# Humanistic Psychology

Psychology I · History of Psychology · https://tryals.app/learn/psychology-i/humanistic-psychology

## The Third Force and Maslow

**Humanistic Psychology** emerged in the 1950s as a **"Third Force"** against Behaviorism (treating people as stimulus-response machines) and Psychoanalysis (focusing on unconscious conflict). It emphasizes human growth, free will, and inherent goodness.

**Abraham Maslow** proposed the **Hierarchy of Needs**, a five-tier pyramid: physiological needs at the base, followed by safety, love and belonging, esteem, and **self-actualization** at the summit (fulfilling one's unique potential).

| Figure | Central Contribution |
| --- | --- |
| Maslow | Hierarchy of needs, self-actualization |
| Rogers | Unconditional positive regard, congruence |

**Common pitfall:** Treating Maslow's pyramid as a rigid staircase. People often pursue higher needs like esteem or creativity even when lower physiological or safety needs are unmet.

## Rogers and Person-Centered Growth

**Carl Rogers** developed **Person-Centered Therapy**, asserting that growth requires **unconditional positive regard** (total acceptance regardless of behavior), genuineness, and empathy.

Psychological distress stems from **incongruence**, a mismatch between your **self-concept** (beliefs about who you are) and your **ideal self** (the person you wish to be).

| Concept | Definition |
| --- | --- |
| **Self-concept** | Organized beliefs and perceptions about oneself |
| **Ideal self** | The person one wishes or strives to be |
| **Incongruence** | A painful mismatch between self-concept and ideal self |

Growth happens when supportive environments bridge the gap between actual experience and self-perception.

## Practice questions

6 of this lesson's 12 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Rogers held that distress comes from **conditions of worth**: approval given only when you behave a certain way. Why would conditional approval cause lasting damage?

A. Because approval that must be earned is always withdrawn eventually
B. Because it teaches that behaviour has consequences, which produces anxiety
C. Because the person learns to disown what was never approved
D. Because conditional approval is experienced as rejection, which lowers self-esteem

**Answer:** C. Because the person learns to disown what was never approved

**Why:** What is never accepted gets edited out, so the presented self and the felt self drift apart, and incongruence, not disapproval, is what Rogers takes to be doing the damage. Unconditional positive regard is not indulgence; it is removing the reason to keep hiding.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/humanistic-psychology/rogers-held-that-distress-comes-from-conditions-of-worth-approval

### 2. Select every statement that is TRUE about humanistic psychology.

A. Incongruence between self-concept and experience can cause distress.
B. It arose as a reaction against both behaviorism and psychoanalysis.
C. It emphasized unconscious sexual conflict as the root of personality.
D. Maslow claimed lower needs must be fully satisfied before any higher need matters.
E. Unconditional positive regard means acceptance regardless of behavior.

**Answer:** A. Incongruence between self-concept and experience can cause distress.; B. It arose as a reaction against both behaviorism and psychoanalysis.; E. Unconditional positive regard means acceptance regardless of behavior.

**Why:** The Third-Force reaction, unconditional positive regard, and incongruence-causing-distress are all true. Maslow allowed higher needs amid unmet lower ones, and unconscious sexual conflict is Freudian - so those two are false.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/humanistic-psychology/select-every-statement-that-is-true-about-humanistic-psychology

### 3. Maslow held that a lower need must be fully satisfied before a person can pursue the one above it.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** False. Maslow explicitly allowed partial satisfaction and overlap, people pursue meaning while hungry and create while isolated. The rigid staircase is a textbook simplification, and it is the version cross-cultural evidence contradicts; the catalogue of needs has aged far better than the ordering.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/humanistic-psychology/maslow-held-that-a-lower-need-must-be-fully-satisfied-before-a-person

### 4. Maslow's hierarchy is usually drawn as a pyramid in which each level must be satisfied before the next is pursued. Maslow himself denied this. Why does the strict version fail as a description of what people do?

A. Because needs are satisfied all at once rather than progressively, so no ordering applies at all.
B. Because the levels are in the wrong order, with esteem needs in fact preceding belonging needs.
C. Because people routinely pursue higher needs while lower ones go unmet.
D. Because self-actualization is not a genuine need but a cultural preference of wealthy societies.

**Answer:** C. Because people routinely pursue higher needs while lower ones go unmet.

**Why:** The rigid pyramid is largely an artefact of how the theory got illustrated; Maslow's claim is about typical potency and he allowed reversals explicitly. What survives is worth keeping, unmet basic needs crowd out attention, which is one reason a hungry child learns less. That is a claim about pull, not about locked doors.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/humanistic-psychology/maslows-hierarchy-is-usually-drawn-as-a-pyramid-in-which-each-level

### 5. Order Maslow's hierarchy of needs from the base of the pyramid to its summit.

**Answer:**

1. Physiological needs (food, water)
2. Safety needs
3. Love and belonging
4. Esteem
5. Self-actualization

**Why:** Maslow's pyramid runs physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization at the summit. Lower needs generally become motivating priorities before higher ones - though Maslow treated this as a tendency, not an iron law.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/humanistic-psychology/order-maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-from-the-base-of-the-pyramid-to-its

### 6. Sort each idea by the humanistic psychologist who is most associated with it.

**Answer:**

- Maslow: A hierarchy of needs, Self-actualization at the pyramid's summit
- Rogers: Unconditional positive regard, Incongruence between self-concept and the ideal self, Person-centered therapy

**Why:** The needs hierarchy and self-actualization are Maslow's; unconditional positive regard, incongruence, and person-centered therapy are Rogers's. Both are humanists, but their central constructs differ - needs versus the self-concept.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/humanistic-psychology/sort-each-idea-by-the-humanistic-psychologist-who-is-most-associated