-examine them from a different angle. There are two variations on this reflection procedure. The first is called clarification of feelings. Part of what the client does in the therapy session is to express feelings about things, either directly in words or indirectly in other ways. As the feelings are expressed, the therapist repeats the expressions in different words. The purpose here is to make the client more aware of what his or her true feelings are. Simply being reminded of the feelings can help this to happen. A moment's reflection should confirm the usefulness of this technique. Feelings are often fleeting. When people express feelings in their words or actions, they often fail to notice them. Moments later, they may be unaware of having had them. If the feelings are threatening, people actively defend against recognizing them. The process of reflecting feelings back to the client allows the nature and the intensity of the feelings to become more obvious to the client. This puts the client into closer touch with the experience. The second kind of reflection in person-centered therapy is more intellectual and less emotional. It's called restatement of content. This is equivalent to what was just described but in terms of the ideas in the client's statements---the cognitive content of what he or she says. 11.7.2: Beyond Therapy to Personal Growth To humanistic psychologists, therapy isn't a special process of fixing something that's wrong. Rather, it's on a continuum with other life experiences. In this view, a person who's living life to the fullest should always engage in more or less the same processes as occur in therapy. These processes provide a way for people who have average lives---or even very good lives---to further enrich their experiences and to self-actualize even more completely. Rogers's view of the ideal way of life is captured in the term fully functioning person. He believed that personal growth throughout life should be a goal for everyone. Growth requires the same conditions as those needed for effective therapy. It requires that the people with whom you interact be genuine and open, with no holding back and no putting up false fronts. It also requires empathic understanding together with unconditional positive regard. This view on growth is similar to Maslow's view on self-actualization: Growth isn't a goal that's reached once and then cast aside. It's a way of living to be pursued throughout your lifetime. 11.8: Problems and Prospects for the Self-Actualization and Self-Determination Perspective 11.8 Evaluate the strengths and the weaknesses of the approaches of self-actualization and self-determination Many people see the views described in this chapter as forming an intuitively accessible approach to personality. The appeal of this approach derives partly from its emphasis on the uniqueness and validity of each person's experience. Indeed, this approach treats each person's subjective experience as being of great importance. This emphasis on personal experience fits with what many people bring to mind when they think of the word personality, especially when they think of their own personality. For this reason, this viewpoint feels comfortable and commonsensical to many. The humanistic viewpoint also has at least two other virtues. First, it represents an optimistic and positive view of human nature. Psychologists such as Rogers, Maslow, Deci, and Ryan have argued strenuously that people are intrinsically good---naturally motivated to be the best they can be. According to this view, that motive will be expressed in everyone, as long as other circumstances don't interfere too much. This optimistic outlook on humanity is also reflected in a practical virtue of the humanistic view. This view emphasizes the importance of fully appreciating your own life and maintaining close contact with your own feelings. This emphasis provides a strategy for living that many people have used to enrich their lives. The benefits sometimes come through formal therapy. But remember that many theorists assume there's no real distinction between therapy and the more ordinary "course corrections" that are part of normal living. Thus, the move toward personal enrichment has come for many people in informal ways. It's been sort of a self-guided exploration of how to make one's life better. Although humanistic psychology certainly has virtues, it has had problems, as well. In the past, one problem was a lack of precision. It was hard to generate research from the theories. For example, to study self-actualization, you need to know the areas of life to which the actualizing tendency is most relevant for each person you're studying. But actualization occurs in different ways for different people. In theory, it might be necessary to study as many types of behavior as there are people being studied. More recent psychologists of this general orientation have taken many steps to overcome such problems. Deci and Ryan and their co-workers, who share many orienting assumptions with earlier self-actualization theorists, have devised hypotheses that can be tested readily and in a straightforward manner. Findings from research on topics such as self-determination have provided powerful support for many assumptions of the humanistic viewpoint. A second set of criticisms of humanistic psychology aims at a quality that was just described as a virtue: its optimistic, positive view of human nature. Some critics characterize this view as arbitrary, naïve, sentimental, and romantic. Some say it has no basis other than the theorists' belief that people are inherently good. And not everyone believes that all people are inherently good (Baumeister & Campbell, 1999). The idea that everyone's self-actualization should be encouraged has also been criticized. Some argue that if this principle were carried to its extreme, it would require that everyone live life to the fullest, regardless of the consequences for