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Until the 1960’s, behaviourism and psychoanalysis dominated research and clinical practice
in psychology. Humanistic theory, with Rogers’ work at the forefront, provided such a
challenge to both methodologies that it became known as the ‘third force’ (Ellis, Abrams &
Abrams, 2009), and its contribution is still regarded by many as highly relevant
(Kirschenbaum & Jourdan, 2005; Elkins, 2009). Haggbloom et al. (2002) ranked Rogers
second only to Freud as the most influential clinical psychologist of the twentieth century.
However, Rogers’ ranking comes mainly from citations in introductory textbooks, which the
survey authors describe as a feature of theorists whose ideas are mainly of historical interest.
Humanistic psychology is currently considered by some as outside the mainstream, and even
current understanding.
actualisation” (Rogers, 1959), and his ideas should be considered in terms of his own
definition of growth (Levitt, Stanley, Frankel, & Raina, 2005). Rogers’ theories contain a
number of significant elements, each of which will be evaluated in terms of impact and
verifiability. It will be argued that, although some elements remain unverified and are only of
relevance to the history of psychology, others have made a highly significant contribution to
Rogers maintained that his theories rested on a principle called the “actualizing tendency,” a
positive directional tendency within every organism towards maintenance, enhancement and
reproduction (Rogers, 1980). Rogers’ belief in the actualizing tendency came from observing
changes in his clients’ personalities during therapy sessions, and his theories of development
and therapeutic growth are inextricably linked (Rogers, 1959). As he did not make a
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 3
particular distinction between the process of growth in the adult, and in the child, this essay
The second key element of Rogers’ theory of personal growth is his view of the self.
According to Rogers (1959), the self is formed when a person’s organism begins to perceive
certain parts of the “phenomenal field”, which is all the experiences available to perception at
a given moment, as related to its own being and functioning. The self-actualizing tendency is,
therefore, the actualizing tendency operating on the Rogerian “self”. The idea of such an
innate positive tendency challenged the assumptions of the time. Behaviourism viewed
development as the formation of responses to stimuli, and could not conceptualize a positive
force within the individual such as self-actualization (Ellis, Abrams & Abrams, 2009).
Although psychoanalytic theory posited the existence of drives within the psyche, it asserted
that the fundamental tendency of the individual was always towards drive reduction, and not
growth (Ellis, Abrams & Abrams, 2009). Rogers’ concept of self-actualization was
influenced by, but dissimilar to, that of the humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow (Rogers,
1980). Maslow believed that self-actualization was the highest level of human potential, a
desire for personal fulfilment that the individual was driven towards but which could only be
attained after the satisfaction of more basic needs, such as belonging, which involved the
need for love and group affiliation, and esteem, which was the need for self-respect and the
respect of one’s peers. Being self-actualized involved finding meaning in life, inner peace,
and functioning at the peak of one’s abilities in a chosen area (Maltby, Day & Macaskill,
2010).
The existence of a positive tendency within the individual is significant for our understanding
(1980, p.120) gives as evidence, firstly, the fact that a cell taken from a sea urchin larva
grows into a full organism, rather than simply a part, and secondly, the inability of the genetic
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 4
code to fully specify the nature of the mature organism. Evidence from simple organisms and
genetics cannot necessarily be generalized to human psychology, making Rogers’ point more
of a philosophical than a scientific one. More concrete empirical evidence comes from a
study by Sheldon and Elliot (1999). 169 psychology students were asked to list 10 personal
goals, and then to rate the goals in terms of how intrinsic they were to their own values and
needs. Self-concordance of goals was shown to correlate positively both with academic effort
over a semester, and feelings of subjective well-being. Sheldon, Arndt, and Houser-Marko
(2003), measured change in participants’ goal pursuits over specific periods of time. They
rated prototypical goals in terms of whether they were intrinsic or extrinsic. Participants were
asked to rate the importance of the goals, and then to re-rate them up to six months later. A
significant difference was found between the participants’ second ratings of the two different
types of goal, with the intrinsic goals being rated higher the second time. Both sets of
findings suggest the existence of an innate positive tendency within the individual. In
addition to the support for Rogers’ theory, evidence also exists for Maslow’s view of self-
interpretations, showing that the construct itself may have some validity (Tosi & Lindamood,
1975). Given the evidence, it may be concluded that a positive tendency towards forms of
personality development such as those posited by the humanist psychologists probably exists.
