PSY 3520 Module 4 Humanistic Theories Paper: Maslow's Needs, Rogers's Conditions of Worth and Modern Evidence Example

More Than a Raise: Testing Maslow and Rogers on What People Need

Student Name

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Thomas Edison State University

PSY-3520: Psychology of Personality

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

More Than a Raise: Testing Maslow and Rogers on What People Need

Introduction

After high turnover, our hospital raised aides' pay by a dollar an hour. Exit surveys a few months later showed little change in morale. Then the nursing department started a mentoring program in which experienced aides were paired with new ones and recognized for their skill. Morale scores rose noticeably. The difference made me think about humanistic theories, which emphasize growth, belonging and self-worth rather than drives or rewards. This paper explains Maslow's and Rogers's theories and tests them against research.

The Humanistic Approach

Humanistic psychology emerged in the mid-twentieth century as an alternative to psychoanalysis and behaviorism. It emphasized human potential, free will and the subjective experience of the person, and it held that people tend by nature to grow and fulfill themselves when their environment supports it.

Maslow's Hierarchy

Maslow proposed that human needs form a hierarchy. Physiological needs, such as food and sleep, come first, followed by safety, then belonging and love, esteem next and self-actualization at the top, the realization of one's full potential. Lower needs, he argued, must be reasonably satisfied before higher needs become strong motivators. He studied people he considered self-actualized, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, and described them as accepting, spontaneous, problem-centered and capable of deep relationships.

Rogers's Theory

Rogers placed the self at the center of personality. He proposed that people have an actualizing tendency, an innate drive to grow, and a need for positive regard from others. When children receive love only when they meet certain expectations, they develop conditions of worth, believing they are valuable only if they behave in certain ways. They then deny or distort experiences that conflict with these conditions, so that the self-concept and actual experience drift apart, a gap Rogers called incongruence that breeds anxiety. Unconditional positive regard, acceptance without conditions, allows people to become congruent and fully functioning.

Testing Maslow: Needs Around the World

Tay and Diener (2011) analyzed data from more than 60,000 people in 123 countries, measuring the fulfillment of needs similar to Maslow's and several aspects of well-being. Fulfillment of needs was associated with well-being around the world. Basic needs were most strongly related to life evaluation, how people rated their lives overall, while social needs and needs for respect were more strongly related to positive feelings. However, people reported well-being from fulfilling social and higher needs even when their basic needs were not fully met, which contradicts the strict ordering of Maslow's hierarchy. The authors concluded that Maslow was right about the universality of needs but that needs operate more independently than a ladder implies.

Testing Which Needs Matter Most

Sheldon et al. (2001) asked students in the United States and South Korea to describe their most satisfying recent events and to rate how much each of ten candidate needs had been met. Autonomy, competence, relatedness and self-esteem were the needs most strongly present in satisfying events. Self-actualization or meaning, physical thriving and popularity were less central, and money and luxury ranked lowest. The findings support humanistic emphases on growth and connection and challenge the idea that material rewards are the main source of satisfaction.

Testing Rogers: Conditions of Worth

Crocker and Wolfe (2001) developed the concept of contingencies of self-worth, the domains on which people stake their self-esteem, such as appearance, approval from others, academic success or virtue. When self-worth depends heavily on meeting conditions in a domain, success brings temporary boosts and failure brings sharp drops, making self-esteem fragile and emotions volatile. People invest effort in protecting their worth in those domains, sometimes at the cost of learning or relationships. Their research echoes Rogers's conditions of worth and suggests that worth based on unconditional acceptance is more stable.

Back to the Raise and the Mentoring Program

The research helps explain what happened at the hospital. The raise addressed a basic need, but, as Sheldon and colleagues found, money ranked low among the needs that make experiences satisfying. The mentoring program met needs for relatedness, competence and esteem by connecting aides, building their skills and recognizing their expertise. Tay and Diener's findings suggest that these social and esteem needs can raise well-being even when pay is modest, though pay still matters for overall life satisfaction.

Self-Determination Theory

Modern self-determination theory builds on humanistic ideas with extensive research. It names autonomy, competence and relatedness as basic psychological needs, the very needs that ranked highest in Sheldon and colleagues' study. Workplaces and schools that support these needs tend to have more motivated, engaged and satisfied people, a finding with clear implications for supervisors.

Applying Rogers at Work

Rogers's ideas suggest that supervisors who give feedback focused on specific behavior, while conveying that the employee is valued, help people grow without making their worth feel conditional on every task. Crocker and Wolfe's research suggests that workplaces where approval feels contingent may produce anxious, defensive employees.

Conditional Regard in Families

Research on parenting finds that when parents give affection only when children meet expectations, children may comply in the short term but report more resentment and less stable self-esteem, consistent with Rogers's warning about conditions of worth.

Criticisms

Maslow's sample of self-actualizers was small and selected by him, and his hierarchy was based more on observation than experiment. Humanistic concepts such as self-actualization are hard to measure. Critics also note that humanistic theory reflects individualistic Western values.

Limits

Tay and Diener's data are correlational. Sheldon and colleagues studied students. Contingencies of self-worth were studied mostly in college samples.

Conclusion

Tay and Diener showed that Maslow's needs predict well-being worldwide but not in strict hierarchical order, Sheldon and colleagues showed that autonomy, competence, relatedness and self-esteem make experiences most satisfying and Crocker and Wolfe showed how conditional self-worth makes self-esteem fragile. Maslow and Rogers were right that people need more than material rewards, and a workplace that meets needs for connection, growth and worth can do what a raise alone cannot.

References

Crocker, J., & Wolfe, C. T. (2001). Contingencies of self-worth. Psychological Review, 108(3), 593-623. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.108.3.593

Sheldon, K. M., Elliot, A. J., Kim, Y., & Kasser, T. (2001). What is satisfying about satisfying events? Testing 10 candidate psychological needs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(2), 325-339. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.80.2.325

Tay, L., & Diener, E. (2011). Needs and subjective well-being around the world. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(2), 354-365. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023779