anyone else. The result of such unrestrained self-expression would be chaos. Such an approach to life would create serious conflict whenever one person's self-actualization interfered with someone else's self-actualization, which certainly would happen. It's also worth noting that the optimistic overtones that permeate so much of humanistic psychology are largely missing from the writings of the existentialists. Whereas humanists such as Rogers and Maslow emphasized the fulfilling quality that can come from making your own way in the world, the existentialists emphasize that doing this is hard and can be painful. Living honestly means confronting harsh realities and absurdities and rising above them. This picture is very different from the one painted by Rogers and Maslow. It can be difficult to reconcile the warm, glowing optimism of the one view with the darkness and angst of the other. Another point of contention about the humanistic view on personality concerns the concept of free will. Theorists who emphasize self-actualization and self-determination tend to assume that people can decide for themselves what to do at any point in their lives. Others regard this conception of free will as a convenient fiction, an illusion that is misleading at best. What, then, are the prospects for this approach to personality? Although many questions remain to be answered, the future of this way of thinking seems a great deal brighter than it did 25 years ago. Several areas of vigorous and enthusiastic research activity have opened up seams of knowledge bearing on assumptions made years earlier by the pioneers of humanism. Topics such as self-determination, stereotype threat, terror management, and self-­discrepancies are all being actively explored. The development and exploration of these sorts of ideas are a source of considerable encouragement for the future prospects of this approach. Summary: Self-Actualization and Self-Determination The theorists discussed in this chapter emphasize that people have an intrinsic tendency toward self-actualization: the tendency to develop your capabilities in ways that maintain or enhance the self. This tendency promotes a sense of congruence, or integration, within the person. Its effectiveness is monitored by the organismic valuing process. People also have a need for positive regard, acceptance and affection from others. Positive regard may be unconditional, or it may be conditional on your acting in certain ways. These conditions of worth mean that the person is held worthy only if he or she is acting in a desired manner. Conditions of worth, which can be self-imposed as well as imposed by others, can cause you to act in ways that oppose self-actualization. Self-determination theory focuses on the difference between behavior that's self-determined and behavior that's controlled in some fashion. People enjoy activities more if they feel they're doing them from intrinsic interest, instead of extrinsic reward. People whose lives are dominated by activities that are controlled are less healthy than people whose lives are self-determined. Many theorists of this group assume that people have free will. This is a very hard idea to test, but people do seem to think they have free will. Studies of reactance have shown that people resist threats to freedoms they expect to have. Other research has questioned whether free will is illusory, though. Behavior that opposes the actualizing tendency creates disorganization in the sense of self. Disorganization can be reduced by two kinds of defenses. You can distort perceptions of reality to reduce the threat, or you can act in ways that prevent threatening experiences from reaching your awareness (e.g., by avoiding situations in which they occur). Use of these defenses is seen in the fact that people blame failures on factors outside themselves but take credit for successes. People also engage in self-handicapping strategies, creating esteem-protective explanations for the possibility of failure before it even happens. The use of self-handicapping is paradoxical, because it increases the likelihood of failure. Maslow elaborated on the idea of self-actualization by proposing a hierarchy of motives, ranging from basic physical needs (at the bottom) to self-actualization (at the top). Basic needs are more demanding than higher needs, which (being more subtle) can affect you only when the lower needs are relatively satisfied. Maslow's intermediate levels appear to relate to the need for positive regard, suggesting why it can be hard to ignore the desire for acceptance from others. Existential psychologists point out that with freedom comes the responsibility to choose for yourself what meaning your life has. The basic choice is to invest your life with meaning or to retreat into nothingness. When people are reminded of their own mortality, they try harder to connect to cultural values. Even if people try to find meaning, they can't escape existential guilt. No life can reflect all the possibilities it holds, because each choice rules out other possibilities. The humanistic view on personality uses many assessment techniques, including both interviews and self-reports. Regarding content, it emphasizes the self-concept, self-actualization, and self-determination. One way to assess self-concept is the Q-sort, in which a set of items is sorted into piles according to how much they apply to oneself. From the humanistic perspective, problems derive from incongruity, and therapy is a process of reintegrating a partly disorganized self. For reintegration to occur, the client must feel a sense of unconditional positive regard. In client-centered therapy, people are led to refocus on their feelings about their problems. The therapist is nonevaluative and simply helps clients to clarify their feelings. In this viewpoint, the processes of therapy blend into those of ordinary living, with the goal of experiencing continued personal growth.