PERSONALITY

Elif Aysimi Duman, Ph.D.

ed2621@nyu.edu
Fall 2023
Week 9
Part V: The Phenomenological-
Humanistic Level
 The Personal Side of the Science
• Some questions at the Phenomenological-Humanistic Level
you might ask about yourself:

– What am I really feeling? How do I see myself? How do I

see my parents?
– What do I feel about myself when I don’t meet my parents’
expectations?
– How is my real self different from the self I would ideally
like to be?
– What is my ideal self?
– Am I happy? Fulfilled? Where am I going? What is my
identity? Who do I want to become?
 Historical Timeline
Bowlby
Horney Ainsworth
Klein Kohut
Freud

1825 1850 1875 1900 1925 1950 1975

Pavlov Watson Skinner Rogers

Hull Dollard Maslow
Miller Kelly

Freud:
Driven by sexual and aggressive impulses
Dark side of the human psyche

Behaviorists:
We are under stimulus control
Where is free will?
 Chapter 12:
Phenomenological-
Humanistic Conceptions
Phenomenological-Humanistic
Level Kelly

• Each person has a unique frame of reference:

– Phenomenology: “The subjective experiences of an individual”
– Personality can be understood by understanding subject experiences:
thoughts, values, feelings…

• Emphasis on the human as an “agent”

– Not a passive recipient of environmental stimuli.
– Self-determination and free-will are important.
– Psychopathology: when people start to believe they don’t have
free-will.
Rogers, Maslow
• Humans are intrinsically good
– Persistent effort for growth, learning, and self-perfecting
 Sources of Phenomenological-
Humanistic Perspectives
• Humanistic psychology: devoted to promoting a “holistic
psychology”, studying the individual as a whole person,
focusing on subjective experience and the self.

• Phenomenology: study of consciousness and experience

of things and events as the individual perceives them.
– Existentialism: Human beings are free agents and
responsible for their own behavior.
• This responsibility is at the root of the deep dread
and anxiety that characterizes human beings.
• Also gives great freedom and potential for change.
 Phenomenological-
Humanistic Level
• Emphasis on the present:
– Not interested in the past in and of itself

– Motives/life forces to be understood in their role in the

present regardless of their origins in the past

– Personality is not fixed, it evolves as self develops and

influenced by free will.

– Contemporaneity of motives (Allport)

– Principle of contemporaneity (Lewin)

 Allport’s Functional Autonomy
• Uniqueness of humans à Behavior is motivated originally
by instincts, but later may sustain itself without providing
any biological gratifications.
• Functional autonomy — maturity providing the ability to
separate behaviors from any earlier motive of infancy.
• Contemporaneity of motives asserted that motives should
be understood by their role in the present, not the past.

1. Motives become independent of their roots (func autonomy)

2. A proprium or self develops, characterized by:
Bodily sense Rational thought Self-identity
Self-esteem Self-image
3. A unique, integrated pattern of adaptation marks the person
as a whole.
 Kurt Lewin's Life Space
• In field theory, an object is perceived based on the total
context of its surroundings.
• Lewin defined life space as “totality of facts that determine the
behavior (B) of the person (P) in the psychological env (E)”
B = f (P, E)
• The principle of contemporaneity: only present facts can
cause present behavior and they need to be considered.
• Permeable boundaries exist between the person and the
psychological environment, and the life space and the physical
world.
• Lewin rejected both
the idea of unchanging
traits and the concept
of needs.
 Phenomenology & Existentialism:
The Here and Now
• Influences by Allport & Lewin, advances by Rogers & Maslow.
• Carl Rogers: personality shaped by private experiences,
subjective perceptions and self.
• Abraham Maslow proposed that much behavior is driven by
higher needs to self-actualize one’s potential.
• Rogers & Maslow related to existentialists: each person is
– a choosing agent
Focus on the “here and now”
– a free agent rather than the past.
– a responsible agent
• The inevitability of death causes existential anxiety.
à face yourself and live responsibly.
 Carl Rogers’ Self Theory
• Emphasizes the unique, subjective experience of the person.

• The way one sees & interprets the events in life determines
how one responds and deals with them.

• Individuals are the best experts on themselves and has the

most information about themselves.

• Behavior: goal-directed attempt to satisfy our needs as

experienced & perceived.
 Rogers & Self-Actualization
• Abandoned specific motivational constructs and viewed the
organism as an organized whole.

– Function of the whole organism is a tendency toward self-

fulfillment, self-actualization and self-enhancement.

• During self-actualizing, we value our experiences:

– Experiences valued as positive vs. negative in terms of their
contribution to self-actualization.

• Emotions aid adjustment by facilitating goal-directed

behavior.
 Rogers & The Self
– The self (self-concept): an organized whole that includes
perceptions about oneself and one’s relationships to others
and life.
– Interactions with environment differentiate portion of
perceptual field into the self:
à influence one’s perception and behavior.

