Ch 15 Growth Motivation

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Read Chapter 15.

Summarize the chapter. What was the most surprising/interesting thing you learned? What aspects of growth motivation are you engaged in? Does learning about the existence of growth motivation make you want to develop any new goals? How do you think you might be able to better to achieve those goals knowing about how the principles of growth motivation work?

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Humanism

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The chapter focuses on growth motivation and positive psychology. Positive psychology is still relatively new and has to do with the vision of a good life and what makes life worth living. The goal of positive psychology is to make people stronger and more productive and actualize the potential in all of us.
The thing I found most interesting was Maslow’s Need Hierarchy. It is a pyramid compromised on different needs a person requires. There are deficiency needs which are things such us the need for safety, belonging, and esteem. Without these needs growth and development would be inhibited. There are also growth needs; which provide energy and direction to become what one is capable of becoming. I found this most interesting because most concepts or theories that were developed long ago are generally altered or no longer used but this one is still widely used in all sorts of settings. It can also be applied to all kinds of different ages and occupations. Maslow also offered insight into why few people ever reach self-actualization. He said it becomes too much and anxieties tend to take over and hold us back. This really hit home for me because there have been many times when I have felt to stressed to continue something. When working towards a teaching degree it became too much and instead of continuing on I quit and chose a different path. He also stressed how important it is to have close relationships instead of superficial ones. This was a very important idea to me because for the longest time I was surrounded with many people in my life I considered friends. After reflecting on things, I was able to conclude that many of them were not as close to me as I believed and I reduced my group to very few people I trusted and felt close with.
A new goal I want to develop is to work on myself. Whether this be just taking time to reflect on myself each day through journaling or simply just taking time out of my day to process things. By doing so, I can reflect on myself and how I feel I am doing. If I discover there’s something I don’t like I can work towards changing it. I suffer from anxiety so I am very prone to pick apart things about myself. I think through this daily self-reflection I can find ways to focus on the good things and push myself to become a better version of who I already am.
There are six behaviors that encourage growth and I think if I could bring all of these into my life I would be able to better develop my goals. One I have slowly begun to possess more is the idea of being honest. I use to be afraid to speak up and express my opinion and because of that I was walked all over. Once I started speaking up I realized I actually did have a lot to say and there were people who were willing to listen. Instead of always conforming with the group, I was honest about how I felt. I also became much more open to experience. I use to be a major homebody who hadn’t to be away from family. My capstone class led me to Nicaragua for two weeks and from then on I have embraced so many new experiences. I went back to Nicaragua for 8 more weeks this time just me and a friend. Soon I will be taking off to travel Asia for three weeks with no real plan of where we will end up. All of these experiences helped me grow as a person.
I think the idea of congruence would help me to better achieve my goals. I have always been one to get down on myself and tell myself I am not capable of doing something when in fact I more than likely am capable. I think if I am able to align my characteristics, abilities, desires, and wishes with how a present myself publicly and how I perceive myself I think I would be able to better complete goals I set for myself.

Terms:
Positive psychology
Maslow’s Need Hierarchy
Deficiency needs
Growth needs
Relationships
Congruence
Experience

Chapter Fifteen from Understanding Motivation and Emotion is a chapter about Growth Motivation and all the components that go into Self Actualization. Self Actualization is a process that develops over time and refers to as a full realization of a your talents, capacities, and potentialities. Which leads to the new thing I learned in this chapter, which is the six behaviors that encourage self actualization. The first behavior is make growth choices, which basically to me meant make choices that will over all help you get to self actualization. The second behavior is to be honest, which is very self explanatory. The third behavior is situationally position yourself for peak experiences, this means in each situation make the best out of it. The fourth behavior is give up defensiveness. The fifth behavior is let the self emerge and be seen. The sixth and final behavior is to be open to experience. All of these behaviors are new things that I learned because I didn’t realize so much went into finally achieving that placement of self actualization.
Currently I think I am engaged in two aspects of growth motivation. Those two aspects would be those six behaviors that encourage self actualization, and congruence. I would say that I often participate in these six behaviors that encourage self actualization but I need to participate more in the situational positioning behavior and giving up defensiveness. I become defensive when people try to infringe on my fiance or infringe in my personal life, when I should just explain why I don’t want them to infringe on my personal life. The second aspect of growth motivation that I engage in is congruence. Congruence is the extent to which an individual can either deny or reject or accept the full range of their personal characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. I think I engage in congruence because I do accept who I am but there are still parts of me that I reject. Which brings me to a new goal I need to work on.
Learning about this makes me want to participate in further behaviors that will increase my ability to get to self actualization. I know I am defensive because I have had a lot of people have rejected parts of my identity when getting to know me. A big part of my identity is my gender identity. I identify as transgender and I accept that part of me, but some people don’t accept it. People say that it could be because I am confused or that I just dress masculine, this is known as causality orientation. Causality orientation is peoples varying understanding of forces that cause behavior. By knowing that I have control over getting self actualization with my behaviors this can change how I view my future goals that I would like to achieve in my life time. I want to set a new goal of bringing down my defensive walls and being able to have more open conversations with individuals. By having this new goal I could start to work on all parts of myself that I get defensive about. By opening up about my defensiveness I could change the congruence I experience from rejecting defensiveness to accepting it and further getting to self actualization.
We can achieve these goals with motivation. Motivation is this internal force that is influenced by internal/external/ and social interactions that influence our behaviors. A person might be able to better achieve goals knowing how motivation works simply because motivation is a key to change in our lives. Throughout our lives, we discover things about ourselves that we like to change. However, before we start changing anything, we need to feel motivated. Without motivation, change is difficult.

Key Concepts
Growth Motivation
Self Actualization
Congruence
Causality Orientation
Motivation

Chapter fifteen talks about growth motivation and positive psychology. Positive psychology seeks to articulate the vision of the good life, and it uses the empirical methods of psychology to understand what makes life worth living. Holism is concerned with the study of what is healthy or unbroken. Humanistic psychology is about discovering human potential and encouraging its development. For humanistic thinkers, personal growth is the ultimate motivational force. Positive psychology, on the other hand, has the goal to show actions lead to experiences of well-being, to the development of positive individuals who are optimistic and resilient, and to the creation of nurturing and thriving institutions and communities. However positive psychology is not a subfield of humanistic psychology, rather both fields overlap with each other. Positive psychology, unlike humanistic psychology, is based on scientific and empirical research.
Self-actualization is an inherent developmental striving, which is a process of leaving dependency behind and moving towards independence.Two fundamental characteristics of self-actualization are autonomy and openness to experience. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is what comes to most minds when hearing the word self-actualization, and he categorized the needs into five levels with two categories - the first set of needs were physiological and the others were psychological. Deficiency needs are physiological disturbances and needs for safety, belongingness, and esteem. Growth needs surface after deficiency needs are satisfied and is more so the need to fulfill personal potential. Growth needs can also be referred to as self-actualization needs as they provide the energy and direction a person needs to become what one is capable of becoming. As previously mentioned, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is what first comes to mind with the word self-actualization, but there is little empirical research to support this hierarchy of needs.Carl Rogers’s actualizing tendency is the idea that fulfillment of physiological needs maintain and enhance the organism, as does the fulfillment of needs of belongingness and social status. Rogers believed that the actualizing tendency was innate and guides the person through a process of struggle and pain of development. This actualizing tendency is the source of that energy that motivates development toward autonomy and away from heteronomy. When going through this development, parents play a role in how a person will grow. If parents show unconditional love for a child as they naturally are, they will not grow and adapt in other ways, whereas parents that show conditional love will have children that strive for approval by parents and others. Interpersonal relationships also have an impact on one’s development in that they help others, relate to others in authentic ways, promoting freedom to learn, and defining the self. Supportive relationships provide a supportive social climate for one to self-actualize.The most interesting thing that I learned is that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not empirically supported. I always figured since it was such a popular thing in psychology that it was legitimate and supported by science, so when I read that there is no scientific evidence to support that people progress through the levels of needs, I was extremely surprised. I was also kind of not super shocked, as it seems kind of ridiculous that if a person gets knocked on their feet from a lower need being damaged due to an event that the person has to restart and work through the basic stages again.Reading this chapter, I thought a lot about “The Happiness Project”, as that’s what I read for my book report as the author was working towards betting her life rather than searching for the meaning of life. However, towards the end of the chapter it talks about the meaning of life stemming from three needs - purpose, values, and efficacy. I think these three needs may help me work towards achieving my goals by knowing and understanding that I will create meaning for myself and the things I do while accomplishing my goals.

Terms:
Holism
positive psychology
self-actualization
actualizing tendency
purpose
values
efficacy
growth motivation
hierarchy of needs
physiological
psychological

Chapter fifteen discusses the use of holism and positive psychology to explain motivation and behavior. The idea of holism is illustrated by Maslow’s statement that when someone is hungry, the person wants food; it is not the stomach asking for food. Holism also aims to help grow individuals and focus less on the concerns of others. Positive psychology aims to create personalities that are optimistic and good for growth. Positive psychology and humanistic psychology do overlap on many points, but the difference lies in the empirical research and data that support positive psychology.
Self-actualization is a subset of positive psychology. This concept relates to a realization of one person’s talents and their capacity to use such talents to achieve. Two terms within this idea are autonomy and openness: Autonomy refers to someone’s ability to depend on himself and get away from depending on others. Openness refers to someone’s ability to receive information and leave behind feelings of timidity and being defensive.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs includes deficiency needs and growth needs. The deficiency needs include physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and relationship needs, and esteem needs where growth needs include self-actualization. When someone feels deficiency needs, this means they are feeling deprived of something and they are trying to satisfy that need. Once a person feels a growth need, they feel a need to satisfy their personal potential. In this stage, they will start to learn about themselves (what they enjoy, dislike, and what they want to do in their life).
When encouraging growth there are six behaviors that are identified by Maslow: Making growth choices includes making difficult decisions that will help grow you instead of making the easy choice. Being honest includes being unique and taking responsibility for your decisions. Situationally positioning yourself for peak experiences includes using your intelligence to find out what you are good at and what you are not. By doing this, you can know what activities to invest time in and what ones to avoid. Giving up defensiveness happens when a person identifies when they are defensive and tries to eliminate that behavior. Letting the self-emerge happens when a person stops letting other people tell them who they are and when they take ownership of their personality. Finally, being open to new experiences occurs when someone experiences new situations with full concentration and focus.
There are two causality orientations that are observed in the chapter: Autonomy causality orientation and control causality orientation. In autonomy causality orientations, people believe that their needs and interests drive them to get things done. In control causality orientations, people believe that things outside of their body motivate them to do things (such as social cues). By looking at someone’s orientation, we can often determine their mindset (internal or external) and if they are growth-seeking or not.
There are differences between someone who is growth-seeking and people who are validation-seeking. People who are growth seeking look for opportunities to grow and because their main goal is growing, they do not need attention from it. People who are validation seeking mainly want the attention that comes from the situation and will look for situations in which they can get recognition. Positive psychology also brings up the idea of optimism. People who are optimistic will not let bad situations bring them down, but they will look for a way to bounce back. I think it is very interesting that optimism is looked at through a psychological lens because this word is used in everyday life. Some people consider themselves optimists as if they were born that way, but the text suggests that it is developed and learned. I notice that I help others the most (for the aspect I use in my life). By helping others, I find happiness in my own life, and I have developed a sense of optimism. Helping others can also lead to pessimism if the people around you are experiencing learned helplessness. Growth motivation makes me want to develop new goals such as sleeping more (to be more positive) and helping to encourage others (with Maslow’s six steps). I think I am able to better achieve these goals because I know some specific examples given by the text that I can use to help myself and others reach the self-actualization stage and work on myself. If I can satisfy the deficiency needs for long enough, I can work on actualization.
Terms: Holism, positive psychology, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, optimism, humanistic psychology, self-actualization, autonomy, openness, Maslow's six behaviors, causality orientations, growth-seeking and validation-seeking

Chapter 15 is all about is all about growth motivation and positive psychology. This chapter can include various information on holism and positive psychology, self-actualization, actualizing tendency, and humanistic therapy. Holism is the understanding that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than a series of parts. This means that the whole organism is motivated not just some parts. This can be shown when talking about the stomach and brain, where in an event they’re both affected. Overall humanistic psychology is about discovering human potential and encouraging its development. Positive psychology uses empirical methods of psychology to understand what makes life worth living. The overall goal of this is to show what actions lead to experiences of well-being, to the development of positive individuals who are optimistic, and to the creation of nurturing and thriving communities. Self-actualization is the next big topic discussed in this chapter, and is an inherent developmental striving. It is the process of leaving behind timidity, defense appraisals, and a dependence on others when goes with motivation towards a goal. The two main fundamentals to this are openness to experience and autonomy. Autonomy is moving forward away from heteronomy and towards the capacity to do things by oneself. Openness is the receiving of information that is not repressed, ignored, or filtered. One big part of this chapter was Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and I have learned about this before but went more in-depth within this chapter. These needs are arranged according to potency or strength, and the lower it is on the hierarchy the more of a need it is. Starting from the bottom is physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, and lastly self actualization needs. I found it super interesting that these needs are used widely today, from education and business all the way to medicine and psychotherapy. I agree with the Maslow’s second theme, being that the young tend to focus on physiological and safety needs while adults focus on actualization needs. I agree with this because generally a child is not capable of providing themselves with food or housing so it makes sense that they focus on those needs. An adult usually has food at their convenience and somewhere to live so it makes sense that they would focus more on the esteem and self actualization. The adults are also older and have had time to reach lower needs on the hierarchy, so they would be higher than children. Actualization tendency is a continual presence that quietly guides the individuals towards genetically determined potentials. The example in the book given for this is a child who goes from crawling to walking. This child does not learn to walk easily but the actualization tendency is what keeps them motivated to learn how to walk. Humanistic therapy is a way for relationships to support the actualization tendency. This is shown when a client moves towards health and psychological congruence when his/her therapist bring certain characteristics into play. Warmth, genuineness, empathy, interpersonal acceptance, and confirmation of the other person’s capacity for self-determination are all characteristics that can display this form of therapy. I can see why this therapy would be beneficial, because when I talk to my friends with their problems I often find myself using these characteristics with them, and can see that it makes them feel better. Overall this was a fun chapter to learn about!