However, more research is required to determine the precise nature of the tendency.
Given favourable conditions, the actualizing tendency operating within an individual resulted
in what Rogers described as a “fully functioning person,” the ideal final stage of personality
capable of trusting their emotions, and self-aware. Such a person saw the world in a realistic
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 5
way, was creative, and accepting of both others and themselves (Rogers, 1961). The idea
bears some similarity to Maslow’s self-actualized individual, also described as creative and
accepting, amongst other characteristics (Maltby, 2010). However, Rogers did not believe, as
Maslow did, that basic needs such as the need for security had to be satisfied before self-
actualization was possible. The humanistic psychologists’ conceptions of the fully developed
individual are significant as they offered a new definition of personality development itself.
fixed ages. Failure to navigate any of the stages successfully would result in personality or
illness by resolving fixations in the patient’s development (Maltby, 2010), suggesting that in
Freudian theory, optimal development was viewed simply as being free from psychological
problems. Behaviourist psychologists believed that development took place not through a
behaviours, which are reinforced through repetition (Feldman, 2008). Behaviourism’s total
focus on external behaviours meant that it could not conceptualize internal personality
Whilst it could be said that Rogers’ and Maslow’s ideas of the self-actualized individual
redefined the way we think about personal growth, the evidence they put forward in support
of their definitions is open to criticism. Rogers (1961, p.165) describes a study by Morris
involving factor analysis of the life goals of students of six diverse nationalities. Morris found
five underlying dimensions common to all the national groups: morality, the overcoming of
obstacles, self-awareness, receptivity to nature and persons, and the ability to enjoy simple
sensual pleasures. Although Rogers describes Morris’ ideas as unconvincing, and puts
forward his own set of common life goals based on observations of clients in therapy, two of
the dimensions uncovered by Morris’ factor analysis, self-awareness and receptivity to nature
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 6
and persons, are very similar to elements of Rogers’ idea of the self-actualized individual. In
individuals, his descriptions resulted from interviews with a number of individuals who he
had himself identified as self-actualized (Maltby, 2010), thus creating a somewhat circular
argument. Modern neuroscience offers stronger potential support for Rogers’ and Maslow’s
ideas. A network of cortical areas including the anterior insula (AI) is believed to be partly
responsible for encoding the perception of emotional experiences in both the self and others
(Silani, Zucconi & Lamb, 2013). Bird et al. (2010) observed reduced activation of these areas
in individuals with difficulties in emotional awareness. The reduced activation related to both
reduced awareness of emotions in the self, and in others, giving support to one of Rogers’ key
propositions regarding personality development: “When the individual perceives and accepts
into one consistent and integrated system all his or her sensory and visceral experiences, then
the relationship between emotional awareness of the self and others, and activation of specific
individuals, offers the potential for research which could make a significant contribution to
Rogers (1959) observed what he believed to be several conditions necessary for the
positive attitude toward a client as a person, even when the client described a particular
behaviour the therapist found undesirable. Other conditions were as follows. The therapist
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 7
and the client must be in contact, which meant that each person was communicating their
own subjective and emotional reality to the other. The client had to be in a state of
incongruence, which meant that aspects of the self’s directional tendencies were at odds with
the actualizing tendency of the organism. The therapist had to be congruent in the
relationship, meaning that they expressed their own internal experiences authentically to the
client. Rogers’ final conditions for therapeutic growth were that the therapist have an
empathic understanding of the client, and that the client be able to perceive both the
therapist’s empathic understanding, and his unconditional positive regard. Rogers (1959)
stated that his observations of people in therapy could be generalized to other areas of
A number of studies have attempted to verify Rogers’ theories regarding the necessary
conditions for successful therapy. A meta-study by Elliot (2002) compared the effectiveness
of Rogerian client-centred therapy (CCT) with other forms of humanistic therapy, and with
cognitive-behavioural therapy. Although the study showed that pure CCT was somewhat
effective, other forms of humanistic therapy, and cognitive behavioural therapy, were both
shown to be more so. This suggests that the precise conditions Rogers proposed are only
necessary to a certain extent. As Rogers’ ideas on personality development were based on his
theories of therapy (Rogers, 1959), this also calls into question some of his more general
concepts, such as the need for unconditional positive regard. However, Rogers was one of the
first theorists to popularize the notion that the relationship between therapist and patient (and
by generalization, the relationship between child and parent) was a vital element in the
development of personality (Ellis, Abrams & Abrams, 2009). Whilst the conditions for
therapy proposed by Rogers, as described above, may not be precise descriptions of the
necessary conditions for personality growth, they were almost all connected with the
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 8
relationship between therapist and client. Meta-analyses have shown this relationship, which
Rogers described as the ‘working alliance’, to be more significant for growth in therapy than
the type of therapy itself (Horvath & Symond, 1991; Wampold, 2001).
