Essay Sample on Learning and Humanistic Approaches

Introduction

While personality is something that we discuss every day, one might be shocked to realize that psychologist does not automatically agree on one definition of what entails personality. But in other words, personality can be defined as the traits, pattern of feelings, and behaviors the make a given individual exclusive. In simple English, it is basically what makes you you. Various researchers have established some external factors can greatly impact how given characteristics are expressed; personality comes within a person. While a few facets of personality may vary as we develop, personality, on the other hand, tend to remain fairly steady throughout a person's life. This term paper will try to figure out how Skinner and Carl Rogers have attempted to explain human personality and growth.

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Private Environment

Rogers claimed that each of our lives in a private environment that is continuously evolving, which he called the area of experience. Everyone resides at the core of their field of knowledge, and only from the viewpoint of the person can this field be completely understood. This notion has a variety of major consequences. The actions of the person must be interpreted as a reaction to their field experience and perception (O'Donohue & Halsey, 1997). As a structured whole, they respond to it, and it is their reality. The challenge that this poses for the therapist is that only the client can truly understand their practice area. This is somewhat different from the Freudian viewpoint. Only qualified and impartial psychoanalysts can break through the structures of protection and understand the basis of the patient's unconscious desires. The awareness of one's experience is limited; however, Rogers claimed that under such situations, such thoughts, or feelings, would only come into the conscious area of expertise. Therefore, the experience is not a true truth, but rather the possible reality of a person.

On the other hand, Skinner suggests that Biological determinism is not believed in by behaviorists: they do not see personality characteristics as inborn. Instead, they perceive personality as being substantially influenced outside of the organism by the reinforcements and consequences. In other words, individuals act consistently based on previous understanding. B. F. Skinner, a rigid behaviorist, assumed that all behavior, including the persistent, persistent behavior patterns studied by personality psychologists, was solely responsible for the environment (Keehn, 1980). He also argued that, not just in the first few years, personality evolves over our entire life. When we come across new circumstances, our responses will change; thus, we will expect more consistency in nature over time than Freud would predict. Consider a young woman, Greta, for instance, a risk-taker. She travels easily and engages in risky activities such as kiteboarding and hang gliding.

Result of Learning

Carl Rogers agreed with Skinner that personality is as a result of learning. However, he disagreed with Skinner's firm behaviorist view on personality development because he believed that reckoning and interpretation are vital aspects of learning. He delivered a social-cognitive theory of personality that highlights learning and cognition based on individual personality variation (Schlüter et al. 2017). In a social-cognitive view, self-efficacy, reciprocal determination, and observational learning are essential in personality growth. Carl Rogers suggested reciprocal determinism, in contrast to Skinner's idea that behavior is dictated by the environment alone. Cognitive processes, behavior, and context all interact, each element influencing and being simultaneously influenced by the others. All features previously learned, including beliefs, desires, and personality traits, are referred to by cognitive processes. Behavior applies to everything we do that can be praised or punished. Finally, the sense in which the activity occurs relates to the environment or circumstance, which contains rewarding/punishing triggers.

Carl Rogers's key input to learning theory concluded that most of the learning is vivid. We learn something by observing someone's characters and its consequences, which Rogers described it as observational learning. He strongly believed that this type of education is important in the growth of our personality (Swaim, 1972). When we see them executed by other individuals or models, we discover new behavior patterns. Based on the reinforcement theories of behaviorists, Rogers proposed that when we want to mimic a model's behavior, it depends on whether we see the model validated or punished. We learn what actions are appropriate and rewarded in our society through observational learning. We also know to inhibit deviant or socially inappropriate behaviors by seeing what behaviors are punished.

Therapist Client Association

Although Rogers put personality within the therapist-client association, his therapeutic approach focused on how he felt that the person had reached a stage in their life where they suffered from psychological distress (Milhollan & Forisha, 1972). For personality development, thus, the same problems apply as in counseling. According to Rogers, a very significant element of personality growth is the parent-child relationship. On the other hand, Skinner, an extreme behaviorist, indicated that external stimuli often dictate human behavior. The inability to accept this could be attributable to one's fear of influencing another person, especially in the therapeutic context.

Skinner claimed that the words "self" and "personality" are essentially ways to define a person's characteristic behavior patterns. Skinner even referred to the self as "a system of responses that is functionally coherent" (Skinner, 1953), or "at best a behavioral arsenal imparted by a structured collection of contingencies" (Skinner, 1974). Skinner admits that behavioral science opponents argue that behaviorists ignore the person or self. However, Skinner argues that the only thing forgotten is a relic of animism that assigns actions to spirits in its crudest form. The energy is a devil if the conduct is disruptive; if the behavior is imaginative, the point is a muse or a leading visionary (Skinner, 1988).