TERMS:
Holism
Positive psychology
Humanistic psychology
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Autonomy
Warmth
Self-determination
Actualization tendency
Autonomy

Chapter 15 goes over the various perspectives that center upon personal growth motivation. Specifically, the perspectives of Aristotelian Holism, Maslow & Rogers’ Humanistic Psychology (Maslow’s Self-Actualization and Rogers’ Actualized Tendency), and the more contemporary Positive Psychology (study of the “good life;” what makes life worth living). It begins by discussing holism and the points shared with the ancient tradition in today’s positive psychology. Then it begins to fill in the major gaps between the two with Maslow’s Self-Actualization (Hierarchy of Human Needs; realization of one’s talents, capacities, and potentialities) and the introduction of deficiency (physiological/safety/belonging needs) vs. growth (self-actualization) motivation. The chapter then discusses the pitfalls of the Hierarchy theory and progresses into the Rogerian Actualizing Tendency theory (people’s actions are always motivated to actualize, maintain, and enhance their experience of self). Both these theories, Maslow’s and Rogers’, argue that the individual has innate mental presence within humans that guides us towards our genetically determined potential. Essentially, we’re all born with a certain level of greatness, and self-actualization is the process through which we arrived at this potential.

Rogers, however, argued that the individual must go through a “struggle and pain” phase followed by an evaluation process (organismic valuation) that determined whether the phase was growth-promoting or growth-blocking. The evaluation then leads to the psychological experience of self-growth. When we feel this psychological experience, we are then motivated to approach more challenges and new experiences to entice more self-growth from the environment. This actualization is not self-actualization. Self-actualization more refers to the integration of other’s criticisms and praises, making an entirely separate motivational force from the actualization tendency.

The chapter then discusses the other various phenomenon involved in the Rogerian perspective, including conditional regard (opinions of others affect how we see ourselves; conditional positive regard vs. unconditional positive regard) and congruence/incongruence (if you accept/deny the full range of yourself (personality, beliefs, etc.). Following this, the chapter discusses causality orientations (how you view where consequences emanate from; autonomy vs. control) and its relation to self-determination. The chapter then discusses growth- vs. validation-seeking individuals (growth – center their lives around improving themselves; validation – center their lives around gaining approval from others). It then concludes by discussing the benefits reaped from relationships by actualized tendency (altruism, relatedness, and learning) and brings up the controversial topic of “evil” in humanistic psychology. The chapter concludes by discussing contemporary positive psychology (optimism, logotherapy/existentialism, eudaimonic well-being (seeking challenges and experiencing the flow) and finally ends on a discussion of criticisms of humanistic theories (the naivety of assuming all humans are good; ill-defined constructs; what does an actualized tendency want or need?).

The most interesting topic to read about in this chapter would be the discussion of evil within the humanistic world. Humanism followed some dull and depressing topics in the psychological world (psychoanalysm/psychodynamics; behaviorism) that either called us sexually repressed, Oedipus’/Elektra’s or robots that could be programmed to do a behaviorists bidding. So, the humanists came out to bring the “humanity” back to humans, and it’s always interesting to read up on humanist theories. It kind of leaves you with that warm fuzzy feeling on the inside, an especially nice feeling when you have semester-end-fever and are very sick and tired of writing paper after paper after paper towards the end of the year, or in your case, reading paper after paper after paper.

Though they did seem to over-simplify on the topic of human benevolence, stating that we all were inherently good. And I would love to believe that Rogers was correct in his argument that humans are only evil when raised in uncaring/non-nurturing relationship environments. But then others make a distinct line between benevolent and malevolent personalities, yet still agree the environment is to blame for which forms. Essentially, they’ve created another nature vs. nurture argument in a different skin.

However, to backtrack a bit, I’d like to ponder a bit upon humanism’s theorems. First, the word “evil” seems out of place in a humanistic sense, even in a psychological sense. Evil is the word used to describe Disney/movie villains, not everyday people. Humanism stands upon the tenants that we are all inherently good and that we strive to live the best and most fulfilled lives we can. So, in such a world, can “evil” even be a thing? Take robbery, for example. As in many stories (Aladdin, Robin Hood), the thief is portrayed as a noble hero striving to better the lives of those less fortunate/their own lives. Is this not, in the definition of self-actualization and bettering your own life, the definition of good? While it may be societally unacceptable, the thief may see it as their only way to get food (satisfy deficiency needs) which need to be satisfied before growth needs can be attended to. Rather than be defined as “evil,” I believe the term “desperate/deficient” should be given in such situations, for they are just trying to improve their lives in a very last-ditch effort. Ordinary children are not born thieving, they learn to thieve to survive. This does not make them evil, it just means they are trying to improve their lives in the only way they know how and placing the term “evil” on them hits them with the negative stigma and makes desperate people into cartoon villains.

Considering that rant took up quite a substantial number of pages, I’ll attempt to conclude briefly. As for my personal involvement in growth motivation, I am very centered upon forming more interpersonal relationships currently. The principle of actualized tendency relies heavily upon healthy interpersonal relationships, their formation and their maintenance. Since I went my whole first semester here at UNI without many people to call friends/acquaintances, I’ve been racing through to make as many as possible. My biggest involvement is in the social need of relatedness, as I have a giant part of my personality dedicated to thinking about how others think of me. Granted, this also implies that I am a heavy slave to social norms to make myself more relatable/approachable by others, and this is rather true. I dress in an appropriate fashion, never act out, respect private space, and follow the rules of society to a tee. Knowing that this concept is hard at work motivating me and my behaviors, it only helps to reinforce my search for friends more, as I don’t want to wind up a bitter, lonely old man sitting on his front porch whispered about by the neighbors because I was too asocial
in my youth.

However, I WILL benefit from the new knowledge of relatedness and unconditional acceptance and support. I am very good at seeing the positives behind people’s actions, for example driving. My father is the exact opposite, as every bad lane change/every slow driver in the left-hand lane is someone on their cell phone. However, I always feel obliged to pipe up with an excuse for the person that I do not know: Maybe they’re nervous driving by semis; Maybe they’re lost; Etc. I didn’t realize that my natural tendency to slap this positive regard on to others made me a perfect candidate for relatedness and will make me more confident in my relationship-forming to come.

Terms Used:
Holism – Pg. 420
Positive Psychology- Pg. 420
Humanistic Psychology – Pg. 420
Maslow’s Self-Actualization – Pg. 421
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – Pg. 422
Deficiency Motivation/Needs – Pg. 422
Growth Motivation/Needs – Pg. 422
Rogerian Actualized Tendency – Pg. 425
Organismic Valuation Process – Pg. 426
Rogerian Self-Actualization Tendency – Pg. 427
Conditional Positive Regard – Pg. 427
Unconditional Positive Regard – Pg. 427
Congruence – Pg. 430
Incongruence – Pg. 430
Causality Orientation – Pg. 431
Growth-Seeking Individual – Pg. 434
Validation-Seeking Individual – Pg. 434
Relatedness – Pg. 437
Evil – Pg. 439
Optimism – Pg. 441
Eudaimonic Well-Being – Pg. 443

Chapter 15 talks about growth motivation and positive psychology. According to the book, positive psychology seeks to articulate the vision of the good life, and it uses empirical methods of psychology to understand what makes life worth living. The idea of positive psychology is to help us find actions that lead to positive well being and to create people who are resilient and optimistic. The chapter also talks about the idea of self-actualization which is, according to the book, a constant underlying flow toward constructive fulfillment of one’s inherent possibilities. This is at the very top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. We often refer to this as striving.
The most interesting thing in my opinion that the chapter covered was the concept of self-actualization. At the age that I am, a 22 year old college student, there is a lot of pressure in figuring out what your talents are and what you are going to be able to bring to the world. Self-actualization is realization of one person’s talents and their capacity to use such talents to achieve. This was interesting to me because it so relevant in my life right now. Autonomy and openness are both major parts of self-actualization as well. Autonomy is the idea that we will be able to depend on ourselves and regulate our own behaviors and thoughts. As someone soon to be graduating college, I am finding that this is an important piece of self-actualization. No matter what, I am going to have to work, which means I will be contributing something to society, even if it takes me longer than I would like to fall into a niche that really makes me happy. What will help me with my self-actualization that I am seeking will be the increase in autonomy that will hopefully come with finishing college. Autonomy will increase as I will be depending on myself to make my own money and pay my bills. This idea fit perfectly into where I am in life so it was very interesting reading about it.
The presence of growth motivation in psychology is exciting. In regards to positive psychology, the idea “positive items” are being studied so we can get a better understanding of what we can do to make ourselves happy and be better people is also a big takeaway I got from this chapter. After reading this, I was inclined to set more goals that will help me become more resilient and positive while also allowing me to feel like I am accomplishing self-actualization. Looking at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the fact that I am feeling the desire to search for self-actualization is also a positive that I have obtained from reading the chapter. Since self-actualization is at the top of the pyramid, I need to have all of the other bases fulfilled for the time being in order to have the urge to feel self-actualization. So no matter how lost I feel like I am and how behind I feel in regards to self-actualization, I have a lot going for me in that regard. I think I am not better capable of achieving my growth goals after reading this chapter. I understand that I am still in the process of creating my self, and as I further progress towards obtaining this, I will find more goals to work towards and this desire of self-actualization will help me continue on this path. I know that setting goals of growth will bring this out and help me stay motivated.
Growth Motivation
Positive Psychology
Self-Actualization
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Autonomy
Openness

Chapter 15 focused on the positive domain of psychology. The underlying theme of this domain is that all humans have good in them and naturally want to move toward self-discovery, self-actualization, personal growth, flourishment, and a life endowed with meaning. It is only when a person's experience corrupts this tendency that they risk suffering unduly and becoming malevolent. The positive domain of psychology also tends to focus on the person as a whole rather than broken into parts, such as in the theory of the actual self and ideal self. Perspectives in things domain ranges from the philosophy of humanism and existentialism, to the therapy of Carl Rogers, to the science of modern positive psychology.

The most surprising thing I learned was that Maslow’s hierarchy does not hold up according to his 5-tier conceptualization. I thought it was interesting that the deficiency needs can be collapsed for a total of two categories, survival and growth needs, and there does appear to be evidence for such a 2-tier hierarchy. One other thing I found surprising is how many strong correlations there are between validation or growth seeking tendencies and things like self-esteem, depression, and task persistence.

I’m engaged in the authenticity aspect of growth motivation. I’m currently in the longest relationship I’ve been in and like in any relationship, we’ve had to face and resolve conflict. In the beginning of the relationship I wanted to be authentic, but I would still react to conflict somewhat inauthentically by saying things to smooth things over and not saying other things because I think they’ll hurt. However, now I feel more comfortable speaking my mind and realize that it does not hurt as much as I thought, especially if my attitude is kind.

The only new goal I wanted to develop from this chapter was to try to put into practice unconditional positive regard. After reading the section, I looked more into it online and realized that I had been thinking about it all wrong. Unconditional positive regard isn’t about liking the things people do all the time even when you don’t. I realized it’s about the attitude you have toward people. Unconditional positive regards mean to realize that although you may not like everything a person says or does but you know that they are trying their best at the time and want to grow.

Terms:
Positive psychology
Humanism
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Carl Rogers
Unconditional positive regard
Validation-seeking
Growth-seeking
Authenticity

Chapter 15 explains what motivates us to grow as individuals while also touching on how positive psychology plays a role in growth. Positive psychology describes what each individual’s perception of the “good life” is along with pointing out what makes their life worth living. Topics covered in this chapter include holism, encouraging growth, Maslow’s six behaviors that encourage self-actualization, and growth versus validation seeking. Of course there are numerous other topics and subtopics but these are the topics that I found most intriguing. I will attempt to elaborate on these topics below while sprinkling in portions of some other concepts along the way.

Of all the topics covered in this chapter the one that really caught my attention was Maslow’s description of the six behaviors that encourage self-actualization, specifically Table 15.1 in the textbook. Maslow’s six behaviors are as follows: make growth choices, be honest, situationally position yourself for peak experiences, give up defensiveness, let the self emerge, be open to experience. Rather than explaining each one in lengthy detail I will proceed to summarize. What Maslow’s six behaviors set out to tell us is that in order for self-actualization to take place we must let down our defensive barrier, or in other words, break out of our comfort zones and set out to explore and experience the world. Rather than doing what bolsters the image our peers have of us, we should set out to do things that improve the image that we possess of ourselves. Find what you enjoy doing and then proceed to do more and more of it. Now, the reason as to why I found Maslow’s list of behaviors so interesting is because I found it relates to my own journey of discovering my true self. Not only that but each of his six points are things that I feel I could work harder at implementing into my day to day life. I feel that Maslow’s list relates to the journeys of numerous college students as they set out to discover what they are passionate about in life and hopefully make a career out of their interests. Each of us fears our own true potential, and a key part of realizing that potential is confronting the fear that guards it.

I would say that while I am currently engaged in self-actualization, I am also engaged in a battle to be more and more of a growth-seeking individual and less of a validation-seeking individual. As I stated above, I am currently attempting to engage in activities for the sake of my own interest rather than partaking in things I feel obligated to do. Of course we will never escape our obligations, but we can sure try to cut down on their quantity. Growth seeking individuals are experience driven people that strive to improve themselves and expand their own personal boundaries for the sake of their own interests and beliefs. Validation seekers emphasize acknowledgement from their peers and rely heavily on positive feedback. In other words they often times do things that make them look good in the eyes of others. I feel that nobody is truly a growth seeker or a validation seeker, but rather we are all portions of both, just to varying extents.

In conclusion, I do feel that this chapter has helped me formulate some new goals related to realizing my true self and discovering what drives me to grow as an individual. I feel that having read through this chapter, my ways of thinking about my own personal growth has improved. I feel that I have more weapons in my arsenal for combating validation driven actions, urges to dole out conditional positivity, and the oh so dreaded evil.

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Terms Used:

Maslow’s Six Behaviors that Encourage Self-Actualization
Self-Actualization
Holism
Positive Psychology
Growth-Seeking Individual
Validation-Seeking Individual

This chapter focuses on the concept of personal growth and how different personality types strive for that personal growth, as well as the different theories developed on this over time. The humanistic approach, involving positive psychology, focuses on the person as a whole and the strivings people have to improve on their strengths as a whole, and not focus on their weaknesses. Maslow developed a need hierarchy theory that divided the idea of self-actualization into five categories but research came to find that they are best divided into deficiency needs and growth needs. Roger’s focused on actualizing the self, which refers to the idea that all organisms go through an “organismic valuation process” which involves analyzing the experience and deciding if it self-promoting or self diminishing. The comes causality orientations, which basically refers to different personality types and why/how we make certain decisions based on our personality. Lastly, it discusses how our interpersonal relationships and relatedness to the social environment affect how we see and display our own personalities.

