Running head: ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 1

Drawing on relevant research, critically evaluate the contribution made by Carl

Rogers and humanistic theory to our understanding of personality development
and growth.
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 2

Until the 1960’s, behaviourism and psychoanalysis dominated research and clinical practice

in psychology. Humanistic theory, with Rogers’ work at the forefront, provided such a

challenge to both methodologies that it became known as the ‘third force’ (Ellis, Abrams &

Abrams, 2009), and its contribution is still regarded by many as highly relevant

(Kirschenbaum & Jourdan, 2005; Elkins, 2009). Haggbloom et al. (2002) ranked Rogers

second only to Freud as the most influential clinical psychologist of the twentieth century.

However, Rogers’ ranking comes mainly from citations in introductory textbooks, which the

survey authors describe as a feature of theorists whose ideas are mainly of historical interest.

Humanistic psychology is currently considered by some as outside the mainstream, and even

unscientific (Elkins, 2009), raising a question as to the extent of Rogers’ contribution to

current understanding.

Humanistic psychologists put forward a number of theories about personality development.

Rogers understood development as progression towards what he described as “self-

actualisation” (Rogers, 1959), and his ideas should be considered in terms of his own

definition of growth (Levitt, Stanley, Frankel, & Raina, 2005). Rogers’ theories contain a

number of significant elements, each of which will be evaluated in terms of impact and

verifiability. It will be argued that, although some elements remain unverified and are only of

relevance to the history of psychology, others have made a highly significant contribution to

our understanding of personality development and in addition, require further research.

Rogers maintained that his theories rested on a principle called the “actualizing tendency,” a

positive directional tendency within every organism towards maintenance, enhancement and

reproduction (Rogers, 1980). Rogers’ belief in the actualizing tendency came from observing

changes in his clients’ personalities during therapy sessions, and his theories of development

and therapeutic growth are inextricably linked (Rogers, 1959). As he did not make a
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 3

particular distinction between the process of growth in the adult, and in the child, this essay

will look at personality development as it applies to both.

The second key element of Rogers’ theory of personal growth is his view of the self.

According to Rogers (1959), the self is formed when a person’s organism begins to perceive

certain parts of the “phenomenal field”, which is all the experiences available to perception at

a given moment, as related to its own being and functioning. The self-actualizing tendency is,

therefore, the actualizing tendency operating on the Rogerian “self”. The idea of such an

innate positive tendency challenged the assumptions of the time. Behaviourism viewed

development as the formation of responses to stimuli, and could not conceptualize a positive

force within the individual such as self-actualization (Ellis, Abrams & Abrams, 2009).

Although psychoanalytic theory posited the existence of drives within the psyche, it asserted

that the fundamental tendency of the individual was always towards drive reduction, and not

growth (Ellis, Abrams & Abrams, 2009). Rogers’ concept of self-actualization was

influenced by, but dissimilar to, that of the humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow (Rogers,

1980). Maslow believed that self-actualization was the highest level of human potential, a

desire for personal fulfilment that the individual was driven towards but which could only be

attained after the satisfaction of more basic needs, such as belonging, which involved the

need for love and group affiliation, and esteem, which was the need for self-respect and the

respect of one’s peers. Being self-actualized involved finding meaning in life, inner peace,

and functioning at the peak of one’s abilities in a chosen area (Maltby, Day & Macaskill,

2010).

The existence of a positive tendency within the individual is significant for our understanding

of personality development. However, the theory is difficult to verify empirically. Rogers

(1980, p.120) gives as evidence, firstly, the fact that a cell taken from a sea urchin larva

grows into a full organism, rather than simply a part, and secondly, the inability of the genetic
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 4

code to fully specify the nature of the mature organism. Evidence from simple organisms and

genetics cannot necessarily be generalized to human psychology, making Rogers’ point more

of a philosophical than a scientific one. More concrete empirical evidence comes from a

study by Sheldon and Elliot (1999). 169 psychology students were asked to list 10 personal

goals, and then to rate the goals in terms of how intrinsic they were to their own values and

needs. Self-concordance of goals was shown to correlate positively both with academic effort

over a semester, and feelings of subjective well-being. Sheldon, Arndt, and Houser-Marko

(2003), measured change in participants’ goal pursuits over specific periods of time. They

rated prototypical goals in terms of whether they were intrinsic or extrinsic. Participants were

asked to rate the importance of the goals, and then to re-rate them up to six months later. A

significant difference was found between the participants’ second ratings of the two different

types of goal, with the intrinsic goals being rated higher the second time. Both sets of

findings suggest the existence of an innate positive tendency within the individual. In

addition to the support for Rogers’ theory, evidence also exists for Maslow’s view of self-

actualization. Shostrom’s Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) is designed to measure self-

actualization, based largely on Maslow’s theories. The scale significantly differentiated

between participants who were self-actualized and non-self-actualized, based on clinical

interpretations, showing that the construct itself may have some validity (Tosi & Lindamood,

1975). Given the evidence, it may be concluded that a positive tendency towards forms of

personality development such as those posited by the humanist psychologists probably exists.

