Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIII. Humanistic/Existential
Theories- Rogers:
Person−Centered Theory
© The McGraw−Hill^337
Companies, 2009Hypotheses
Research at the University of Chicago Counseling Center was built around the basic
client-centered hypothesis, which states that all persons have within themselves the
capacity, either active or latent, for self-understanding as well as the capacity and
tendency to move in the direction of self-actualization and maturity. This tendency
will become realized provided the therapist creates the proper psychological atmo-
sphere. More specifically, Rogers (1954) hypothesized that during therapy, clients
would assimilate into their self-concepts those feelings and experiences previously
denied to awareness. He also predicted that during and after therapy the discrepancy
between real self and ideal self would diminish and that the observed behavior of
clients would become more socialized, more self-accepting, and more accepting of
others. These hypotheses, in turn, became the foundation for several more specific
hypotheses, which were operationally stated and then tested.
Method
Because the hypotheses of the study dictated that subtle subjective personality
changes be measured in an objective fashion, the selection of measuring instruments
was a difficult one. To assess change from an external viewpoint, the researchers
used the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), the Self-Other Attitude Scale (S-O
Scale), and the Willoughby Emotional Maturity Scale (E-M Scale). The TAT, a pro-
jective personality test developed by Henry Murray (1938), was used to test hy-
potheses that called for a standard clinical diagnosis; the S-O Scale, an instrument
compiled at the Counseling Center from several earlier sources, measures antidem-
ocratic trends and ethnocentrism; the E-M Scale was used to compare descriptions
of clients’ behavior and emotional maturity as seen by two close friends and by the
clients themselves.
To measure change from the client’s point of view, the researchers relied on the
Q sorttechnique developed by William Stephenson of the University of Chicago
(Stephenson, 1953). The Q sort technique begins with a universe of 100 self-referent
statements printed on 3-by-5 cards, which participants are requested to sort into nine
piles from “most like me” to “least like me.” Researchers asked the participants to
sort the cards into piles of 1, 4, 11, 21, 26, 21, 11, 4, and 1. The resulting distribu-
tion approximates a normal curve and allows for statistical analysis. At various
points throughout the study, participants were requested to sort the cards to describe
their self, their ideal self, and the ordinary person.
Participants for the study were 18 men and 11 women who had sought therapy
at the Counseling Center. More than half were university students and the others
were from the surrounding community. These clients—called the experimental or
therapy group—received at least six therapeutic interviews, and each session was
electronically recorded and transcribed, a procedure Rogers had pioneered as early
as 1938.
The researchers used two different methods of control. First, they asked half
the people in the therapy group to wait 60 days before they would receive therapy.
These participants, known as the own-control or wait group, were required to wait
before receiving therapy in order to determine if motivation to change rather than the
Chapter 11 Rogers: Person-Centered Theory 331