The most interesting thing I learned was, when Maslow’s need hierarchy theory was split into two categories instead of the five he first described, the growth needs involving self-actualization needs and esteem needs is so much smaller than the deficiency needs of belongingness, physiological needs, and safety and security. The most interesting part of this idea is that even though studies done on college students show that they are first concerned about self-actualization and esteem, and lastly concerned with physiological needs, only 1% of them will ever actually reach self-actualization. The idea is that most people fail to reach self-actualization because it involves the stressful and anxiety provoking process are facing our insecurities and putting ourselves out there. Doing this makes us feel alone and abandoned if we don’t have the correct support system telling us we will be okay, which results in seeking an escape from that anxiety. With this in mind, Maslow developed six behaviors that encourage self-actualization: Make growth choices, be honest, situationally position yourself for peak experiences, give up defensiveness, let the self emerge, and be open to experience.

I am engaged, mostly, in autonomy-oriented personality. When I think about my future, most of thoughts are directed to  “Is this something I would love to for many years to come” (interests and personal needs)? I am open to new experiences and I frequently volunteer for different activities in many different situations to strengthen my self-actualization. I have a decently strong source of internal motivation when it comes to most things in my environment, but I also can be control-oriented at time. I am mostly control oriented for the single reason that a lot of the reason I try so hard in school is because of the parental pressures I have daily, since neither of my parents went to college.

Learning about growth motivation does actually make me want to develop new goals. I feel that most of my goals have been validation-seeking and I want to develop more growth-seeking goals. Looking at my goals I see that many of them aren’t necessarily personal to me, but instead of goals that most college students need to make and I am making them because it is the socially acceptable thing to do. I will likely keep these goals because they actually are good goals, but I will add goals in that are more growth-seeking instead of validation-seeking.

I think I will better equipped to achieve these goals by knowing how much the people I surround myself with impact reaching those goals. Relationships can be supportive because they promote autonomy by affording people the opportunity and support necessary to move from heteronomy toward autonomy, and these relationships with nurture my actualizing tendency to get me closer to reaching my goals, but if I surround myself with people that don’t do this, then I may never reach my goals. With that in mind, I also need to do the same thing for my friends. I need to be supportive of their goals and push them outside of their comfort zone they can reach self-actualization and autonomy and everything else that comes with achieving a goal, and maybe in the process I can reach my goals too!

Terms: Self-actualization, Growth-seeking, Validation-seeking, Autonomy-Oriented, Control-oriented, Humanistic approach, Need hierarchy theory

Chapter 15 goes over various components that coincide with growth motivation. Specifically, humanistic psychology, positive psychology, growth seeking, and the actualizing tendency. Humanistic psychology stresses the notion of inherent potentialities, holism, and strivings toward personal fulfillment. Positive psychology looks at people’s mental health and how they live their lives to ask, “what could be?” Positive psychology seeks to build people’s strengths and competencies so as to cultivate psychological wellness. One fundamental need, the actualizing tendency, subsumed and coordinated all other motives so as to serve the collective purpose of enhancing and actualizing the self. This chapter also talked about causality orientations which reflect the extent of self-determination in the personality and concern differences in people’s understanding of what causes and regulates their behavior.

Something that was surprising and interesting to me was the concept of meaning. Meaning is a need of discovery and accomplishment that each individual needs to strive for, and is known to be a fundamental human need. Meaning in life has three different specific domains. The first need is purpose; it helps if the person generates future-oriented goals because connecting with activity of the day with a future goal effectively endows day-to-day activity with a sense of purpose it otherwise would not have. The second need is for values; values define what is good and what is right, and when we internalize or act on a value we affirm a sense of goodness in us. The third need is for efficacy; having a sense of personal control or competence is important because it enables us to believe that what we do makes a difference.

When it comes to my personal involvement in growth motivation I am looking at trying to form more interpersonal relationships. The principle of actualized tendency relies a lot upon healthy interpersonal relationships, their formation, and their maintenance. My biggest involvement is in the social need of relatedness because I care a lot about what others think of me. I have a rather low self-esteem so I am always worried what others are thinking of me when they see me or talk to me. A quasi-need emerges to the extent that the individual needs social approval – directly or symbolically – during social interaction. During social interaction, people who seek external validation often use interpersonal situations to test or measure their personal worth, competence, or likability. Growth-seeking individuals center their personal strivings around learning, improving, and reaching personal potential. Seeking growth leads one to adopt a pattern of thinking in which situations and relationships are seen as opportunities for personal, growth, learning, or self-improvement.

With that being said, learning about the existence of growth motivation did not necessarily make me want to develop any new goals, but it did bring back to light some of the goals that I have that I have recently forgotten about. Learning about how important growth-seeking is was what made me think of my goals. I think learning what I learned from this chapter could help me with my goals because it showed me how setting goals can help you grow as a person.

Terms: Humanistic Psychology, Positive Psychology, Meaning

Chapter 15, the last chapter that we had to read, is all about positive psychology and growth motivation. It begins by explaining holism, which is a theory that says to look at a person versus a bunch of different systems. This theory states to look at the entire situation instead of focusing on smaller, more specific aspects. Holism focuses on positive aspects of a person, or what the book calls the “healthy” parts. The chapter follows with explaining positive psychology and the humanistic approach, both of which focus on the healthy and good parts of the human experiences. The difference between the two theories is that positive psychology takes part more in actual empirical testing and research, while humanistic psychology does not. Self-actualization is something that takes part in both positive and humanistic psychology and is a vital point in development according to the book. Self-actualization is when we begin to make personal appraisals versus listening to what others think about us, and we begin to make more realistic goals for ourselves. Two processes stem from this: autonomy and openness. Autonomy, as we have discussed in earlier chapters, is the part of self-actualization that focuses on being able to make your own decisions and depend on yourself versus friends or family. Openness focuses on moving towards mindfulness and not repressing or silencing emotions or feelings. Once a person can realize their worth or abilities through self-actualization, they will experience congruence or incongruence. Congruence is the level of acceptance a person has when realizing their beliefs, desires, or abilities—while incongruency would be denying these abilities and beliefs. The chapter ties together in the end by coming back to positive psychology and how this theory helps people build strengths, good moods, motivation, and long-term success in the future. According to page 441 of the book, positive psychology can help with things such as resilience, goal-setting, forgiveness, and self-determination.
The aspects of growth motivation that I am engaged in would be self-actualization—specifically autonomy—and congruence. I experience autonomy at this point in my life because I am completely depending on myself and feel as if I am in complete control of my own thought and feelings, and I experience congruency because I look at my beliefs and abilities and I accept my personal attributes because they make me who I am. Since I have learned more about growth motivation, I think it would be a great thing to learn another language. Traveling to volunteer in other countries has always been high on my bucket list and learning a language such as German or Spanish would help me be better able to communicate with the people I would be helping. Having an optimistic outlook and looking at my self-actualization needs could help me fulfill this goal!
One of the most surprising things that I read was in the beginning of the chapter about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I had learned about this in a previous class, but I was surprised to learn that younger people generally only go through the lower stages of Maslow’s hierarchy, and that the older you get the more a person begins to experience the upper levels such as esteem needs and self-actualization. I don’t know what they define as younger, but it was strange for me to learn that younger people tend to focus on survival needs, while older people focus on both survival and growth needs. As a young adult, I would assume that we would very much need the growth aspects as well as survival needs such as food and water.

Holism
Positive psychology
Humanistic theory
Self-actualization
Autonomy
Openness
Hierarchy of needs
Survival needs
Growth needs
(In)congruence

Motivation and behavior are explained from a positive psychology and holism viewpoint. Holism is essentially the whole of a person is motivated when one system needs something. The example that the text gave came from Maslow and stated, “it is John Smith who desires food, not John Smith’s stomach” (419). Positive psychology’s goal is to grow optimistic personalities and to help people reach self-actualization. The humanistic approach is very similar to positive psychology; however, positive psychology relies more on empirical data than the humanistic approach.
I was surprised to learn that only 1% reaches self-actualization. I knew most people did not reach self-actualization, but I did not realize that it was innate according to Maslow. Self-actualization is also the lowest rated need of the hierarchy in older adults. There are two fundamental aspects of self-actualization including autonomy and openness. Autonomy moves from dependence on others towards self-realization while openness moves from timidity and defensive appraisals towards greater mindfulness, the courage to create, and realistic appraisals. This chapter also mentioned actualizing tendency which motivates the individual to want to undertake new and challenging experiences. I did not know that actualizing tendency could be so dependent on relationships. Society has conditional positive regard in that if an individual does something that society is uncomfortable with, we quit offering love to that individual until they obey our expectations. Once people are congruent with society’s standards, we offer love to them. A way to combat this is to offer unconditional positive regard as a society and love everyone even if they do not obey our standards. I think people will be a lot less sensitive over everything if we can just accept everyone regardless of their incongruence. I was also surprised to learn that there is a study of isolation and meaningfulness of the individual called existentialism.
I would say that the aspect of growth motivation I am most engaged in is optimism. This has its strengths and weaknesses because although I have a positive mindset, I can sometimes be unrealistic. The text states that optimism is responsive to reality while delusions are not.
I have never really thought of internal goals, my main goals right now are to find a job and get my life together, which are both extrinsic goals. A goal I would like to adopt is to find meaning in life by finding my purpose, value, and efficacy. I already have a sense of efficacy when it comes to certain aspects of my life.
I think I will be able to achieve these goals better knowing how the principle of growth motivation work by beginning to interpret the events going on in my life. I can create meaning for myself in response to these events. I tend to identify myself in my academics a lot because that is the most important aspect in my life right now. I feel as if achieving my goal of finding my purpose will also help me reach self-actualization. At this stage in my life, I think my deficiency needs are met because I have prioritized them. Belongingness and esteem were more difficult to fulfill because safety and food are easier to obtain for me personally. Now that my deficiency goals are met, I can work on growth needs to fulfill my personal potential.
Terms:
Positive psychology, holism, optimism, self-actualization, autonomy, openness, actualizing tendency, conditional positive regard, unconditional positive regard, incongruence, existentialism, meaning, purpose, value, efficacy, deficiency needs, growth needs, belongingness, esteem, safety

This chapter focused on growth motivation and the field of positive psychology. These concepts overlap with the humanistic approach to psychology, in which they focus on discovering the human potential and reinforce its development. This perspective involves striving towards growth and self-realization as well as away from self-concealment and pleasing expectations of others. When looking at positive psychology, the goal is to articulate the vision of good life and understand what makes life worth living. It focuses on the actions that lead to well-being and to the development of positive, optimistic, and resilient individuals. Positive psychology and humanistic psychology are very similar, but positive psychology is more strongly reliant on hypothesis-testing and data-based empirical research.

Relating to humanistic and positive psychology is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The first need is physiological needs, such as the basic survival needs of food, water, etc. The second need is safety and security, and next is the need for love and belonging. The fourth need is self-esteem needs, and the last need is self-actualization, which is satisfied when all other needs are met. Self-actualization is a developmental striving within an individual that involves moving towards courage create, practice realistic appraisals of situations, and achieve autonomous self-regulation. To gain self-actualization, one must express both autonomy as well as openness to experiences. The self-actualization needs are also defined as growth needs. These growth needs provide energy and direction to become what one is capable of becoming. On the other end is deficiency needs, which are defined as physiological disturbances and needs for safety, belongingness, and esteem. These needs occur when an individual is in a state of deprivation.

One thing from this chapter that I found very interesting was the concept of evil. According to humanistic psychology, there is a questionable assumption that human nature is inherently good. Supporters of humanistic psychology have a difficult time understanding the nature of evil. Evil can be defined as the deliberate, voluntary, intentional infliction of painful suffering on another person without respect for his or her humanity or personhood. According to Carl Rogers, a believer in the humanistic approach to human nature, evil was not inherent within a person. He believed that humans were born good, and only their experiences with nurturance and acceptance could influence their choice of good over evil. If a human experienced damaging or injuring experiences, they would choose evil over good. Essentially, evil develops through the following steps: first, adults shame and scorn their child so that the child believes that he or she is flawed and incompetent. Next, the child internalizes a negative self-view and prefers lies and self-deceit over critical self-examination. Third, a transition from victim to insensitive perpetrator occurs. Fourth, the person practices experimental malevolence, and finally the malevolent personality is forged through a refusal to engage in critical self-examination. This view on the development of evil is from the initial damaged self-concept.

I believe that knowing about growth motivation can help me to better approach opportunities with a growth-seeking perspective rather than a validation-seeking perspective. A growth-seeking approach is centered around personal strivings of learning, improving, and reaching potential. This approach leads to a pattern of thinking that situations and events are opportunities for growth. Validation-seeking, on the other hand, is more focused on comparing the self to societal conditions or worth. This person seeks approval of others to feel good about themselves and bases their self-worth on the fulfillment of others’ conditions. This type of perspective can put an individual at more risk for anxiety, low self-esteem, depression, and fear of failure as it relies on other’s for approval and worth. Growth-seeking is more likely to place an individual higher in self-esteem levels, lower depression and anxiety, and higher task persistence. I can use this knowledge to help myself take on a more growth-seeking attitude to help be better motivated towards growth goals.
TERMS: Goals
Growth-seeking
Validation-seeking
Evil
Humanistic psychology
Positive psychology
Deficiency needs
Growth needs
Physiological needs
Safety and security needs
Love and belongingness needs
Esteem needs
Self-Actualization
Hierarchy of needs

Chapter 15 was about growth motivation and positive psychology. The most surprising thing to me was that less than 1% actually reach self-actualization in their life time. Self-actualization is the inherent developmental striving, and there are two directions that characterize self-actualization; autonomy and openness. Autonomy is the desire to do what we want, when we want to do it, and with who we want to do that activity with. Essentially autonomy in this case is moving away from depending on others, and moving toward depending on one’s self to regulate thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Openness is receiving information, through openness, individuals move towards mindfulness and realistic appraisals.

The current aspect of growth motivation that I am engaged in is Maslow’s hierarchy. The hierarchy has levels to it and once an individual’s needs at that level are met, only then can they move up. I am almost done with college, so soon I will have a college degree that will hopefully help me get a job. I have a home, which means my safety and security needs are met, but my home does not mean I have job security. My motivation for continuing my education is that having a job will make me feel more secure in the world. And by having a job that I feel confident in doing, it will affect my self-esteem and that will help me move up the hierarchy.

With knowing how the principles of growth motivation work, I will be better able to achieve my goals. Maslow offered several every day behaviors that encourage growth that can help a person achieve self-actualization, and in knowing these, they can help me reach my goals. The first is making growth choices, so seeing life as many choices. I can choose to take coworkers shifts so that I can save up more money to pay for graduate school. The second is being honest, so if I mess up, I should just be honest about my mistake and ask for help if I am not understanding something. If I feel like I am doing a process right at work but I am getting feedback from my boss that says the opposite, then I will be feeling incongruence. Ways that I could reach congruence is to ask my boss what I am doing wrong, and how I could improve on my skills. I enjoy learning things and so that would make me a growth seeking person. That means I center my strivings around learning, improving and reaching my potential. So when I get a lower grade than I wanted on an exam, I usually ask the professor right away if I can meet with them to see how I can do better on the next exam. I also ask many questions in class to help my understanding of the topic. Doing these things can help me feel more confident in my abilities and help me reach my goals.

