question_answer

Discuss the main propositions of the humanistic approach to personality.

Or

Describe any two procedures of behavioural analysis.

Answer:

Humanistic approach to personality:

(i) Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow have particularly contributed to the development of humanistic perspective on personality.

(ii) Rogers proposed the idea of a fully functioning person. He believes that fulfilment is the motivating force for personality development.

(iii) There is an inborn tendency among persons that directs them to actualise their inherited nature.

(iv) Rogers makes two basic assumptions about human behaviour.

1. Behaviour is goal-directed and worthwhile.

2. People (who are innately good) will always choose adaptive, self-actualising behaviour.

(i) When there is a correspondence between the real self and ideal self a person is generally happy. Discrepancy between the real self and ideal self often results in unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

(ii) Rogers views personality development as a continuous process.

(iii) When social conditions are positive, the self-concept and self-esteem are high. In contrast, when the conditions are negative, the self-concept and self-esteem are low.

(iv) Atmosphere of unconditional positive regard must be created in order to ensure enhancement of people's self-concept. The client-centered therapy that attempts to create this condition.

(iv) According to Maslow, psychologically healthy people attain self-actualisation, a state in which people have reached their own fullest potential.

Or

Behavioural analysis can be done by the following methods:

1. Interview

2. Observation.

1. Interview

(i) Commonly used method for assessing personality.

(ii) Involves talking to the person being assessed and asking specific questions.

(iii) Diagnostic interviewing generally involves in-depth interviewing which seeks to go beyond the replies given by the person.

(iv) Interviews may be structured or unstructured depending on the purpose or goals of assessment.

I. Unstructured interviews:

(i) Interviewer seeks to develop an impression about a person by asking a number of questions.

II. Structured interviews:

(ii) Address very specific questions and follow a set procedure. This is often done to make objective comparison of persons being interviewed. Use of rating scales may further enhance the objectively of evaluations.

2. Observation:

(i) Use of observation for personality assessment is a sophisticated procedure that cannot be carried out by untrained people.

(ii) It requires careful training of the observer and a fairly detailed guideline about analysis of behaviour in order to assess the personality of a given person.

(iii) For example, a clinical psychologist may like to observe her/his client's interaction with family members and home visitors.

Limitations of observation and interview methods:

(1) Professional training required for collection of useful data through these methods is quite demanding and time consuming.

(2) Maturity of the psychologist is a precondition for obtaining valid data through these techniques.

(3) Mere presence of the observer may contaminate the results. As a stranger, the observer may influence the bahaviour of the person being observed and thus not obtain good data.