0390435333.pdf

Feist−Feist: Theories of

Personality, Seventh

Edition

III. Humanistic/Existential

Theories

12. May: Existential
    Psychology

(^376) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
May also took an intermediate position on social versus biologicalinfluences.
Society contributes to personality principally through interpersonal relationships.
Our relations with other people can have either a freeing or an enslaving effect.
Sick relationships, such as those Philip experienced with his mother and sister, can
stifle personal growth and leave us with an inability to participate in a healthy en-
counter with another person. Without the capacity to relate to people as people,
life becomes meaningless and we develop a sense of alienation not only from oth-
ers but from ourselves as well. Biology also contributes to personality. Biological
factors such as gender, physical size, predisposition to illnesses, and ultimately
death itself, shape a person’s destiny. Everyone must live within the confines of
destiny, but those confines can be expanded.
On the dimension of uniquenessversus similarities,May’s view of humanity
definitely leans toward uniqueness. Each of us is responsible for shaping our own
personality within the limits imposed by destiny. No two of us make the same se-
quence of choices, and no two develop identical ways of looking at things. May’s
emphasis on phenomenology implies individual perceptions and therefore unique
personalities.
370 Part III Humanistic/Existential Theories
Key Terms and Concepts

• A basic tenet of existentialism is that existence precedes essence,meaning
  that what people do is more important than what they are.


• A second assumption is that people are both subjective and objective:that
  is, they are thinking as well as acting beings.


• People are motivated to search for answersto important questions
  regarding the meaning of life.


• People have an equal degree of both freedom and responsibility.


• The unity of people and their phenomenological world is expressed by the
  term Dasein, or being-in-the-world.


• Three modes of being-in-the-world are Umwelt,one’s relationship with the
  world of things; Mitwelt, one’s relationship with the world of people; and
  Eigenwelt,one’s relationship with oneself.


• Nonbeing,or nothingness,is an awareness of the possibility of one’s not
  being, through death or loss of awareness.


• People experience anxietywhen they are aware of the possibility of their
  nonbeing as well as when they are aware that they are free to choose.


• Normal anxietyis experienced by everyone and is proportionate to the
  threat.


• Neurotic anxietyis disproportionate to the threat, involves repression, and
  is handled in a self-defeating manner.


• People experience guiltas a result of their (1) separation from the natural
  world, (2) inability to judge the needs of others, and (3) denial of their own
  potentials.