Rogers theorized that unconditional positive regard was a major factor in healthy personality
conditions on their positive regard for a child. Such conditions might be desirable behaviours
such as tidiness, or the absence of undesirable behaviours such as fighting. The infant would
learn to appraise themselves as a whole, or gestalt, based on the sum of the caregivers’
expression (Rogers, 1959). Due to the individual’s need for positive self-regard, which was
usually based on perceptions of others’ reactions, he or she would ‘introject’ (Rogers’ term)
the values of the significant other, and learn to regard certain behaviours positively which the
individual’s organism found undesirable, or to regard behaviours which the organism found
desirable, negatively. Such behavioural conditions, at odds with the organism, but required
for the individuals self-esteem, were described as ‘conditions of worth’ (Rogers, 1959).
Rogers believed that having conditions of worth could lead to development which was less
than optimal. If an individual received sensory information which indicated that a condition
of worth was not being satisfied, this caused anxiety, as it threatened the individual’s self-
esteem. The threat might result in perceptual distortions, where individuals were unable to
integrate information from their senses which was not consistent with their own sense of self.
Defences would be constructed, in order to enable the individual to reduce anxiety by altering
their perceptions of reality (Rogers, 1959). For example, an individual might have a condition
of worth based on their academic ability. If they receive poor grades in a particular subject,
they might defend their self-esteem by devaluing the subject itself rather than admitting they
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 9
find it difficult and seeking help. In extreme cases, these distortions of reality could produce
As with other elements of his theory, Rogers’ ideas about the effects of conditions of worth
investigate, whereas Rogers welcomed scientific inquiry into his theories of development as
long as it did not obscure the importance of personal subjective reality (Rogers, 1980).
and fantasy (Rogers, 1961) clearly come from psychoanalytic theory, the psychoanalytic
view of how such defence mechanisms originate was very different to Rogers’. According to
Freud, the unconscious was often the source of negative or bestial desires which could not be
acted upon. To reduce the resulting tension, the individual constructed defences, which were
considered a normal part of psychological development unless the distortions of reality were
so extreme that they resulted in neurosis or psychosis. Rogers’ view was far more positive, as
he believed that a fully integrated individual could exist without defence mechanisms. Strong
evidence for the relation between perceptual distortions and conditions of worth comes from
Q-sort procedure, which involved arranging cards with statements describing personality
attributes into categories according to how well participants felt the statements described
them. He then compared this with an assessment of the individual’s personality based on
threatening. Chodorkoff found that the more individuals’ self-perceptions differed from
assessments based on personality tests, the greater the degree of defensiveness exhibited.
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 10
Assuming that the projective and word association tests give a genuine measure of the
individual’s organismic self, this provides strong correlational evidence for Rogers’ theory.
Whilst certain of the details of Rogers’ and humanistic psychology’s theories of personal
growth have not been verified by research, many of the general principles have. The
existence of a positive tendency towards growth may not take the exact form that Rogers
suggests, but evidence shows that such a tendency exists. Although the exact principles of
Rogerian therapy may not result in the most effective outcomes, the relationship between
client and therapist has been shown to be the most effective predictor of therapeutic growth.
Limited evidence also exists for the existence of conditions of worth and their role in
personality development, and modern techniques such as brain imaging now offer the
possibility to further investigate humanistic theories and create a precise science of optimal
growth.
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 11
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