Carl Rogers planned to be a minister, but after doing clinical work with children, he switched to philosophy and received a Ph.D. Carl Rogers has contributed to the field of psychology through the humanistic theory of personality development by writing Counseling and Psychotherapy (Rogers, C., 1967), Client-Centered Therapy (1951), and Psychotherapy and Personality Change (1954, Gendlin, E. T., 1988. Rogers’ main theoretical contributions were the founding of humanistic psychology and the development of new ethical standards for psychotherapy. According to American Psychologist Association (2021), “Rogers developed the person-centered, also known as client-centered, approach to psychotherapy and developed the concept of unconditional positive regard while pioneering the field of clinical psychological research.” He was also the first recipient of the Distinguished Professional Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association.
Studying multiple realities throughout the experimentation with psychedelics provides insight into our impulsive need to learn the unknown, no matter the risks. According to Rogers (1973), “The reality we are so sure of, the reality so plainly shown to us by our senses, may not be the only reality open to mankind. I have raised the query as to whether we would ever be willing to take the frightening risk of investigating this possibility without prejudgment.”
The question presented in this article is, can we as a species be open to the possibility of multiple realities? The studies and empirical work became the act of attempting to reach alternate realities, Often through psychedelic drugs. According to Rogers (1973), “Now with the knowledge of many types of drug-induced states of expanded consciousness and changed reality, with all the years of careful study of ESP, with the international studies of psi phenomena, with serious theorists such as LeShan (1969), we will have a harder and harder time closing our eyes to the possibility of another reality (or realities), operating on rules quite different from our well known commonsense empirical reality, the only one known to most psychologists.”
Raymond Cattelll
The person I chose is Raymond Cattell. He was an influential psychologist who developed new techniques that allowed for more measurements of the components of personality. He completed his doctoral work at the university college in London and joined the Harvard faculty in 1941. His time there was influential because he developed his theory of personality and the idea of new factor-analytic methods to study cognitive abilities. He also “developed the components of fluid intelligence (the ability to analyze novel problems) and crystalized intelligence (the ability to apply skill and knowledge to familiar problems), a distinction that still figures prominently in many theories of the components of intelligence” (Harvard University, 2007). He invented the 16 personality factors and a test measuring intelligence. In an article called Heritability of Ego Strength, Super Ego Strength, and Self Sentiment by Multiple Abstract Variance Analysis, Raymond Cattell wrote about behavioral genetics, where over 3,000 boys were studied, paying particular attention to genetic and fraternal twins. Cantrell invented a personality questionnaire that was made up specifically for boys in the range of 12-18 years of age. The article shows multiple graphs with explanations to show how the information received was mathematically equated and the significance of the findings throughout the entire article. The results show that there are successes throughout the research. Some particular are control strengths within the educative, cultural environment and compulsive character traits. “The control strengths in cultural environments helped show that it is a strong point in helping to bring students who are below average into the average status. The compulsive character indicates society’s emphasis on personal perfection” (Cattell, 1982). This questionnaire helps to show how society and social diversity play a vital role in our personality makeshift. In how easily influenced humans are at adapting to our environment and being a leader with natural skill abilities that we’re not learned. References: Hall, J. W. (2007). Biography of Raymond Cattell. Department of Psychology. Https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/raymond-cattell/Links to an external site.
What additional questions do you have about the psychologist that your peer summarized? For example, you could ask about his/her contributions to theory and/or research.
Are there relevant connections between the work of the influential figure you selected and the individual selected by your peer?
Share examples from your own life that illustrate your peer’s chosen theoretical perspective.