– Self vs. actual experiences: If one’s actual

(intrinsic/organisimic) experiences conflict with perceptions
about self, there is a maladjustment.

– Toilet training: enjoyable to relieve physiological tension

vs.
Parental words/actions indicating the behavior as bad.
 Rogers’
Consistency and Positive Regard
• Perception is selective: We perceive experiences consistent
with our self-concept: our “frame of reference”
– Experiences inconsistent with self à perceived as threats à
rigid and defensive self structure.

• A universal need for positive regard: as awareness of self

emerge à one’s desire for acceptance and love from oneself
and others.

• When the person experiences only unconditional positive

regard, self-regard is not at variance with organismic
evaluation. à psychological adjustment (very rare)
 Rogers’
Consistency and Positive Regard
• Anger toward parent, but avoiding the feeling to be a “good
child” (positive regard)
– Child acquired a condition of worth: The condition others
implicitly make a requirement for being loved and worthwhile.

• Individuals may distort or disregard experiences violating

their conditions of worth.

• If there is significant incongruence between the self-

concept and evaluation of an experience, defenses may fail.
à strategies to protect self-esteem

• Exps?
 Self-Determination Theory
• Following Roger’s ideas, developed by Deci & Ryan

• Actions can be:

1) controlled by external pressure or to gain external rewards.
– e.g. parental pressure to do well; get paid for joyless job
2) have intrinsic value for the individual: They are the result of
self-determination.

• If individual thinks the action is self-determined (have

intrinsic value) à increased satisfaction and motivation

• If the action is done by external pressure, less satisfaction

and motivation.
• Exps?
Client-Centered (Rogerian) Therapy
• Client-centered therapy seeks the harmonious interaction
of the self and the organismic experience.
• The congruent therapist feels free to be himself and to
accept the client fully and immediately.
• Allows client to revise self-structure and achieve greater
internal congruity and self-actualization.

• Unlike Freudian therapy, therapists:

– Focus on understanding feelings rather than making
interpretations.
– Convey empathy and acceptance.
– Less focus on “objective” measurements, more on how
each patient - and the therapist – feels.
 Self-Actualization as a Need
(Maslow)
• The Phenomenological-Humanistic Level views “healthy
people” as those who:
– Become aware of and accept themselves, their feelings,
and their limits.
– Experience the “here-and-now”, are not anxiously stuck
on the past or the future.
– Realize their potentialities, have autonomy and are not
trapped by expectations of others and society.
• Maslow spent his life studying
the “best adjusted”, those who
got the most out of life.
• Hierarcy of needs motivate
behavior.
 Self-Actualization as a Need
(Maslow)
Distinctly human, psychological,
Growth-based:
abstract-complex, less immediate
“want to”

Self
actualization

Esteem needs

Love & belongingness

Safety & physical security

Physiological needs
Primitive- animalistic, biological, Deficiency-based:
demanding, survival-related, “have to”
immediate satisfaction
 George Kelly’s Psychology of
Personal Constructs

• Personal construct theory focuses on how the person sees

events and self on his/her own dimensions (not of the therapist).
– “construct”: a way of perceiving/interpreting an event;
no clear right/wrong.
• The same behavior or event is construed distinctly by different
people. -reality is constructed. We need to understand one’s
construct system to understand them.
• For Kelly personal constructs are bipolar
– The applied end of a construct is its emergent pole (e.g., “aggressive”)
– The unapplied opposite end is its implicit pole (e.g., “weak”)
– Not necessarily logically opposite.
 Exploring Personal Constructs
• Highly permeable constructs can fit a wide range of
information into them (e.g., “good vs. immoral”)
• Free-will and determinism?
– “This personal construct system provides humankind with both freedom
of decision and limitations of action -- freedom because it permits him to
deal with the meaning of events rather than forces him to be helplessly
pushed about by them and limitation, because he can never make
choices outside the world of alternatives he has erected for himself.”
Kelly, 1958, p. 58

• Anxiety occurs when construct systems fail to help us

understand events and people
• Threat occurs when the central constructs fail to function
(e.g., major life crises and traumas)
 Exploring Personal Constructs
• Kelly created the Role Construct Repertory (“Rep”) Test
to measure personal constructs. You:
– List important people or things for you.
– Divide them in groups of 3 and indicate how 2 of the items
are similar to each other and dissimilar from the 3rd.
– Dimensions of similarity among events, and the opposites
of those dimensions, may then be elaborated & explored.
List of 20-30 roles believed to be important for most people
Mom, Dad, Teacher you liked, Neighbor you like etc.
Name a person you know who fits each role
Pick any 3
Indicate the way 2 are similar to each other and different from the
third
Mom & Teacher => outgoing VS. brother => shy
Subjective dimensions of similarity-dissimilarity
Reveals people’s construct system
 Exercise
1) List the 3 most important people in your life.

2) How are any 2 of these alike and different from the 3rd?

3) Think of yourself now, 5 years ago, and 5 years from

now. How are any two of these alike and different from
the 3rd?