However, more research is required to determine the precise nature of the tendency.

Given favourable conditions, the actualizing tendency operating within an individual resulted

in what Rogers described as a “fully functioning person,” the ideal final stage of personality

development. According to Rogers, a fully functioning person was open to experience,

capable of trusting their emotions, and self-aware. Such a person saw the world in a realistic
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 5

way, was creative, and accepting of both others and themselves (Rogers, 1961). The idea

bears some similarity to Maslow’s self-actualized individual, also described as creative and

accepting, amongst other characteristics (Maltby, 2010). However, Rogers did not believe, as

Maslow did, that basic needs such as the need for security had to be satisfied before self-

actualization was possible. The humanistic psychologists’ conceptions of the fully developed

individual are significant as they offered a new definition of personality development itself.

Psychoanalysis viewed development as a series of psychosexual stages occurring at relatively

fixed ages. Failure to navigate any of the stages successfully would result in personality or

psychological disorders. The aim of psychoanalytic treatment was to cure psychological

illness by resolving fixations in the patient’s development (Maltby, 2010), suggesting that in

Freudian theory, optimal development was viewed simply as being free from psychological

problems. Behaviourist psychologists believed that development took place not through a

series of stages, but through responses to environmental stimuli producing specific

behaviours, which are reinforced through repetition (Feldman, 2008). Behaviourism’s total

focus on external behaviours meant that it could not conceptualize internal personality

development in the way that the humanist psychologists did.

Whilst it could be said that Rogers’ and Maslow’s ideas of the self-actualized individual

redefined the way we think about personal growth, the evidence they put forward in support

of their definitions is open to criticism. Rogers (1961, p.165) describes a study by Morris

involving factor analysis of the life goals of students of six diverse nationalities. Morris found

five underlying dimensions common to all the national groups: morality, the overcoming of

obstacles, self-awareness, receptivity to nature and persons, and the ability to enjoy simple

sensual pleasures. Although Rogers describes Morris’ ideas as unconvincing, and puts

forward his own set of common life goals based on observations of clients in therapy, two of

the dimensions uncovered by Morris’ factor analysis, self-awareness and receptivity to nature
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 6

and persons, are very similar to elements of Rogers’ idea of the self-actualized individual. In

terms of the research conducted by Maslow on the characteristics of self-actualized

individuals, his descriptions resulted from interviews with a number of individuals who he

had himself identified as self-actualized (Maltby, 2010), thus creating a somewhat circular

argument. Modern neuroscience offers stronger potential support for Rogers’ and Maslow’s

ideas. A network of cortical areas including the anterior insula (AI) is believed to be partly

responsible for encoding the perception of emotional experiences in both the self and others

(Silani, Zucconi & Lamb, 2013). Bird et al. (2010) observed reduced activation of these areas

in individuals with difficulties in emotional awareness. The reduced activation related to both

reduced awareness of emotions in the self, and in others, giving support to one of Rogers’ key

propositions regarding personality development: “When the individual perceives and accepts

into one consistent and integrated system all his or her sensory and visceral experiences, then

he or she is necessarily more understanding of others….”(Rogers, 1951, p.XXX). Examining

the relationship between emotional awareness of the self and others, and activation of specific

cortical areas in individuals identified as self-actualized, compared with activation in normal

individuals, offers the potential for research which could make a significant contribution to

the understanding of personality development.

Rogers (1959) observed what he believed to be several conditions necessary for the

successful development of the individual in therapy. One of these conditions, unconditional

positive regard, is key to Rogers’ theory, especially as it relates to personality development.

He defined it as valuing a person as an individual, irrespective of the different values placed

on their behaviour. A therapist showing unconditional positive regard would maintain a

positive attitude toward a client as a person, even when the client described a particular

behaviour the therapist found undesirable. Other conditions were as follows. The therapist
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 7

and the client must be in contact, which meant that each person was communicating their

own subjective and emotional reality to the other. The client had to be in a state of

incongruence, which meant that aspects of the self’s directional tendencies were at odds with

the actualizing tendency of the organism. The therapist had to be congruent in the

relationship, meaning that they expressed their own internal experiences authentically to the

client. Rogers’ final conditions for therapeutic growth were that the therapist have an

empathic understanding of the client, and that the client be able to perceive both the

therapist’s empathic understanding, and his unconditional positive regard. Rogers (1959)

stated that his observations of people in therapy could be generalized to other areas of

personality development, for example, that of the human infant.