Terms: Self-actualization, autonomy, openness, Maslow’s hierarchy, self-esteem, incongruence, congruence, growth seeking,

Chapter 15 discussed growth motivation and positive psychology. Humanistic psychology focuses on human potential and encouraging development, moving toward growth and self-realization and away from self-concealment and fulfillment of other people’s expectations. Positive psychology strives to understand what makes life worth living and improve well-being. Maslow’s need hierarchy was discussed and mostly debunked, but his broad ideas concerning deficiency motivation, growth motivation, and self-actualization are still valid. Autonomy causality orientation is when individuals rely on internal guides for personal choice and are growth-seeking; control causality orientation is when individuals rely on external guides for personal choice and are validation-seeking. People who rely on internal, growth-seeking guides are more likely to persist in their goals, and people who are validation-seeking are more likely to suffer from social anxiety, depression, poor task persistence, etc. Toward the end of the chapter, it was questioned whether good/benevolence and evil/malevolence are developed or innate within humans. Positive psychology believes that good mental health and flourishing are more than the lack of mental illness; continuous self-growth, close and high-quality relationships, and a purposive and meaningful life are also important to well-being.

The most surprising thing I learned was that Maslow’s need hierarchy is not valid. I had learned about the need hierarchy long ago and had accepted it as fact, that the “basic needs” were at the bottom of the pyramid and needed the most attention. I had been taught that people work to have a solid base with physiological needs, then build and secure other needs on top of the lower-tiered needed. Now, I accept that esteem needs, love and belonging needs, safety and security needs, and physiological needs are intermixed as deficiency motivation. Growth motivation sits atop the giant deficiency motivation base as growth motivation in a dual-level hierarchy.

Learning about growth motivation caused me to step back and think about my motivators, whether they were internal, external, growth-seeking, or validation-seeking. I like to think I am growth-seeking in many aspects of my life, challenging myself to learn and grow, but I have also been validation-seeking in other aspects, growing up with self-oriented perfectionism. In high school, I went through counseling to reframe my perfectionist mindset and deep-seeded, validation-seeking ideas. The counseling completely changed the way I think, treat myself, and approach life. It helped me become a more optimistic person, experiencing congruence of my personal characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. I now mostly strive to be who I want to be and reach for goals out of my own interest, rather than trying to please others, which has been very freeing.

This chapter does make me want to develop some new goals. Although I already set a lot of goals for myself, I am always seeking personal improvement and wanting to gain more out of life. Reading this chapter reminds me to not remain stagnant or become complacent. If I want a fulfilled life, I need to make a greater effort to make the most of my days: spend more time outside, take care of myself physically and mentally, and have more adventures. These are three general goals I have, and I think the six behaviors that encourage self-actualization would help me move closer to achieving my goals. Goal achievement is contingent upon choices; I need to give up defensiveness, situationally position myself for peak experiences, and make growth choices that are in line with my goals, being open to experience. By being honest and letting the self emerge, I will gratify self-actualization needs and work my way closer to my goals.

Terms: growth motivation, positive psychology, humanistic psychology, positive psychology, growth-seeking, validation-seeking, self-actualization, self-oriented perfectionism, deficiency motivation, self-realization, self-concealment

Chapter 15 covers growth motivation and positive psychology. One of the terms that deals more with growth motivation is holism. According to the textbook “holism asserts that a human being is best understood as an integrated, organized whole rather than as a series of differentiated parts” and that it is “the whole organism that is motivated rather than just some part of the organism, such as the stomach or brain” (Reeve, 419). An example of holism is that when someone or thirsty, it is themselves that desires the food or drink, not the stomach or brain. Positive psychology searches to understand what it takes to live the good life in a psychological way. Psychologists who study positive psychology use “empirical methods of psychology to understand what makes life worth living” and “show what actions lead to experiences of well-being” (Reeve, 420).
The most interesting section of chapter 15 talked about the distinction between people who are growth seekers and people who are validation seekers. The textbook describes growth seekers as people who “center their personal strivings around learning, improving, and reaching personal potential” and validation seekers as people who “often use interpersonal situations to test or measure their personal worth, competence, or liability” (Reeve, 434). What made this section was that the distinction between these two types of people is important when predicting “vulnerability to mental health difficulties” (Reeve ,435). People who seek validation are more likely deal with anxiety during social interaction, fear of failure, poor task persistence, and elevated levels of depression. People who seek growth don’t deal with high anxiety during social interaction, do not fear failure, have a high task persistence, and experience low depression.

When looking for aspects of growth motivation that I am engaging in I noticed two of the six behaviors that encourage self-actualization that I have been constantly engaging in. The first behavior that I engage in is making growth choices. Being a General Studies major I get to choose my classes from different areas of studies. One of the colleges at UNI that I choose was business, which is something I have always thought was interesting, but I haven’t had much experience in. At first, I was a little nervous, but realized that deciding to take business classes that were challenging would help me grow as a student both mentally and intelligently. The second behavior that I engage in is being open to experience. One of my life goals in life is to experience as much of life that I can experience. Being able to take different classes and learning a wide range of different things has always excited me since changing my major. When it comes to going to concerts, movies, sporting events, or taking any kind of vacation I tend to fully absorb the experience and make the most of it.

If you want to use growth motivation and positive psychology to help you better achieve your goals an effective way to go about it is going through the six behaviors that encourage self-actualization, rank each of the six (6 being worst and 1 being the best), choose one of the worst behaviors and constantly work on improving the behavior. If someone is constantly working on the behaviors that get in the person’s way of realizing “one’s talents, capacities, and potentialities” (Reeve, 421). Once you start moving towards self-realization you will become more motivated to grow.

Growth-Seeking
Validation-Seeking
Self-Actualization
Holism
Positive Psychology

Chapter 15 is all about growth motivation and positive psychology. This comes from feelings of positivity and the and development of positive individuals who are optimistic and resilient. Positive psychology looks at the experiences of satisfaction, enjoyment, hope, talent, creativity, and many other characteristics that fall under positive feelings and subjects of others all based on scientific and empirical research. This chapter allows us to realize what it takes to endure personal growth and humanistic psychology an everything about self-actualization. This concept is the process of leaving behind timidity, defensive appraisals, and dependence on others. Two fundamentals that make up self-actualization are autonomy and openness. Both of these features allow the individual to leave behind weak characterizes and obtain positive ones. This chapter goes on to touch on Maslow’s Need Hierarchy, six behaviors that encourage self-actualization, and growth-seeking versus validation-seeking. Each of these terms stuck out to me because of the way they all relate to each other and the human needs.

One of the most interesting parts of chapter 15 was growth-seeking versus validation-seeking. Quasi needs are when an individual needs social approval during a social interaction. It leads to developing a need for validation seeking and making sure they get the approval of others to feel good about them. Peers, employers, teachers, and romantic partners are seen as the external validation that these individuals use to measure their personal growth. I have a friend that comes directly to my mind as I read this section of the chapter because she has always been valuing the opinion of others about herself. Ever since I can remember she has been a “teacher’s pet,” always being buddy-buddy with her friends’ parents, and keeping up with trends to make sure that she is always in the loop and never talked badly about. This type of person is most definitely not a bad or annoying individual, after all this is how my best friend is, but it shows the distinction between striving for validation versus growth because is predicts vulnerability. It was interesting to learn about how the more that people strive for validation, the more likely they are to suffer anxiety, fear of failure, low self-esteem, high task persistence, and low depression.

Growth seeking individuals look and take on goals and tasks that will actual help them grow as a person. I believe that I have taken on roles that help me grow especially throughout college. I consider myself to be optimistic but in this chapter, they mention most people are not realistic which is why optimism is a great quality that brings a positive light due to the fact that you look at yourself as better than the average person at many duties. In my own eyes, I think that there is a balance between being optimistic and realistic that can still bring positivity to a personality and growth seeking. Being realistic does not mean saying “No” every time a wild idea comes along, it’s knowing when the idea needs more thought or if it really is just too much. This year I had a role within the organization that caused me to have this type of outlook on an event that I was planning. I had a committee that brainstormed many ideas that just were not feasible. It took my realistic side to decide which activities would be rational and which would need optimism.

I currently have many goals in mind that I want to take on, so learning and reading about growth motivation doesn’t necessarily make me want to create more, it makes me want to focus on doing them with a positive attitude and only for myself. I think that most people like to hear an external source validate them for completing a long term or short-term goal, but if anything, this chapter has allowed me to want myself to feel accomplished on my own. I will be able to achieve these goals better by logging them myself. This idea comes from the book I have read for my book report, The Happiness Project. The author of the book presents 12 goals for herself to manage over a 12-month period and keeps herself accountable by creating rules for herself and tracking how she does each day. Journaling about the goals would give myself a positive mindset that I am validating myself and watching my growth all through motivational journaling.

Growth motivation
Positive psychology
Optimism
Goals
Growth motivation vs self-validation
External validation
Self actualization

Chapter 15 is all about growth as a person, and how motivation, and the psychology of it, affect one's growth (or growth-motivation). One of the main stress points in this chapter, I felt, was self-actualization. This is defined as a process that develops over time that deals with the realization of one's talents, capacities, and potentialities. There are many components that go into a person's self-actualization. Such as a person's congruence, which is their ability to accept or reject their full range of personality characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. I think most people have an okay time accepting their beliefs and abilities, however I think it may be more difficult for someone to come to terms with their desires, and their personality characteristics. This ties in with Maslow's six behaviors that improve one's self-actualization. The first behavior is making growth choices, choices that prioritize one's progress and growth as a person. Second on the list is to be honest. This is the behavior I think I have the most trouble with, not necessarily being honest with others, but with myself. When measuring my own progress, I have a tendency to not be honest with myself if my growth is not up to my standards. The third behavior is to position yourself for peak experiences, basically put yourself in a situation to get the most out of the experience. Fourth is to give up defensiveness, another behavior that I have trouble with and may even lead to me not being honest with myself. Being defensive can cause someone to come up with a whole slew of excuses for why they are not performing up to par. The fifth behavior is to let the self emerge, and be seen. This behavior reminds me of the corny saying "be who you are, everyone else is taken", but it's true. Without letting your personality come to the forefront, you can not truly make self-progress. The last behavior on the list is to open yourself up to new experiences. This last one reminded me of the chapter dealing with extroverted behavior, this last behavior trait basically says to me "be more extroverted".

I feel that I am pretty good at engaging in behavior that promotes growth motivation. As a student athlete, progress is kind of an obsession that nags at me constantly. I always want to be getting better, never regressing. If I'm being honest with myself, something I struggle with, I think I only engage in about 2 of the 6 behaviors that improve self-actualization: letting the self-emerge as well as be seen, and being open to new experiences. The other four seem to be a struggle with me, mainly making growth choices. I am a procrastinator and making everyday growth choices can be difficult for me, especially when motivation is low. Giving up defensiveness is another aspect of self-actualization that I struggle with. When I don't perform as expected, I feel the need to defend myself to my peers around me. In the end, I just come up with a bunch of excuses, which is also not being honest with myself.

Though I have not come up with any new goals after reading this chapter, it will completely change how I go about striving for the ones I have now. Progress is the best feeling in the world, and this chapter has given me the knowledge to make more of it. Especially through the 6 behaviors that improve self-actualization. Through working and making progress on those 6 behaviors, I will continue to make progress, and hopefully at an increased rate.

Terms:
Self-actualization
Motivation
Congruence
6 Behaviors that increase self-actualization
Growth motivation

Ch 15 covered growth motivation and positive psychology. This chapter had several main sections, including holism and positive psychology, which is making yourself a better person, and doing it in a positive way. This can be through finding what makes you feel good, or by changing your views to be a more positive, and optimistic person. Self-actualization is the inherent developmental striving we all have. People generally do not like to stay the same, but rather grow and gain knowledge and experiences. This is fulfilling, while not doing anything can be detrimental to well-being. Actualizing tendency is the process people take to get involved and feel like they belong. This can be through a job, or a hobby. People learn things and feel good when they do. They not only learn skills but meet people, which further perpetuates the tendency. One of the last major sections was about how relationships support the actualizing tendency. People learn to feel how others feel, and learn to lean on each other for support. When someone succeeds in this endeavor, they feel good, and try to do it again.

The most surprising thing to me was how much people must work together for happiness and well-being. Even if someone is a loner, or an independent person they have to work with others to get aspects of what they want, which is a positive thing. Having people find what they are good at, and become friends with other people in that area is something that leads to a community, and thus friends that may not have been had without it. This can help with people who redefine themselves or are involved in a poor crowd, because getting someone into an area they like may change them entirely, and the people around them help with that.

The aspects of growth motivation i am engaged in are making growth choices, giving up defensiveness, and letting the self emerge. The others I am engaged in, but not to the extent of the ones listed. Being in college is a period of transition, so focusing on your career is the main goal. Once life settles down, hopefully I can engage further in other goals, because I spent all this time and money on getting a degree, to get the career that will hopefully enhance my well-being.

Learning about growth motivation makes me want to develop new goals because I could redefine my goals I have in different ways, to more likely reach them. Having an end goal is the easiest, but putting in the work to get there is where we have learned people fall off. If I practice the growth motivation aspects more often, not only will goals be easier but hopefully I will be happier.

I can achieve these goals better from knowing about the principles of growth motivation because it gives me an advantage over those who do not know them. The worst thing I could do is ignore them, and not try them out. I would then be the same off. If I try them and they do not work, at least I know I tried. I would think they would work for me, but at least knowing what makes it easier to succeed is a major tool because it can cut down on the time it takes me to figure out how to reach where I am going.

