Humanistic Paradigm in Education: Maslow & Rogers

The Humanistic Psychologist, VoL 19,No.l,pp. 88-104
©1991 Division 32, American Psychologcal Association
FOUNDATIONS OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES^
The Humanistic Paradigm in Education
Roy Jos6 DeCarvalho
State University of New York
Abstract
This essay revives the humanistic paradigm in education of
Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers that in the 1960's fueled the
establishment of the humanistic movement in American
psychology. The essay discusses how Maslow and Rogers' views
on human nature, more specifically their understanding of the
growth hypothesis of Kurt Goldstein, apply to education. The
intellectual development of their humanistic thoughts on educa-
tion, Maslow's concepts of expressive and intrinsic learning and
Rogers' student-centered education are also discussed. It is
argued that Maslow's and Rogers' critiques and advocacy of the
behavioristic and humanistic educational paradigms, respec-
tively, are still meaningful in the 1990's, and that the continuing
crisis in American education ensues in part from the failure to
address Maslow and Rogers' concerns and introduce a
humanistic dimension to the educational system.
Some psychologists during the "golden age" of behaviorism of post
World War II, discontented with behaviorism's view of human nature
and method, drew upon a long traditional linking psychology with
humanities and, in a rebellious manner, institutionally founded
humanistic psychology. They regarded themselves as a "third force,"
1 Editor's Note: This article is the ninth in a continuing series examining the
humanistic foundations of each of the human sciences, in the hope that reflection
of the shared core issues will be beneficial to all.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
All rights, including for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies, are reserved.

Roy Jose DeCarvalho 89
thus, alluding to the fact that they were an alternative to the dominant
behavioristic and psychoanalytical orientation in psychology. Some key
psychologists of the period, such as Gordon Allport, Rollo May, Henry
Murray, Gardner Murphy, Carl Rogers, and Abraham Maslow, joined
the movement (DeCarvalho, 1990b).
Unknowingly, they also had an impact on other fields, education
primarily, that had fallen under the monopoly of behaviorism. As they
recognized this impact, they extended their agenda to education creat-
ing a humanistic paradigm in that field. In reference to education, two
humanistic psychologists stand out: Carl Rogers (1902-1987) who is
known for his student-centered approach, and Abraham Maslow
(1908-1970) who is known for his views on self-actualization and
humanistic education. A close study of their humanistic paradigm and
the problems in education they addressed is still as meaningful as it was
two decades ago. It is suggested that the continuous deterioration of
American education ensues in part from its failure to address Rogers
and Maslow's humanistic concerns.
Maslow (1959a, p. viii, 1959b, 1964, pp. 338,82,1971, p. 377) and
Rogers (1961b, 1964; Evans, 1975, p. 101) were certain that humans
need a value system, a system of understanding, or frame of orientation
that gives life meaning and reason. But unfortunately, they argued, we
live in an age where the ultimate disease is amorality, rootlessness,
emptiness, hopelessness, lack of something to believe, and be devoted
to. They blamed this modern uncertainty in value orientation on the
anachronism between rigid ethical systems of the past and the ethical
relativism of science. No longer unquestionably accepting the value of
systems of our upbringing, we find ourselves in the dilemma of having
to choose between various and at times even contradictory values. We
live in an age of valuelessness and this is obviously reflected in the
educational system (DeCarvalho, 1989,1991).
The conflict and confusion in American education, they argued,
results from the lack of values concerning the purpose and goal, e.g.,
the ultimate value, of the acquisition of knowledge (Maslow, 1964, p.
49; Rogers, 1961b, 1964; Evans, 1975, p. 101). In order to evade issues
of values in the curriculum, educators turned to what they mistakenly
believe is a value-free mechanistic and technological education. Both
Rogers and Maslow thus bitterly complained about the over technologi-
cal and behavioristic emphasis in American education as if education is
merely technological training for the acquisition of skills that are
value-free or amoral. Instead of educating the whole child and facilitat-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
All rights, including for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies, are reserved.