A number of studies have attempted to verify Rogers’ theories regarding the necessary

conditions for successful therapy. A meta-study by Elliot (2002) compared the effectiveness

of Rogerian client-centred therapy (CCT) with other forms of humanistic therapy, and with

cognitive-behavioural therapy. Although the study showed that pure CCT was somewhat

effective, other forms of humanistic therapy, and cognitive behavioural therapy, were both

shown to be more so. This suggests that the precise conditions Rogers proposed are only

necessary to a certain extent. As Rogers’ ideas on personality development were based on his

theories of therapy (Rogers, 1959), this also calls into question some of his more general

concepts, such as the need for unconditional positive regard. However, Rogers was one of the

first theorists to popularize the notion that the relationship between therapist and patient (and

by generalization, the relationship between child and parent) was a vital element in the

development of personality (Ellis, Abrams & Abrams, 2009). Whilst the conditions for

therapy proposed by Rogers, as described above, may not be precise descriptions of the

necessary conditions for personality growth, they were almost all connected with the
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 8

relationship between therapist and client. Meta-analyses have shown this relationship, which

Rogers described as the ‘working alliance’, to be more significant for growth in therapy than

the type of therapy itself (Horvath & Symond, 1991; Wampold, 2001).

Rogers theorized that unconditional positive regard was a major factor in healthy personality

development. However, he observed that caregivers or significant others often placed

conditions on their positive regard for a child. Such conditions might be desirable behaviours

such as tidiness, or the absence of undesirable behaviours such as fighting. The infant would

learn to appraise themselves as a whole, or gestalt, based on the sum of the caregivers’

feedback, individual examples of which might be as subtle as a mother’s disapproving facial

expression (Rogers, 1959). Due to the individual’s need for positive self-regard, which was

usually based on perceptions of others’ reactions, he or she would ‘introject’ (Rogers’ term)

the values of the significant other, and learn to regard certain behaviours positively which the

individual’s organism found undesirable, or to regard behaviours which the organism found

desirable, negatively. Such behavioural conditions, at odds with the organism, but required

for the individuals self-esteem, were described as ‘conditions of worth’ (Rogers, 1959).

Rogers believed that having conditions of worth could lead to development which was less

than optimal. If an individual received sensory information which indicated that a condition

of worth was not being satisfied, this caused anxiety, as it threatened the individual’s self-

esteem. The threat might result in perceptual distortions, where individuals were unable to

integrate information from their senses which was not consistent with their own sense of self.

Defences would be constructed, in order to enable the individual to reduce anxiety by altering

their perceptions of reality (Rogers, 1959). For example, an individual might have a condition

of worth based on their academic ability. If they receive poor grades in a particular subject,

they might defend their self-esteem by devaluing the subject itself rather than admitting they
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 9

find it difficult and seeking help. In extreme cases, these distortions of reality could produce

neurotic or even psychotic behaviours.

As with other elements of his theory, Rogers’ ideas about the effects of conditions of worth

on the developing personality were significant in terms of their originality. Behaviourists

could have no concept of mental phenomena they believed impossible to scientifically

investigate, whereas Rogers welcomed scientific inquiry into his theories of development as

long as it did not obscure the importance of personal subjective reality (Rogers, 1980).

Although Rogers’ list of specific defence mechanisms such as rationalization, compensation

and fantasy (Rogers, 1961) clearly come from psychoanalytic theory, the psychoanalytic

view of how such defence mechanisms originate was very different to Rogers’. According to

Freud, the unconscious was often the source of negative or bestial desires which could not be

acted upon. To reduce the resulting tension, the individual constructed defences, which were

considered a normal part of psychological development unless the distortions of reality were

so extreme that they resulted in neurosis or psychosis. Rogers’ view was far more positive, as

he believed that a fully integrated individual could exist without defence mechanisms. Strong

evidence for the relation between perceptual distortions and conditions of worth comes from

research by Chodorkoff (1954). Chodorkoff measured individual’s self-perceptions through a

Q-sort procedure, which involved arranging cards with statements describing personality

attributes into categories according to how well participants felt the statements described

them. He then compared this with an assessment of the individual’s personality based on

projective and word-association tests. An assessment of the individual’s defensiveness was

conducted by comparing the speed of recognition of words considered either neutral or

threatening. Chodorkoff found that the more individuals’ self-perceptions differed from

assessments based on personality tests, the greater the degree of defensiveness exhibited.
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 10

Assuming that the projective and word association tests give a genuine measure of the

individual’s organismic self, this provides strong correlational evidence for Rogers’ theory.

Unfotunately, Chodorkoff’s line of research was not continued.

Whilst certain of the details of Rogers’ and humanistic psychology’s theories of personal

growth have not been verified by research, many of the general principles have. The

existence of a positive tendency towards growth may not take the exact form that Rogers

suggests, but evidence shows that such a tendency exists. Although the exact principles of

Rogerian therapy may not result in the most effective outcomes, the relationship between

client and therapist has been shown to be the most effective predictor of therapeutic growth.

Limited evidence also exists for the existence of conditions of worth and their role in

defensiveness. Overall, humanistic psychology fundamentally changed the way we view

personality development, and modern techniques such as brain imaging now offer the

possibility to further investigate humanistic theories and create a precise science of optimal

growth.
ROGERS’ CONTRIBUTION TO PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 11

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