Terms:
Holism
Positive psychology
Self-actualization
Actualizing tendency
Growth motivation aspects

Chapter 15 discussed growth motivation and positive psychology. Positive Psychology says that all humans have the ability to be good, we all naturally want to find ourselves and what makes us unique in our own way, we all want to grow and find the true meaning in life. Positive psychology also focuses on the person as a whole instead of looking at individual areas that make us up as a person. I think this was very important because a huge part of our lives is spent on what makes us happy and finding out who we are. A lot of people can struggle with their true identity and can become frustrated when they feel they are not finding it. My whole high school and into college I was trying to figure out the question of “who am I?” this is still something I struggle with, which I think is normal since I am only 20 years old and I am in the part of my life which largely is affected by the choices I will be making for my future self. I have to ask myself with this major, “what do I want to do?”. This is a very important and interesting topic.
I enjoyed learning about Maslow and the six behaviors that inspire self actualization. These six behaviors were, make growth choices, being honest, putting yourself Into situations that will peak your experience, giving up being defensive, letting yourself emerge, and being open to new experiences. Maslow believes that we must stop being defensive and break out of our comfort zones so we can put our self into new experiences that will help broaden our experiences. We should do things that will make ourselves look good and is something that we ourselves are proud of. This again is an are that I can relate to in my own life. Once college started I knew if I was going to ever gain new experiences that I would have to break out of my comfort zone and not be defensive when others would try to get to know me. Through this process I knew I needed to do things that would make me look good and would also be things I was pleased with myself. I also thought that learning about evil was super interesting and not something I would learn about in Psychology.”. The people who follow this kind of psychology (humanistic) cannot grasp the concept of evil. Carl Rogers did not believe that evil what inherited by a person. He believed that we were born good, and that it was your experiences that could influence this idea of evil. He believes this started when parents yell at their children so they then believe that they are wrong. Then the child its self will have a negative view on themselves.
I think that this was very important to learn about especially right now in life. We may look at others believing that they have it all figured out and they know who it is that they are and what they want in life. However, we all have to go through this sort of process. As for humanistic psychology I am still a little bit confused about it.

Terms
Positive Psychology
Self-esteem
Growth needs
Humanistic Psychology
Six behaviors that increase self-actualization

Chapter 15 was about growth motivation and positive psychology. Holism looks at humans as whole and if broken, a conflict must be going on between the ideal self and actual self. Humanistic psychology looks more carefully at human potential and encouraging that development. Positive psychology is still a relatively new field. This area focuses on the “good life” and understanding what makes life worth living by using empirical methods.

Self-actualization is something that is inherent. This is an inherent drive towards a fulfilment of inherent possibilities. Autonomy and openness to experience are characteristics of self-actualization and are used to be less dependent on others and become more mindful. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has been very popular for a long time. This has five levels with deficiency needs, like the need for safety, love, and esteem, at the bottom of the pyramid and growth needs, like self-actualization, at the very top. Research showed that this would be more beneficial if it were a dual-level hierarchy instead of the five that it is. Although Maslow believed that self-actualization was innate yet hardly anyone ever reach that level, he believed that we could encourage growth.

The actualization tendency is what pushes us forward and motivates us toward autonomy. This helps discover the emergence of the self, which also helps discover the emergence of our need of positive regard. We also learn conditions of worth once we are born that tell us whether our behaviors are positive and accepted or negative and rejected. Parents who give unconditional positive regard allow their child to shy away from societal pressures of worth and grow in their own inherent interests instead of creating tension and confusion in the child. Congruency is important as it allows the individual to accept their characteristics and leaves little discrepancy among their actual self and perceived self. The fully functioning individual is one who accepts experiences as is and expresses them authentically.

Autonomy causality orientations are those that rely on internal guides, like interests and growth. whereas control causality orientations are those that rely on external guides, like money. The autonomy orientation correlates with a more positive functioning.

Some people are growth seeking and some are validation seeking. Those who seek growth tend to focus on learning and improving; those who seek validation tend to test their competence, worth, and likeability. These people tend to have more anxiety, depression, and fear of failure.

Relationships that are warm, genuine, empathetic, interpersonal, and confirm a capacity for self-determination are more supportive and promote autonomy. People who are helpers allow the other person to discover who they are and let them be that person. People are also able to learn more when they are not being forced to learn something but are actively learning by engaging in something they are interested in. People who are self-defined are more autonomous and independent while those who are socially defined are are dependent of others.

The humanistic approach believes that people are innately good and would choose good over bad. They believe that someone turns bad, or evil, when they have had a relationship that was rooted in power and control and then have a malevolent personality. Their evilness comes from grandiosity and damaged concept of self.

Positive psychology focuses on how strengths are just as important as weaknesses and that good mental health is more than just an absence of mental illness. Optimism comes from positivity and tends to have a more positive belief of their future outcomes. People who are optimistic tend to have a more “worthwhile” life than those who are not as optimistic. Many people give meaning to life and has a sense of purpose, values, and sense of efficacy. Eudaimonic well-being is basically the same thing as self-realization. Those who have this experience this kind of well-being are seeking challenges, being effortful, and engaging in what they do to their fullest potential.

Three criticisms come from this chapter. The first is that a humanistic view is only focusing on one part of our human nature. The second is that many of the concepts do not have an operational definition that make it easy to back up scientifically. The last criticism is what is really wanted and needed by the actualizing tendency.

The most interesting and surprising thing I learned was about the facilitator and learner. I thought this was interesting because they emphasized the importance of allowing students to have some say over what they choose to learn about as education must be acquired through interest. They also noted that students achieve confidence in academics, have a higher mastery motivation, and participate more actively. However, I am surprised because we don’t utilize this very often. Teachers are given a common core that they are required to teach and that doesn’t allow the students to have as much control or say over what they learn.

Currently, I am trying to engage in a more growth seeking way than a validation seeking way. I want to be able to focus on learning more and improving the skills that I have instead of focusing on what others think about me all of the time. I’ve always been a pleaser, so I want to be able to move away from that and focus on myself for once. I also want to engage in my own interests because I enjoy them instead of feeling like I have to be engaging in other people’s interests. I am also engaging in autonomy causality orientation. I am focusing on what I want to do once I’m out of college and following the path of my own interests and growth instead of which career will give me the most money.

I don’t think I have any new goals I want to pursue, but if I do create new goals, I want them to be more intrinsically motivated and growth motivated. When I think about creating a new goal, I will keep these motivations in mind, so I can try and use my full potential to achieve whatever it is that I want to achieve. I will be able to achieve my goals by understanding how I can motivate myself. I can also surround myself with relationships that are supportive of my goals, and then I can also be supportive of their goals as well.

Terms: positive psychology, growth seeking, humanistic, autonomy, self-actualization, actualization tendency, inherent

Chapter 15 talked about humanistic psychology and positive psychology. Humanistic psychology focuses on an individual’s potential and looks at how it can be developed and/or changed. Positive psychology looks more into an individual’s life to try and figure out why they are the way that they are based on things that they do, do not do, relationships, the types of people one has relationships with, etc. Chapter 15 also discussed self-actualization which is what happens when an individual realizes their potential, talents, and capacities and they use them or at least try to use them to their whole entire abilities. Some people are able to self-actualize and others are not able to self-actualize. The chapter goes on to talk about how older people and younger people are motivated differently. Younger people, such as children, are more motivated by physiological and safety needs and older people, such as adults, are more into actualization and esteem needs. This is an example of how Maslow contributed to the wonderful world that is motivation. Roger discussed that everyone lives in two different worlds. They have their inner world which is how they view things and they have their outer world which is how other view you. The trick is trying to get these two worlds to work in harmony matching up the inner world with the outer world as best as one can. As soon as individuals start to drift over to make themselves match more with the outer world, that is when they begin to create sort of a false identity if you will. They start to change and put up “fake masks” of who they are and they are not 100% aware of it. Chapter 15 also had a debate between humanistic thinkers over good and evil in a sense. Some believe that evil is more or less learned. You do not harness any evil until something very bad happens to you in order to make you evil. The other humanistic thinkers believe that individuals have good and evil in them from the beginning. They think that you have to learn to be good before you can learn to be evil.

The most surprising thing that I learned is that some people think that you have to experience something bad in order to obtain the ability to be evil. I do not agree with this because there are stories of evil, terrible, children committing horrendous crimes even though nothing bad had ever happened to them.

I would say that I have digressed in motivation since I came to college. I used to be in a self-actualization stage in high school. I knew my talents, I knew what I was good at, and I was successful at these things. However, now that I am in college my life has flipped 180 degrees. I now have no idea what my talents are anymore, my self-worth has fluctuated immensely from year to year, and my motivation has been almost fully killed.

The existence of growth motivation makes me not only want to develop new goals, but it also makes me want to re-do whatever existing goals that I have. I need to look more to the obtainable future instead of setting goals for what may be unrealistic dreams.

Key Terms:
Humanistic psychology, positive psychology, esteem, needs, self-actualization, motivation

Chapter 14 discusses positive psychology. Positive psychology attempts to grow strengths and psychological wellness. Self-actualization is the development and realization of one’s inherent capabilities. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a sequential model of needs that must be fulfilled before self-actualization can be discovered. Maslow’s differentiates between deficiency needs and growth needs. Despite huge popularity, Maslow’s hierarchy has little empirical evidence. Roger’s idea of actual tendency is a fundamental need the drives all motives to further the self. There are two worlds: the inner world of organismic valuation and the outside world of society. If a person begins to value the societal world over organismic valuation, they use facades to hide who they really are in order to assimilate to social norms. They will experience incongruence by rejecting their inherent personal qualities. Causality orientations are the belief over what causes a person’s behaviors. Control causality oriented people rely on society and others to make decisions whereas autonomy oriented people function better as they rely on inner guides rather than others. Quasi-needs are needs such as societal approval. Validation seekers are those who attempt to prove their self-worth whereas growth individuals strive to learn and improve themselves based off of their own personal desires. Interpersonal relationships support self-actualizing as it helps people grow.
I was very surprised by humanistic perspective on evil. They believe evil can be avoided if a person is raised to be benevolent instead of malicious. If they are given a value system, they can focus on organismic valuation instead of channeling their nature into evil. This is so confusing to me because it seems to me that most people accept that evil is human nature and is inherent. Humanistic thinkers seem to be a little up in the clouds.
Personally, I think that in order to grow yourself, you need goals and aspirations and not positive thinking. My goals have always been more physically like academic successes or losing weight. If personal growth such as a rise in self-esteem occurs as a result of my goals, that is alright with me. I do not set out to change my personality. Whatever changes occur just occur as a result of generally learning and growing with new life experiences and lessons.
Terms: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-actualization, deficiency needs, growth needs, control causality, autonomy oriented, quasi-needs, humanistic, positive psychology, organismic valuation, incongruence.

Chapter 15 covers growth motivation and positive psychology. Positive psychology is a newly emerging field in psychology as of the early 2000s. It is described as seeking to articulate the vision of the good life in a psychological sense, and uses the empirical methods of psychology to understand what makes life worth living. Essentially, this is the chapter that explains to us how to look at life with a smile in our face and truly mean in with our mind as well. In this chapter it discusses the Hierarchy of Human Needs by Maslow. From the bottom up it defines; physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. In order to have the top most of the pyramid, you need to have the ones underneath of it.

The most interesting thing to me in the chapter and the aspect of growth motivation that I am engaged in is relatedness to others. Relatedness to others discusses the extent to which the individual accepts social conventions, accommodates the self to the society, internalizes cultural values, cooperates with others, and shows respect for others. Relatedness is one of my highest traits. I enjoy the company of others and getting to know everyone that I meet in public settings. My favorite thing to do is get to learn people and try and expand my network of friends. It’s very easy to get along with others when you can recognize who they are friends with and which of your friends are connected to them. Honestly, after learning more about growth motivation, I do not feel as though I need to change or add any goals. The goals that I have are pretty direct and interesting to accomplish. They also already cover the majority of growth motivation from the chapter.

I believe that I can better myself and increase the effectiveness of my goals by implementing the information from the chapter and taking it to heart. This class has shown me so much in depth information about how motivation really works and how to better your goals as well as yourself. The book talks about congruence and how it describes the extent to which the individual denies and rejects or accepts the full range of his or her personal characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. My congruence is at a very decent level. I feel as though I can do more with my life and my ability to do things inside and outside of school are high, but the effects of those are lower than I would like them to be. A facade is a social mask a person wears, and it relates to ways of behaving that have little to do with inner guides and much to do with a social front to hide behind. Even though I feel like I do not have or wear a facade, I definitely do. Almost everyone has some sort of facade that they put on to hide weakness or show strengths in social settings. If I can eliminate this facade, people could understand who I am and help me succeed without it being a one man show.

Terms:
Positive psychology
Growth motivation
Relatedness to others
Congruence
Facade

Chapter fifteen was all about growth motivation and positive psychology. This chapter starts off by defining holism and positive psychology, then goes into discussing self actualization. A big part of this chapter was talking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The chapter then discussed the topic of actualizing tendency , how relationships support this, and causality orientations. Furthermore it discussed the difference between growth seeking and validation seeking. This chapter ended with a discussion of positive psychology and growth, and the criticisms of this.
Maslow discussed six things that help encourage behaviors of growth. By being growth seeking, it means that you look for an opportunity to genuinely grown and truly care about growing, not just getting attention. On the other side, if you are a validation seeker, this means that they do not really care about growing. They seek situations where they will be recognized for what they have done, regardless if they have grown or not. After reading this chapter, I think that i am more likely to seek my goals. One goal that I have is to speak up for myself more. I think that after reading this chapter, I am able to understand what motivates me and why I want to do this. This is definitely more of a growth motivation because I am doing it for myself, not because I need anyone to recognize me for it. I think that with a good social support system that I have already, this is going to be easier.
One thing I found interesting is that just like freud's thoughts, Maslow is not scientifically accepted either. To me, this seemed a bit off and weird. Since the beginning of my psychology classes, both freud and maslow have been almost idolized and they have been so popular. I never really thought about their credibility before but after reading some criticisms, maybe I should have done research myself before. After reading these, it made me really think about how all of the research we have been learning about over and over. Although after taking a research methods class, we were taught all about empirical evidence and what makes research good research. Before reading this chapter and taking this class, I never once thought to question either psychologist or their work. Another important and interesting part I read about was the part in maslow's hierarchy about self actualization. This part was interesting and important to me because with applying for grad schools and graduating within the next year, I need to figure out exactly what I want to be.

Terms:
Self actualization
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Behaviors of growth
Motivation
Positive psychology
Growth seeking
Validation seeking

Chapter 15 covered topics relating to Positive Psychology and Growth Motivation. Positive Psychology is used in therapy and research today, focusing on individuals needs and experiences that make them feel “fulfilled” or happy/satisfied with their life. For example, if someone was battling a drug addiction and was seeking treatment, the treatment program would be more effective in helping this client figure out what strengths they possess that could help them overcome the drug addiction—versus saying something like, “How did you feel when you got your kids taken out of your custody?” Focusing on the positives trumps focusing on negative experiences. Growth Motivation is related to Maslow’s Need Hierarchy. Growth Motivation focuses on not only one’s personal physiological needs but also things in life that could challenge/ help the individual grow. For example, one may have fair physical health and a roof over their head, but maybe the individual needs to be open to new experiences in order to improve their quality of love and belongingness within their friend group.

One thing that I thought was interesting while reading the chapter was the research study that had college students build their Need Hierarchy. I can relate to having the physical/physiological at the bottom (being most important), I am always one to be like, “Yeah, I may be in sweats and no makeup but I am healthy and present in class.” I also think it is relatable to have security as being one that is lower in needs. The majority of college students I know have to work hard at their job in order to pay rent, utilities, and groceries. By the end of your paycheck, it is easy to be like, “I have $5, or I am a poor college kid.”