In contrast to Skinner's idea, Rogers suggests that there is, of course, the true self's framework, or the true ego. Like Adler's described fictional finalism or Horney's described idealized self-image, there is also an ideal self. When the actual self falls well short of the perfect self's anticipated achievement, incongruence occurs as reality does not adhere to the self structures expectations.

John Dollard was one of three theorists who made valuable contributions to the study of social inequalities and minority communities. However, Dollard (trained in sociology and anthropology) started these experiments, unlike Erik Erikson and Gordon All port. They discussed these questions later in their careers until he made his major contributions to psychology. This reality influenced his later approach to how personality is developed and how he and Miller made cross-cultural examples in the books they jointly published. Rogers identified an inherent desire for self-actualization, he spoke of an ideal self, and he said a fully functional human-led a decent life. But really, what does this mean? We search for clear, practical responses to certain questions in the Western world. We want to know what the push for self-actualization is, we want to know the strongest or good values or virtues, and we want to describe a "good life." All too much, in terms of wealth, strength, and ownership, we define a good life.

Skinner claimed that it is human nature that we act so that incentives or good things are earned. "If we wish to encounter encouragement, then we can cultivate desirable personality qualities, such as certain qualities that are found in the Big Five's" agreeability "group ( e.g., being understanding, caring, empathetic, and a rational thinker). Skinner suggested that the key explanation for our apparent variations in our actions is our variations in our learning experiences (Todd & Morris, 1995). And we either directly (reward as a positive reinforcement of good behavior or punishment as a negative reinforcement of bad behavior) or indirectly (through empirical research or modeling) acquire these behavior patterns. In this context, Skinner concluded that we respond to some affirmation, and that environment should influence and regulate our actions and personality characteristics.

In addition to this, Skinner indicated that we would first change our climate if we expect our negative aspects to be transformed into positive ones. This strict behavioral point of view contradicts most psychology's assumptions that we must first change our inner selves (that is, our personality traits) before we can completely experiment with it. For Rogers, character, and conduct can always be altered (Martin, 2017). According to him, changing the atmosphere in which the individual is and improving his thought will lead to a change in his actions. Thus, due to that particular circumstance, character traits also change in his personality. Rogers's claims to psychoanalytical theories and rigid behavioral hypotheses, those individuals do not necessarily act to escape punishment; rather, we are encouraged to behave according to our life goals and our mission to optimize the benefits we will get. That's a more positive way of viewing personality and actions now. There is no question that attitude and actions are associated with each other. Our efforts give us clues about who we are, and the way we behave brings meaning to our character characteristics.

Conclusion

In conclusion, personality makes us who we are, so it is no wonder why it has been the source of such fascination in science and daily life. The various theories of personality that have been proposed by different psychologists have helped us gain a deeper and richer understanding of what makes each person unique. By learning more about these theories, you can better understand how researchers have come to know the psychology of personality and consider questions that future research might explore.

References

Keehn, J. D. (1980). Beyond an interactional model of personality: Transactionalism and the theory of reinforcement schedules. Behaviorism, 8(1), 55-65.

Martin, J. (2017). Carl Rogers’ and BF Skinner’s approaches to personal and societal improvement: A study in the psychological humanities. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 37(4), 214.

Milhollan, F., & Forisha, B. E. (1972). From Skinner to Rogers; Contrasting Approaches to Education.

Skinner, B. F. (1988). The selection of behavior: The operant behaviorism of BF Skinner: Comments and consequences. CUP Archive.

Todd, J. T., & Morris, E. K. (1995). Modern perspectives on BF Skinner and contemporary behaviorism. Greenwood Press/Greenwood Publishing Group.

Swaim, E. E. (1972). BF Skinner and Carl R. Rogers on Behavior and Education. Oregon ASCD Curriculum Bulletin, 28(324), n324.

Schlüter, M., Baeza, A., Dressler, G., Frank, K., Groeneveld, J., Jager, W., ... & Schwarz, N. (2017). A framework for mapping and comparing behavioural theories in models of social-ecological systems. Ecological Economics, 131, 21-35.

O'Donohue, W., & Halsey, L. (1997). The substance of the scientist-practitioner relation: Freud, Rogers, Skinner and Ellis. New Ideas in Psychology, 15(1), 35-53.