Thought Paper 1
Abstract
This is my research paper on two Personality Theorists. I chose to do my paper on Carl Rogers, who uses the Humanistic approach, and B. F. Skinner, who uses the Behaviorism approach. I have included some background information about them, some of their major contributions to the field of psychology, and why I chose them for my report. I also tried to apply their theories to explain the common problem of low self esteem.
Thought Paper #1
Carl Ransom Rogers was born in Oak Park, Illinois, on January 8, 1902 (Oak Park Tourist Homepage, 1999). He had four brothers and one sister. His father was a civil engineer and his mother was a housewife (Boeree, Carl Rogers). Their family was very strict and religious. They believed in keeping busy, working hard, and being productive. In 1914, his family moved to a large farm about thirty miles from Chicago. Carl had poor health growing up and was a lonely child, independent and self-disciplined (Thorne, 2003).
After high school, Carl attended the University of Wisconsin. His major was Agriculture. He later changed to religion to prepare for ministry (Boeree, Carl Rogers). After graduation he got married and moved to New York City. Soon after, he gave up ministry (Boeree, Carl Rogers). He transferred to the Clinical Psychology program of Columbia University, and received his Ph.D. in 1931 (Boeree, Carl Rogers).
In 1940, he became a Professor at Ohio State. He wrote his first book, Counseling and Psychotherapy in 1942. In 1945, he set up a counseling center at the University of Chicago. While there, he published his major work, Client-Centered Therapy, which outlines his basic theory (Boeree, Carl Rogers). His theory is built on a single “force of life” that he calls “the actualizing tendency.” It is “the built-in motivation present in every life-form to develop its potentials to the fullest extent possible” (Boeree, Carl Rogers). Rogers believes that all...
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