Currently, I find myself in the position of being in the safety and security needs. I am graduating in a few short weeks and will be moving to an area that is more expensive to live in than Iowa. I have had motivation during the last 6-8 months to budget my money in order to have a substantial amount in my savings account for my move. I don’t want to have a deficiency related to funds, because I want my transition from undergrad to graduate school to be as smooth as possible.

I am in the process of developing a new goal of having a “zero waste” mindset. In order to do this, I am slowly transitioning into reducing the use of plastic, paper towels, harmful cleaning supplies, using cloth grocery bags, and be sure to recycle and compost in my home.


After reading about the differences of growth-seeking versus validation-seeking, it is clear for me to see that I want to continue to stay on track at this point of my life focusing more on growth-seeking potential in order to better my own life and continue to challenge myself intellectually during graduate school. It is important to have validation from the people who are important to you in your life, such as educators, family, and friends. However, if someone is unable to support the decision-making skills that you make, you should not feel a lack of self-worth—do what will make you happy.

Positive Psychology
Growth Motivation
Safety and Security Needs
Deficiency Needs
Growth-Seeking Potential

Chapter 15 is all about growth motivation and positive psychology. The main concepts emphasized in this chapter are holism, self-actualization, actualizing tendency, causality orientations, growth-seeking versus validation-seeking, how relationships support the actualizing tendency, the problem of evil, and positive psychology and growth.
Holism is a “top-down” approach that focuses on what is healthy, whole, or unbroken. If broken, there is conflict between ideal self and actual self. Humanistic psychology is “discovering human potential and encouraging its development.” Another field that overlaps with humanistic psychology is positive psychology, which “seeks to articulate the vision of the good life, and it uses the empirical methods of psychology to understand what makes life worth living” (pg. 420). Self-actualization (pg. 421) refers to the realization of an individual’s talents, capacities, and potentials. Autonomy and openness to experience are two fundamental directions that characterize self-actualization. Autonomy is depending on one’s self and regulating one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Openness is being able to “receive information and not be repressed, ignored, filtered, or distorted by wishes, fears, or past experiences.” Maslow made the distinction between deficiency needs and growth needs with the hierarchy of human needs. Deficiency needs are the needs for physiological needs, safety, belongingness, and esteem. Growth needs are self-actualization needs, which give “energy and direction to become what one is capable of becoming.” Actualizing tendency (pg. 425-426) is the energy behind what motivates our development towards autonomy and away from heteronomy. Carl Rogers believed that the actualizing tendency was a natural and continual presence that guides an individual towards genetically determined potentials. Autonomy causality orientations (pg. 431) are the inner guides and self-determined forces that initiate and regulate behavior. Control orientation is more external and looks at behavioral incentives and social expectations.
The most interesting thing I learned from Chapter 15 was growth needs versus validation-seeking. Growth-seeking individuals are those who center their personal strivings around learning, improving, and reaching personal potential. For these individuals, situations and relationships are seen as opportunities for personal growth, learning, and self-improvement. On the other hand, validation seeking individuals are those who seek external validation in situations to measure their personal worth, likeability, or competence. Individuals who are more likely to strive for validation are also at more of a risk to suffer from anxiety in social situations, have low self-esteem, and depression. Growth-seeking individuals are more likely to live in the present and behave according to their principles. Validation-seeking and growth-seeking is another way to interpret Maslow’s distinction between deficiency and growth needs.
Relationships can support the actualizing tendency in four ways: helping others, relating to others in authentic ways, promoting the freedom to learn, and defining the self. If human nature is benevolent, cooperative, and warmhearted, freedom and self-determination are fine. However, if human nature is malevolent, selfish, and aggressive, there is evil (pg. 439). Evil is “the deliberate, voluntary, intentional, infliction of painful suffering on another person…” Positive psychology looks at “people’s mental health and the quality of their lives” (pg. 440).
After learning about the existence of growth motivation, I want to create goals that are more growth-seeking rather than validation-seeking. Many of the goals that I have created for myself have been goals that value myself along the lines of societal conditions of worth. People approve of others wanting to go to the gym to work out and become healthier, but why not create a goal of loving my body and embracing who I am? Or teaching myself how to properly fuel my body so that I can reach my full potential? Becoming more growth-seeking rather than validation-seeking will help me to improve the quality of my life because I won’t be so focused on what others approve of, I will be more focused on what is best for me as an individual. I believe this will also have a positive impact on other individuals who are in the same position that I am in now. I think I am able to accomplish these goals with the information I learned in Chapter 15 because it has taught me how to discover human potential, how to encourage its development, and what makes life worth living.

Terms used:
Holism
Humanistic Psychology
Positive psychology
Self-actualization
Autonomy
Openness
Hierarchy of human needs
Deficiency needs
Growth needs
Actualizing tendency
Causality orientations
Growth-seeking
Validation-seeking
The problem of evil
Positive psychology

Chapter 15 it titled Growth Motivation and Positive Psychology, and talks about things like self actualization and tendencies. The book talks about Holism, and how it’s meanings and studies and its relatedness to humanism. It talks about healthy and unbroken studies, and the opposite being fragmented or in pieces. A new form of psychology, known as positive psychology emerged, with the goal of a good life psychologically with what actions lead to a well-being. It makes use of empirics and data to understand what makes lives worth living. It is very close to humanistic psychology, but is not a subfield. The difference between the two are the the empirical research and hypothesis-testing.
The book talks about self-actualization, and the hierarchy of needs as thought by Abraham Maslow. The way Maslow sets it up is similar to a pyramid, and having to go up the pyramid. Going up the pyramid represents growth, while not progressing would signify a deficiency like a lack of vitamins would affect growth, or a unsafe habitat could cause deficiencies in the lower parts of the pyramid. Self-actualization is the top of the pyramid, characterized by things like autonomy and openness to experience. These two characteristics encourage independence, and a abandonment of defense appraisals and doubts. From bottom up the pyramid is as follows: physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization. Table 15.1 provides some behaviors that can be taken to help encourage ourselves towards self-actualization.
Growth-Seeking and validation-seeking it the next concept mentioned, and it predicts vulnerability to mental health difficulties. Validators are people that fear failure, suffer from low self-esteem, and high depression. They are the bend-over-backwards kind of people, while growth, experience low interaction anxiety, fear of failure, and high self-esteem. They tend to live in the present and act in what they consider their own principles.
Carl Rogers and others thought that relationships help support his idea that humans have one goal which is self-actualization, or to achieve their maximum potential. He thought that by helping others, the freedom to learn and relatedness to others would help towards self-actualization. Interpersonal relationships became constructive, when they function properly to allow people to become more mature, better integrated, and more open to experience. For relatedness to others he said that good citizens was a good model. They accommodate to society, respect others, and internalize cultural values. But this aspect can be taken advantage of, with a hidden agenda as the book says. For freedom to learn, he thought that just experiencing life was a better way to learn that from a teacher or an education system, as he lamented their practices.
Something that I found interesting was table 15.2 on page 435 and the research of correlations of psychological well-being. It seems that Growth-seeking is better, from reading the chapter and from the data. These are ways people actually think that could be correlated to their psychological well-being and can be detrimental.
I think in terms of growth motivation i think that for me at least, that goals I have set for myself will help me towards growth motivation and possibly later on in life towards self-actualization. Which according to this chapter seems to be the main goal of mankind as a whole. I think that self-actualization is important, but not as much as the chapter emphasizes. I think that the goals I have now are important enough for me not to change, but I will probably end up due to events in life delays my goals, or progressing my goals faster than thought. New goals will be formed, but a later time.

Chapter fifteen has the underlying topic of growth motivation and positive psychology. The chapter begins by explaining how different cultures have developed different expectations for how people should behave and interact with others. Growing up in a primarily all black neighborhood, being the only hispanic/non black kid, I was expected to behave more tough and more athletic than I was normally used to. We can see how this concept shifts throughout our life and the book gives the example of how college culture values the extraversion and exciting aspects of emotions that are given off. In college it is the stigma that we have fun all of the time and party and go out and we are tended to be forced to do so socially, because if se do not abide, we are seen as outsiders. With the topic of holism, the chapter explains that we are a whole individual rather than just a make up of different parts. Anything that affects on aspect of us has an impact on all of us as a whole. The concept of holism focuses all-encompassing motives and breaks down our master motives that control the smaller, more specific ones. With positive psychology we are able to see how the main focus is the idea of what we feel a good life is supposed to be like. We use this to understand positive experiences such as satisfaction, love, passion, and many others and how those effect our motives. With this chapter gearing towards motivation, we can see how positive psychology can allow us to perform certain tasks and live a happier life and be motivated to keep that snowball rolling. The chapter continues and highlights self actualization. This concept has two fundamental sub-units called autonomy and openness. With autonomy we see moving towards more of a personal dependency on ones own emotions and regulating ones emotions. With openness we see a boost in mindfulness. Together we have autumn which allows someone to find themselves. With this in mind we all have the needs. Whether they be physiological or self-actualization. The chapter sets this up with the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and shows the growth motivation and defiance motivation that underlies it. Deficiency needs highlights things like self-esteem, and belongingness. These are crucial to the development of personal growth. With growth motivation we see someone who has reached self-actualization. This is rare. This individual no longer experiences insecure, isolated, judged or anything of that nature. The book states that an extremely small percentage of people will ever experience this. Personally, I feel that this is extremely difficult to obtain due to the social stigmas that people feel they need to abide to such as the beauty ideal for example. When an individual is able to better understand their true self and experience actualization we see the the motivation and desire to be more positive and love others. The chapter continues to highlight causality orientations, and explains how people rely on the external guides or social cues for their behaviors and motivation. With Autonomy orientations we see a more personally valued goal behind ones motivation to do something. With these two concepts we can see how someone who is happy they may have the goal to simply have a better attitude every day and go from there. This goal is more personal and can positively motivate someone to continue this behavior.
Personally, I feel that I experience some aspects of positive psychology and autonomy with some of my life decisions and life goals. After learning about this chapter I feel that I definitely was able to better understand the goals I currently have and make smaller goals that could change my mindset and even attitude towards completing other goals.

Terms:
Self actualization
holism
positive psychology
autonomy
openness
hierarchy of needs
deficiency needs
growth needs
actualizing tendency
orientations

Chapter 15, our final chapter, is about growth motivation and how important of a role it can play through the development of our lives. Holism and positive psychology are introduced due to the ways that they influence growth motivation. Holism is basically taking the focus and putting it all on the entirety of something without focusing on the smaller components of it. Positive psychology is the study of what makes life worth living while using an optimistic outlook. Humanistic psychology can be pretty similar, but this approach or perspective focuses on the whole person and their behavior. Self-actualization is an important topic that is discussed which occurs when an individual realizes their full potential whether it is creatively, intellectually, socially, etc. This is the highest point in the pyramid of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which includes two categories of deficiency and physiological needs. The physiological needs consist of deficiency needs and growth needs to become self-actualized. These include physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness, esteem needs, and finally self-actualization.


The most surprising thing I learned in this chapter was about Maslow’s six behaviors to encourage self-actualization. I always knew that he was the one to coin this term and being a psychology major, I always knew about the Hierarchy of Needs and humanistic theory. I am just now learning that there are six behaviors that he has identified to help us reach the top of the pyramid. The six behaviors are as follows: make choices that promote growth, be honest, situation oneself for peak experiences, let go of defensiveness, let the self emerge, and finally be open to experience. I’m not sure if most course find that this is not so important or takes up too much time to teach, but in my opinion this is very important to know. If we truly want to reach our fullest potential and be the best person we want to be, it helps to know where to start and how we want to end up. We have to learn to make choices that will benefit us, not set us back, because we want to keep getting better. Openness is very important in this chapter along with autonomy which are a part of self-actualization. Autonomy is our ability to do things for ourselves and making our own decisions without the help of others. Openness is so important, because it has to do with mindfulness and letting our emotions and feelings be open to others. If we are true to ourselves and true to others, we are much more likely to reach self-actualization.


An aspect of growth motivation that I am currently engaged in would be that I am more of a growth seeking individual rather than a validation seeking one. If I behave, act, think a certain way it’s usually because I want to for my own personal growth. I’m not sure if I have ever really done anything to receive validation from others, because I’ve never really cared what they think. If I write a really good paper, one could say that I did it to receive a good grade and feedback from my instructor. I would say that I did it, because I wanted to prove to myself that I had what it takes to do so. The harder I try on my papers, the better I will get and possibly the less effort I may need to put it. This is a good example, because I like to evolve and grow within my school work from each paper or assignment I do. I don’t care what others will think of me or say, I would even go out to a bar with sweats on, because I’m there to have fun, not look good to others. Validation is nice once in a while, don’t get me wrong, but that is not the purpose for why I engage in certain things. I am not a die-hard hockey fan, because it appeals to the male population, but because it is something that I genuinely love.

As for some new growth motivation goals, I would like to work on my openness as a part of the self-actualization process. My autonomy is just fine as I have discussed in a previous blog post. I know that I have the ability and the choice to make all of my own decisions and do the things that I want to do when I want to do them. I would say that I am not an open person and this has a lot to do with my lack of friendships, but also sustaining friendships over time. I like to be funny and outgoing, but I do not like to show my emotions such as anger or sadness. Even reaching a decent level of happiness can seem to be difficult for me at times. I know I would be happier and mindful if I was more open. I would have more friendships and more people would probably go out of their way to talk to me. I do not like others to know what I am feeling and I do not like to be seen as weak or vulnerable. I’m am trying to find more of a positive outlook on this and be less robot like which is not attractive to others.


I know how better to go about achieving this kind of goal by being true to myself, but also being open to others as I expect others to be open to me. Part of growth is moving on from how you used to be, think, feel and how a change would be better developmentally. I know Maslow’s six behaviors to encourage self-actualization will help a lot now that I know about them. We have to be willing and open to moving on and stepping out of our comfort zones if it means it will help us grow. I remember as a child I was very scared of rollercoasters and refused to get on one for the longest time. Finally, a few of my older cousins convinced me to go on one and to this day they are my favorite things of all time. I past all six of these behaviors for such a small task and I am in the hopes that being more open will bring me to groundbreaking experiences like this one. This way I can meet others and share a deep emotional connecting with them that may never be broken and we can be friends sharing experiences together for a long time.


