Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology

Growth psychology and humanistic psychology emphasises that we all have a higher motivation towards personal growth and development. It looks at motivation in holistic way in that it considers that people as a whole are motivated to behave, not that parts of themselves motivate behaviour. The example which Reeve (2009) gives which states it is John Smith who desires food, not John Smith’s stomach, helped me to clarify this perspective.

The idea of self actualization is central to growth psychology.  I remember first hearing about self actualization in high school and since then have heard many different explanations about what it actually means.  This may be because self actualization actually means different things to different people because, as Reeve (2009) suggests, it is a process of realization of one’s talents capacities and potentials. It involves both becoming autonomous in regulating one’s own thoughts feelings and behaviours as well as being open to new experiences and to potentially anxiety provoking challenges.

In order to achieve self actualization Maslow suggested 6 behaviours which encourage self actualization. Firstly, make growth choices, that is to approach challenges rather than to avoid them or take the easy way out. Be honest rather than conform to social norms, conform to what you truly believe, enjoy and value.  Situationally position yourself for peak experiences, that is to set up conditions which foster your talents and interests and not to waste time on activities that you are not interested in or good at. Give up defensiveness be open to make mistakes or be in anxiety provoking situations and see them as opportunities to change. Let the self emerge instead of looking to others for guidance on how to live look to yourself and listen to your inner voice and aspirations. Be open to experience, experience things fully and without being self conscious, become absorbed in what you do. If one follows these guides as well as fostering rich relationships with others they can reach their full potential and become self actualised (Reeve, 2009). Although I think these guides are great advise and agree that they would most likely lead to self actualisation, I think they are quiet broad and simplistic. In real life applications, I think smaller behaviour change steps would be needed first, to begin to make the behaviour changes suggested my Maslow.

Maslow believed in a hierarchy of needs which once fulfilled, lead to the highest (and rarest) need of self actualization. Carl Rodgers, however, suggested that all needs have the collective purpose of fulfilling the ultimate need to actualize and reach ones full potential, thus from birth one has the tendency to strive towards actualization. Rodger’s also suggested that as one develops they begin to form a self-concept through interaction with others. If during childhood ones parents show unconditional positive regard, loving of the individual as they are without placing conditions of worth on them, then a positive self concept develops. Conditions of worth include implying that one is only worth ones love and affection if they behave in particular ways or follow particular rules and norms. Although it sounds like a nice idea to provide ones children with love and support no matter how they behave, in reality it may not be very realistic. Inevitably parents must enforce rules and regulations about how their children behaves and although I can understand the idea that one should not label a child as bad but their behaviour as bad, I think it would be difficult to find any people who experienced completely unconditional positive regards when growing up. In saying that, I still believe that conditions of worth, if excessive, would defiantly be damaging to one’s self concept and wellbeing. 

Rodgers also suggested that to be fully functioning and healthy one must have congruence between their actual self and their perceived self. I found the study in which the extent to which people’s adult temperaments was congruent to their parent rated childhood temperament related to their psychological wellbeing, was really interesting. Being true to yourself is thus very important to ones mental health so encouraging people to behave in ways that might be socially desirable but incongruent with their self will be damaging. I think this relates to the idea of validation seeking versus growth seeking which was discussed later in the material. People most often changed their behaviours or act in ways incongruent with their true self in order to gain social approval and validation from others. Whether it is to fit into the popular social group or to please ones parents, behaviour motivated by validation seeking is increases anxiety and fear of failure and is related to other mental health difficulties.

Similar to humanistic and growth psychology is positive psychology. Positive psychology focuses on building strengths and competencies to increase one’s self esteem based on achievement of skills. I defiantly agree that building skills and confidence is more important that solely concentrating on inflating self-esteem.

I found the discussion of the existential approach very interesting. Existential approaches emphasise the search for meaning in life and the idea that one must create their own meaning. This approach also emphasises an internal locus of control orientation and suggests that mental health problems come from looking towards external meanings, as there is no innate meaning to life but that each individual has to create a unique meaning  (Yalom, 1980).

Reeve, J. (2009). Understanding motivation and emotion (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Yalom, I., D. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. New York, USA: Yalom Family trust.