Terms:
Self-actualization
Hierarchy of Needs
Positive psychology
Humanistic psychology
Holism
Growth motivation
Unconditional/conditional positive regard
Congruence/incongruence
Growth seeking
Validation seeking

In the fifteenth chapter of our textbook, we growth motivation and positive psychology. This chapter is a fitting end to the body of this textbook because it ends on a hopeful note about our ability to change. In this chapter, I found a few things interesting and identified areas of growth motivation that I see myself actively participating in. Due to this, I also considered how the knowledge of growth motivation impacts my goal setting and how growth motivation can help me achieve those goals.

After reviewing the chapter, the two things that I found most interesting were related to Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs and conditions of worth. The former was intriguing to me because it addressed a concept that I was already quite familiar with from previous psychology courses. Despite that, the textbook addressed criticisms of the hierarchy that I had not been aware of. The text explained that there is no empirical research to support the hierarchy and that critics suggest a dual-level hierarchy instead of Mazlow’s original five-level. This dual-level would shrink the original hierarchy by combining several levels under the umbrella term, deficiency needs, and label self-actualization as growth needs. When considering the latter, conditions of worth was an interesting concept because it brought attention to something that I believe I was subconsciously aware of. This concept refers to how our self (personality/behaviors) are judged positively or negatively. This relates to positive regard which is the extent to which our self is perceived positively. If raised with unconditional positive regard, children are able to feel a sense worth without the need to internalize societal expectations. On the other hand, is conditional positive regard, which is supported by society as a strategy to effect obedience.

When considering what aspects of growth motivation, I see myself in, I noticed that I am partaking in positive and negative areas. For the positives, I find that I am participating in a few of the behaviors addressed in Table 5.1 related to self-actualization. For example, I feel that I am making growth choices, positioning myself for peak experiences, and being open to experiences by making the decision to move to Los Angeles after graduation. For the negatives, I find that I often put up facades and have mixed view of myself based on my definition and social definitions. Lastly, an aspect of positive psychology posits “good mental health requires more than the absence of mental illness”. This is an extremely important statement for me because, although I have my mental illness under relative control, I am still some ways away from being fully “healthy”.

The information I learned on growth motivation and how it relates to me, made me consider how it relates to my goal-setting. Overall, I would say this information makes me more inclined to focus on creating more goals that focus on my selfcare such as taking time for myself daily to do a relaxation technique such as meditation. Some areas that I could improve on to help myself grow and improve my mental health would be working on strengths in Table 15.3 and practicing happiness exercises. For the former, I could improve on strengths such as optimism, the passion to know, and resilience. For the latter, I could do exercises like thinking of good things that happened during the day through reflection and/or taking the time to thank someone who means a lot to me.

Terms:
Mazlow’s hierarchy
Dual-level hierarchy
Conditions of worth
Positive regard
Socialization strategy
Façade
Growth-seeking
Self/Social Definitions
Happiness Exercises
Table 15.1/15.3

Chapter 15 mostly talked about growth motivation and positive psychology. This chapter covered various main sections including positive psychology and holism. In other words, making yourself a better human being and doing it in a positive and a healthy way. The chapter talks about many different ways this can be done. Like, by doing something that makes you feel better and happy, or if needed, changing ways you may might think or do things that would lead to a have a positive circumstances. The chapter first mentions the concept of self-actualization. Self-actualization can be described as the realization or fulfilment of one’s talent and potentialities, especially considered as a drive or need present in everyone. Self-actualization is the inherent developmental striving we all experience. Because people do not like to change so they try to change themselves by changing their way of thinking and gaining knowledge and experiencing different events that mature them. This is accomplished, while not performing any task which can be detrimental to contentment. Moreover, actualizing tendency is the process people take to get envoluted and can feel like that they reside. This can happen through many different things like at work, or having a hobby that you like to fulfil in order to make yourself happy. People can learn many different things and can feel good later when they do. They do not only meet new people and experience different things which further preserve the tendency. At the end of the chapter, it talks about how relationships actually support the idea of the actualizing tendency. People also start to experience how others might feel and then learn to support each other. Also, when someone feel accomplished and succeeded, they feel very good about themselves which motivates them to do it over and over again.

One of the most interesting thing in the chapter was that how people should work together in order to achieve happiness and prosperity. This concept can also be applied to someone who is independent and like to work alone, they must work together in order to gain more knowledge and to get aspects and opinions of other about what they have to say which can be a very positive thing. One of the other key point in the chapter I really liked was when a person must find what they are good at and what they enjoy doing so they can find people in that area so they can interact with others. This will cause them to have more knowledge and opinion in that particular area and they will also have more friends in the community as well. This can be very beneficial with people who reformulate themselves and are involved in some kind of bad crowd, because having to know someone else in that particular area they like may change them exclusively and the people around them can help with that.

The facet of growth motivation that I am engaged in are making growth, healthy and grown up choices. For example, letting go something that may have negative outcomes and consequences, and letting myself emerge and evolve. I must say that getting out of high school and now being in college is definitely a time period of transformation. We change so much as we grow. This can be because we learn different things and gain much knowledge. So at this point, graduating college and going to grad school is one of my main goal at this point right now. I have many hobbies but owning an antiques store is one of the first one on my bucket list so I am really hoping that once my life settles, I would hopefully have a store as a side business so I’ll at least be doing something I really love. This will then hopefully enhance my well-being as well.
Moreover, I have learned so much from this chapter about growth motivation. This makes me want to develop new goals and experience things that I have never thought about experiencing. In other words, I’ll be redefining myself so I will have different goals and will be doing different things to reach them. I think that having an end goal is probably the easiest but putting in work and working towards a goal in order to reach your destiny can be a little difficult. But, I think if we all practice the growth motivation more often and effectively, it will become easier for us. Not only this, it will make us happy human beings as well.

Lastly, I think I can achieve these goals from better knowing about the better fundamental because it can be very advantageous for me. I think the worst thing that I probably can do is ignore these rather than trying them out and experiencing new things. The outcome of this would be the “same old me”. So, I think it is very important for us to redefine ourselves so we can experience new things and have new goals for ourselves. This will not be beneficial for us, but it will also make us very happy in the future.

Terms Used:
Self-actualizing
Well-being
Holism
Positive psychology
Growth motivation
Actualizing tendency

Growth Motivation

This chapter focuses on the motivation of growth and positive psychology. In positive psychology, there’s holism, self actualization, actualizing tendency, and humanistic therapy. With holism, the human is seen as a whole being that works integratively altogether, instead of just a bunch of separate parts working on their own, and not just motivated by parts but by the human as a whole. In humanistic psychology, people are seen as developing organisms that are always evolving into its potential. Empirical methods in psychology are used for positive psychology to study why life is worth living. In studying these things, researchers are able to see correlations in behaviors that lead to an overall well-being, positive individual development, and contributing to flourishing communities.

A fundamental approach to this positive development includes self-actualization, which is one’s full potential through creativity, independence, spontaneity, and a grasp of the real world. In striving for these things, the process of self-actualization also includes dismissing one’s timidity, defense appraisals, and dependence on other individuals for motivation to reach a goal. There are two important aspects to this process that also include autonomy and openness. In the aspect of openness, an individual is receiving information that is not filtered, disregarded, or suppressed. In autonomy, an individual is able to experience a greater capacity to do things independently for oneself.

Another aspect in this chapter that covered a lot of important information for growth motivation was Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This chapter went into depth on the attributes of these needs. In Maslow’s hierarchy, the needs are organized by the control and effectiveness of each. The lower the need is on the hierarchy, the more necessary the need is. Physiological needs are the needs that start at the bottom and then from there it moves on to safety, love and belongingness, and finally self-actualization.

I found Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to be the most interesting because I think it’s clear in human development how those needs fit on the timeline. As a college student, there is a lot of development in autonomy and openness which provides motivation for growth in not just independence in sustaining physiological needs and safety needs without the help of parents, but also in fulfilling the need to belong and gaining confidence in seeking self-actualization which will be a longer process to fulfill in our lifetimes than any other need. I love learning about this because just in the past four years of my college education and moving into an independent life separate from my parents, I've experience specific growth in all aspects of these needs which motivates me to continue in seeking self-actualization and truly reaching the potential of who I am as a human outside of college after I graduate.

Terms: growth motivation, positive psychology, holism, self-actualization, actualizing tendency, humanistic theory, empirical, autonomy, openness

If our basic temperament and social norms/values (i.e., natural introvert who complies with cultural priority for extroversion) are out of alignment, we tend to suffer from maladjustment problems. This chapter focuses on working with those whose natural temperament is in alignment to further experience the positive benefits of self-actualization and growth orientation, and even more so, those of us who tend to discordance that leads to maladjustment to maintain an inner-driven, maladjustment minimizing well-being from growth in accordance to our nature. While even introverts can benefit from getting out and letting loose a bit, at what point to we live more true to ourselves and embrace goals and activities that bring personal growth.

This chapter draws from the more subjective approach of humanistic schools of thought in counseling psychology and the more empirically driven positive psychology. Existentialist and Gestalt, as well as person-centered (Carl Rogers) therapy, contends that it is not parts of us that motivate us toward an end, but how our whole being responds and directs itself toward self-fulfillment. While much of these humanistic approaches are difficult to turn into empirically-verifiable hypotheses, they reflect much of our commonsense experience around what makes us happy and promotes well-being (I work out of a basically Gestalt approach, although it is heavily informed by existentialism, person-centered therapy, and the strengths-based focus of positive psychology, so I have some obvious biases here). Positive psychology attempts to understand what are the component activities and practices that lead to personal well-being and fulfillment. This sort of flips things from a theoretical focus to an empirical focus on looking at happy, fulfilled people and noticing what they have and do in common. The two approaches agree heavily that there are connections between authenticity between ones inner self and one’s motivated behavior. Positive psychologists conceptualize this as self-actualization, which they break down into the qualities of autonomy (depend on one’s self for direction and values) and openness (being fully receptive to the feelings and external stimuli without distortion of the defense mechanisms and pathologies mentioned in chapter 14, which are here incompletely summarized as fantasy and avoidance, repression, or other strategies to reduce anxiety growing out of fear). Through conscious awareness (mindfulness) of our authentic selves and a realistic appraisal of our capacities and external conditions, we can move towards a life of action according to our intrinsic motivation and growing towards our potentials (this is Aristotle’s teleological ethos found in De Animus and the Nicomachean Ethics, the former of which is referred to in the chapter).

Growing out of this, the chapter turns to Maslow’s famous “hierarchy of needs,” which posits a pyramidal conception with physiological needs at the base, deficit-relieving psychological needs comprising the next four hierarchic layers, culminating in a growth-oriented need for self-actualization need. Maslow contends that this hierarchy is innate, but that the overwhelming majority do not fully develop to meet all their needs, particularly the normatively highest level of self-actualizing needs. Maslow describes these last as intrinsic to our basic nature, but only possible to address when we have satisfied the more basic and powerful needs below in the pyramid. Think that my basic self has a strong self-actualizing need to express myself artistically or through profoundly intimate friendships. I satisfy this by developing these capacities to significantly towards my potential abilities in these areas. While the evidence does not support the needs being hierarchic in the nature Maslow posits (e.g., there is no evidence that we move up the hierarchy as we develop and age), there appears sound evidence that that Maslow was on to something with the distinction between deficiency-motivated needs, and growth-oriented needs. Further, Maslow recognized the seeming contradiction between the innate potential for self-actualization and the surprisingly tiny proportion of humans who become self-actualizing. He therefore gives some insights into how we can improve the latter to reduce the disconnect between our potential and our realization, foreshadowing the later positive psychologists. He contends that we must embrace growth-oriented challenges rather than the markers of success, that we are honest with who we are rather than embracing what society and culture tell us to value, that we take responsibility for our choices, that in embracing those parts of ourselves where we have great growth potential rather than those that society values that we have less potential to excel in, we set ourselves up for realizing the well-being of peak experiences, that we shed fear-based anxiety reducing ego defense mechanisms, and that we be open to new and mindful experiences. But this is not just the individual acting alone, as Maslow recognizes that deep, authentic relationships trump superficial relationships and social markers of relational success.

Returning to the humanistic approach, we then looks at actualizing tendencies. Following Carl Rogers, people have an innate capacity to know and decide for themselves what is best for them, but that this often gets distorted through unhealthy primary relationships, socialization that overrides authenticity, and other external threats to what we have seen in Maslow’s deficiency-oriented needs. The path to growth towards actualization is a series of struggles, and the individual’s need to struggle for themselves and respect for their ability to grow through struggle must be respected, according to Rogers. These can be supported by the individual seeing themselves reflected as having worth in the opinion of significant others (Rogers talks about this as the counselor/therapist approaching the client/patient from a position of unconditional positive regard and honesty). For Rogers, we always carry an innate inner sense of value and a need to be valued by the outside world. Well-being and the support to embrace the struggles necessary to move towards actualizing require that the outside world (or at least the most significant people in that world) correspond with that innate inner valuing. From both Rogers and the other humanistic approaches, we see a continued theme that the inner and outer world (at least the significant individuals for that person’s outer world) be in congruence. Congruence is when the individual feels able to embrace and accept who they are as valuable, and this leads to self-realization and well-being. When we encounter too much unauthentic valuing or rejection of that inner self, it puts pressure on us to not act in accordance with that inner sense of authenticity (incongruence).

There is a causal authenticity at play as well, and this connects to the mastery orientation and beliefs we saw in earlier chapters. There is a greater satisfaction/well-being when the innate desires and motivation welling up inside of me are met by both myself and the significant people in my life with acceptance that I can honestly and openly communicate and act to fulfill those impulses. This requires a degree of congruity between my sense of what I value and accept in myself and that of others important to me (and best, my society/culture). This allows me to move effectively towards fulfilling my potential and actualizing myself. The chapter contrasts behavior motivated by a more growth-seeking motive in which my motives are autonomous and self-valued and when I am seeking other’s validation. The growth-seeking individual is authentic to the autonomously valued orientation and self-motivated behavior, while the validation-seeking individual take their cues from others regardless of their own values and desires. It is best when these can overlap, but growth-seeking is more in line with the well-being/happiness outcome of innate motivation and authentic sense of self.

A theme running through all this is that the quality of one’s relationships matter. This is not just that we feel connected to and valued by others, but that we derive some sense of well-being and self-actualization from our positive relationship with others. This is marked by our constructive, helpful relationships and our ability to develop intimacy with others without losing ourselves. In fact, it is through healthy relationships that growth is facilitated (hence Roger’s rejection of the counselor/therapist as teach model for a more facilitative model of that relationship). Further, harmful, inauthentic relationships, on Rogers’ view, grow out of earlier injury at the hands of others. Other humanists see a less clearly benign human nature, recognizing that helpful and hurtful impulses and our lighter and darker natures exist in all of us. We are not just innately good. But it is through healthy relationships, especially early pivotal ones, that we develop more of the benign or benevolent nature rather than develop our more malevolent tendencies. This is less optimistic than Rogers’ view, but still basically an optimistic view of human nature. This said, there is a criticism of these views of the innate nature of the person in that we must square it with history and experience for malevolent behavior, which can be hard to do. A further criticism is that the innate goodness that is posited is difficult to operationalize and test empirically. Finally, it is often difficult for the individual to distinguish between their more growth-oriented, self-actualizing impulses and more selfish side, and the ambiguity of applying morality concretely to actual situations (moral issues are often more ambiguous than our stand on them). What is the right, authentic behavior is difficult for the individual to uncover given that we develop in a complicated social milieu that presents us with social pressures, conditional regard, and often deficiency conditions.

I was most impressed by the breaking of Maslow’s hierarchy down in light of the evidence. As someone who counsels lots of clients who struggle with their innate sense of who they are versus what significant others and society tell them they should be, I am very aware of the maladjustment that results from this. It was helpful to think through some of my own goals in light of whether they are authentic to my values, trying to achieve what is expected of me, and the difficulty determining which of these is in the driver’s seat. As I chose buying a house as my goal to write on, the degree to which this is a marker of success, versus my desire to live according to my values as a father and person seems very relevant to the discussion in this chapter.

Terms: growth-orientation, deficiency-orientation, introversion, extroversion, temperament, maladjustment, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, autonomy, openness, authenticity, actualizing tendency, Rogers, existentialism, Gestalt, humanism, holism, positive psychology, Maslow, hierarchy of needs, unconditional positive regard (vs. conditional), relationships, causality orientation, mindfulness.

Chapter 15 is all about growth motivation and positive psychology. Specifically, the chapter focuses on self-actualization, casualty orientations, how relationships support the actualizing tendency, and the problem of evil. All of these concepts work together to help humans realize their full potential and leave behind being timid and working towards being creative and productive. This chapter also discusses how people can focus on growing and evolving into better versions of themselves, rather than aiming to please others in return for validation. One should focus on pleasing and improving themselves before they aim to please others.

One thing that I found interesting in this chapter is about relatedness. A study conducted found that infants who had attentive and warm care givers, actually grew up to be more autonomous than researchers expected. This is shocking because one would think that if a care giver gave a child attention and acted warmly towards them that the child would then become more reliant on the care giver instead of less reliant. I personally do not relate to this and I believe there have to be more factors present such as the personality of the child. For example, my sister and I have the same mother and grew up in the same environment with the same warm, kind, attentive mother. My sister is extremely independent and does not rely on validation from others. I on the other hand, am not extremely independent and rely heavily on validation from others to boost my self-confidence. I am curious if the study published followed children past their teen years to see how autonomous they became as adults.

One aspect of growth motivation that I am involved in is optimism. I always try my best to remain positive in every situation. For the last 2 years I have struggled with a stress fracture in my left femur. For several months I was convinced I would never dance again or even walk without experiencing excruciating pain. For the last 2 years I have struggled to sound positive when people asked if I thought I would dance again, because I was not sure if I ever would. However, I learned that being overly positive, almost on the verge of delusional, can be a very good thing. There was no point to be sad about something I could not control, rather, I decided to remain hopeful and if I could dance again – great, and if I could not – I’d find a different hobby.

Learning about the existence of growth motivation does not actually make me want to develop any new goals, but rather simply fine tune my current goals.

Knowing what I know now about how the principles of growth motivation works, I believe I will be able to construct a better plan to work towards the goals I have already set. For example, I want to be the best, most versatile dancer on UNI’s dance team. In order to do that, I need to work harder than everyone at every practice as well as stay focused during the summer months. I need to find motivation within myself and not rely on anyone else, because no one else wants me to achieve this goal more than I do.

TERMS USED
Actualizing Tendency
Autonomy
Casualty Orientations
Creativity
Motivation
Optimism
Positive Psychology
Relatedness
Self-actualization

Chapter fifteen focused on growth motivation and positive psychology. Holism is the understanding that a person is an integrated, organized whole rather than a collection of parts. It’s the idea that any event that affects one system affects the entire person. From this, humanistic psychology was developed. Humanistic psychology focuses on discovering human potential. This is related to positive psychology.
Positive psychology is still a relatively new field. Positive psychology articulates the vision of the good life. It strives to answer questions like, “What makes life worth living?” and “How can we develop and amplify people’s strengths?”
Self-actualization is the realization of one’s talents and potentials. It develops from autonomy and openness. In his study of self-actualization, Maslow created a hierarchy of human needs, with physiological needs being the base and self-actualization needs being the peak. The middle of the hierarchy was filled with safety, love, and esteem needs. Unfortunately, Maslow’s hierarchy was not empirically supported. The most valid part of Maslow’s hierarchy was the distinction between deficiency needs and growth needs. Deficiency needs are recognized when an absence of something inhibits growth and motivation. Growth needs provide motivation to become what one is capable of becoming.
One of the most interesting parts of this chapter to me was Maslow’s estimate that less than one percent of the population reaches self-actualization. That’s such a small amount of people that fulfill their self-actualization needs. His reasoning was nonsupportive internal and external environments. In other instances, a person can be their own barrier to their lack of growth; we fear our own potential or think someone smarter needs to show us what to do. To combat this, Maslow came up with some practical suggestions. Make growth changes. Be honest with yourself. Situationally position yourself for peak experiences. Give up defensiveness. Let the self emerge; be true to yourself. Be open to experience.
Actualizing tendency motivates new and challenging experiences. Forward movement comes from struggle and pain. From here, the self can develop. Conditions of worth also develop. Conditions of worth are conditions that a person’s characteristics and behaviors are judged as positive or negative by outer world values. Before conditions of worth develops, a person determines their worth based on inner, innate judgements. In either situation, if deemed positive, the characteristic or behavior is accepted. If negative, the characteristic or behavior is rejected. Sometimes inner judgements and outer world judgements will conflict. When this happens in children, a parent may have to weigh the psychological and social costs of accepting or rejecting their child’s innate characteristics. If a parent accepts their child as they area, they are likely enforces unconditional positive regard. If a parent pushes what they wish their child to be upon their child, they may have a conditional positive regard.
Growth-seeking individuals focus on learning, improving, and reaching potential. When they encounter failure, they are able to recognize areas of improvement. On the contrary, when validation-seeking individuals encounter failure, they have adjustment problems. They are also more vulnerable to mental health problems, like anxiety and depression. Now that I know more about growth-seeking and validation-seeking, I hope to create goals from a growth-seeking mindset.

Terms: growth motivation, positive psychology, holism, humanistic psychology, self-actualization, autonomy, physiological needs, deficiency needs, growth needs, actualizing tendency, conditions of worth, unconditional positive regard, conditional positive regard, growth-seeking, validation-seeking

Jon Lutz - section 01

The chapter sets the stage by defining qualitative outcomes depending on growth. Failure to develop personal growth may lead to psychological illness and maladjustments. If social pressures direct behavior as to derail a person too away from their natural temperament, a condition of maladjustment is likely. It is with this struggle between extrinsic pressures and our inner nature that concerns the fields of Holism and Positive Psychology. They urge growth towards self-realization, avoiding facade, and building on one’s competence and strengths. We want to reduce anxiety and other negative affect, but at the same time there is more. We want to be the best, most honest, and self reliant versions of ourselves. Moving towards openness and autonomy is the Holy Grail of growth motivation, known as self actualization.
Psychologists have mainly used Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to construct the possible selves that people seem to be approaching or avoiding. The hierarchy is a pyramid conceptual construct representing human needs from its wide base up to the point of its pinnacle. The needs organize themselves according to potency from most potent at the bottom and least potent at the top. The lower a need is on the pyramid the earlier it appears in development. Needs are fulfilled in order from most potent to least potent. Though Maslow elaborated on the complexity of the pyramid empirical evidence support only one distinction. Deficiency needs are bottom majority of the pyramid, consisting of rudimentary needs such as sustenance and socialization. Only in the absence of these needs are people energized to behave. The much smaller top portion is known as growth needs. These needs, if deficiency needs are adequately managed, the forces that energize us to seek mastery and purpose. Growth is an ongoing process of learning that generates eudaimonic well being as a byproduct.
How we navigate our personal growth is largely determined by our organismic valuation process. This process is an innate capability to judge our direction as either growth or regression. The former is characterised with desiring new challenging experiences. The latter is characterized extrinsic and temporary avoidance of negative affect. A strong force pushing towards regression is “conditions of worth.” These conditions are socially driven feed that impede self actualization if conflicting our inner nature too strongly. This is a difficult line for parents and educators. It takes much more effort and patience to form a developmental and educational environment that takes into account a child’s innate temperament, especially when if it isn’t identical to the adult’s expectations or values.
The chapter continues to discuss terms which restate concepts previously covered in the textbook. In these terms appear dichotomies that are not unfamiliar to motivational understanding, perhaps presented under new names for the positive psychology context. The first half of these dichotomies jive well with self actualization and the productive forces of mastery oriented goals, high self efficacy, intrinsically derived motivation, and aligning one’s identity with one’s goals. These positive forces include: autonomy causality, growth seeking, self definition, optimism, and eudaimonic well being. For each of these terms there is an opposite troubling concept characterized with dependance, extrinsic motivation, and short sightedness. These are: control causality orientation, validity seeking, social definition, delusion, and hedonic well being.

Maladjustment
Holism
Positive psychology
Self actualization
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Deficiency/Growth needs
Organismic valuation process

Billy Elliot is a great British film about a boy rejecting the stereotypes of male masculinity and becoming a ballet dancer. This movie is a great example of showing growth motivation.

Firstly Billy shows us a great example of self-actualization when he accepts his ballet teacher's invitation for private lessons, because she believes he is a good enough dancer that he could get into the Royal Ballet School. Billy realizes through this conversation with his ballet teacher his talents, what he is capable of, and the potential he possesses. This same scene is also another great example of a couple of the behaviors that improve self-actualization. Knowing that he must improve in order to get into the Royal Ballet School, Billy accepts the invitation for private lessons. This is a growth choice that Billy has made, in that he made this decision because it will allow him to improve as a dancer and potentially make it through the audition. This is also a great example of Billy opening himself to experiences. Even though his father has forbidden him from pursuing ballet any longer, Billy accepts the risk in order to obtain the skill he needs to succeed. Another example of these behaviors goes throughout the entire movie, and that is Billy choosing to let himself emerge and be seen by everyone around him. The scene that comes to mind is when his father tells him that "ballet is not for the lads". Billy starts off the argument by saying that he thinks there isn't anything wrong with ballet, and that he likes it. This is the ultimate emerging and being seen, because him and his father seem to have a decent relationship up until this disagreement.

Another behavior that is shown in the film is causality orientation. Billy's father does not like Billy dancing because it is seen to him as feminine and he is afraid Billy will be gay. Obviously Billy's father has a varying understanding on this behavior. Because Billy is a ballet dancer, does not mean his is homosexual. It is made apparent to Billy's father when Billy's childhood friend turns out to be gay, but does not dance like Billy. In fact, Billy's friend sits by Billy's brother and father at the end of the film, when Billy is preparing to perform for them.

The end of the film shows us that Billy has developed great self-actualization and congruence throughout his life. We see that Billy has successfully become an expert ballet dancer in the final scene. Throughout Billy's experiences in childhood ballet, and later at the Royal Ballet School, that Billy has fully accepted his personal characteristics, his capacities, as well his beliefs, talents, and all of his potential. This all culminates in the final scene of the movie when Billy leaps into the air and seemingly makes his father proud of what he's accomplished.

Terms:
Growth Motivation
Self-actualization
Congruence
Causality Orientation

Billy Elliot’s journey in becoming a dancer was a journey of self-discovery and personal growth. At the beginning of the film, Billy’s after-school activity was boxing. Boxing was the prescribed activity by his father and what was valued in society. However, Billy’s organism valued something else. He wanted to dance. The way Billy moved through the ring and got distracted by the ballet dancers indicated that something was not as interested in boxing as he was dancing. When Billy wandered into the dance lessons, watched the girls dance, and tried out the poses all on his own, you could tell that his was a domain in which he wanted to grow. It was then and there that Billy began his quest for self-actualization. Billy had once been persuaded by the control of his father and society, but from this moment on, he started listening to his inner-guides and became an autonomous person. However, Billy’s journal for self-actualization and growth did not come without its challenges.

Billy’s biggest challenge, other than learning how to dance, was the opposition he faced from his father, brother, and society. Billy’s father tried to smother his motivation for music even before he realized he wanted to dance by trying to stop Billy when he would try to play his mother’s piano. This foreshadowed his interest in dancing as the next scene showed a piano being wheeled into the gym. That’s also when Billy first saw the ballet dancers. Shortly after, Billy danced around the boxing rink during a match, hearing the piano in the background. The coach called out his dancing and after he lost told him he was a disgrace to “those gloves, your father, and the tradition of boxing”. When Billy’s father found out, he stopped giving Billy money for the lessons. When Mrs.Wilkinson came to Billy’s house, Billy’s brother showed his disapproval when he called Billy a twat and tried to force him to dance like a monkey up on the kitchen table. These are all example of how the world around Billy was giving him conditional regard, specifically disapproval, for dancing instead of boxing. It was conditional regard because it was not based on accepting Billy’s own growth-seeking potential. They did not praise Billy for wanting to do what was true to him. However, that didn’t stop Billy.

Billy received unconditional regard, or complete acceptance for his path, from the dance instructor, Mrs. Wilkinson. Since he first walked in and started dancing without invitation, she let him be himself. She didn’t stop giving him lessons when his dad stopped giving Billy money. She pushed him hard to keep learning, which made him want to practice at home. She knew he was so inwardly driven and talented that she recommended him to go to a dance school. She let him do a contemporary dance that fit his style to perform at the interview. She fought tooth and nail against Billy’s father and brother when they were not on board. But Billy did eventually receive unconditional support from his father after he stood up to him one night and showed him his dancing. After that, Billy’s father wanted to do nothing but help his son have a successful chance at a life that wasn’t in the mines. His father probably realized that even though he couldn’t understand the dancing, that there was something there that he couldn’t fight, and that the dance instructor saw potential in Billy. Billy’s father knew that this was Billy’s chance to grow and have a life of his own.

Billy’s self-actualization continues when he is accepted into the school of dance. The efforts of his inner-guides and hard work cultimated at the very end of the movie when we see Billy as an adult dancing in a play. Billy’s autonomy and growth seeking led him to a career in doing what his organism naturally wanted to do. Thankfully, his father and brother came to accept this and were at the show. This means Billy is still able to feel love and belonging from his family, which shouldn’t further complicate his life in anyway. This movie truly had a happy ending.

Terms:
Self-discovery
Self-actualization
Social values
Organismic valuation
Autonomy
Growth
Conditional regard
Unconditional regard
Love and belonging

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