90 The Humanistic Psychologist, 19, Spring 1991
ing personal growth, educators rather train children in skills that make
them efficient and adjusted to a technological society which, although
unrecognized, is in itself also a value. Rogers and Maslow's answer to
this problem and their humanistic paradigm of education, ensues from
their views on human nature. They thought that the ultimate goal of
education was to facilitate the students' self-actualization and fulfill-
ment of their full potential, e.g., to help them become (Maslow, 1961c,
1968a, 1968b, 1968c, 1963d, 1968e), or in Rogers' words "to be that self
which one truly is" (1957a, 1957b, 1961b, 1964; DeCarvalho, 1991).
The Development of Maslow's Views on Education
Maslow's college education was in the best behavioristic tradition
in Madison, Wisconsin. His M.A. thesis, an experimental study of the
effect of varying simple external conditions on learning, was also his first
education-related research. Soon after graduation, however, he.
departed from the behavioristic approach to study dominance among
college women and developed the needs hierarchy theory of human
motivation that made him famous. These studies, most of them
gathered in Motivation and Personality (1954a), advanced a humanistic
view of human nature that became an important pillar of the humanistic
movement in American psychology (Hoffman, 1988). His distinction in
Motivation between expressive and coping behavior, and views on
self-actualization became the bases of his later discussion of intrinsic
and expressive learning. While coping behavior is a mere response to
operant conditioning dealing with matters of basic survival, expressive
behavior is a spontaneous expression of a person's basic character
leading to the actualization of inner potential.
In the 1960's, Maslow wrote on creativity and the significance of
teaching students to utilize their creativity. He argued that teaching
creativity through art should become the paradigm for all other fields
of education. Most of these works were compiled in Farther Reaches of
Human Nature (1971) published posthumously. The Farther Reaches
also contained a section on the values, goals and implications of
humanistic education. Drawing on the early distinction between ex-
pressive and coping behavior, he wrote on intrinsic learning as the
humanistic paradigm of education. Arguing that educators should form
an alliance with the organismic forces conducive to the fulfillment of
the students' potential and growth toward self-actualization, he
criticized extrinsic learning and coping behavior, blaming these core
concepts of the behavioristic paradigm for the failures of education.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
All rights, including for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies, are reserved.

Roy Jose DeCarvalho 91
The Development of Rogers' Views on Education
By 1952, Rogers was pessimistic about his teaching and education
in general. Losing interest in education, he believed that it was impos-
sible to really teach anything to anyone (Rogers, 1957d, 1959). Seven
years later, in 1959, he was more optimistic; he published an article
entitled "The Significant Learning: In Psychotherapy and in Educa-
tion," applying the process of learning in psychotherapy to education
(Rogers, 1967a, 1967b). During the next eight years, he expanded and
refined the ideas advanced in this article.
At the age of sixty-two, disappointed with the educational system
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Rogers joined the Western
Behavioral Sciences Institute in LaJolla, California, and during the next
three years, (1965-1968) he tried out his education program in practice.
He proposed a plan adaptable to any educational system interested in
innovative change. Several educational systems answered Rogers' call
and when grants from different sources were available, Rogers chose
the Immaculate Heart College that comprised several high schools and
many elementary schools in the Los Angeles area. Three years later,
Rogers proudly claimed having initiated self-directed change in a large
educational system; the college had been successfully working under
Rogers' plan independent of personal contact with Rogers or his group
for two years (Rogers, 1976c, 1968,1974a).
Believing that he had accomplished a revolution in education,
Rogers collected reports of educators who tried to practice his ideas. In
1969, he compiled some of these reports vaFreedom to Learn —A View
ofWhat Education Mitftf Become (1969), a book that became the bible
of humanistic education. Selling 40,000 copies in the first year of
publication, Freedom to Leant showed how educators could be per-
sonal, innovative, and facilitative of learning even within an antiquated
system. After freedom to Learn, Rogers continued to write for teachers'
periodicals on personal growth, ideas and feelings about teaching,
questions he would ask himself if he was a teacher, and the future of
education. He told them that they were not teachers, but human
facilitators (Rogers, 1971a, 1971b, 1972b, 1974c).
Views on Human Nature
Maslow and Rogers thought that it was impossible for an educator,
teacher or psychologist to be objective and not to have a view of human
nature (DeCarvalho, 1990b). A well articulated view of human nature
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
All rights, including for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies, are reserved.

92 The Humanistic Psychologist, 19, Spring 1991
was, in their understanding, the most important value in education. Any
educational system deserving the name entails a view of human nature,
they argued. Every educator has, whether consciously stated or not, an
understanding of people. The issue, they thought, is not whether to
have a philosophy of education but whether to have one that is con-
scious or unconscious. The unconscious understandings or theories of
human nature are particularly dangerous since they guide the collection
of data and research more profoundly than laboriously acquired em-
pirical knowledge. Rogers (1955, p. 248, 1961a, p. 391) and Maslow
(1955, p. 6-12,1956, pp. 17-33,1962a, chap. 1, pp. 189-214; Rick, 1971,
pp. 22-32) argued, in other words, that there are prior personal subjec-
tive views of human nature and choices of the purpose or value of
education. It is important that these values be stated and clarified since
they cannot be tested, evaluated or denied by scientific means. (Rogers
& Skinner, 1956; Evans, 1975, p. 101). In their case, they, indeed,
dedicated much effort to the delineation of a view of human nature.
The cornerstone of Maslow and Rogers' views on human nature
and consequently their naturalistic system of ethics and humanistic
paradigm in education was the growth hypothesis. Maslow explained
that an "instinctoid" inner core of human nature contains potentialities
pressing for actualization. Similarly, Rogers stated that the human
organism has a directional and actualizing tendency towards the fulfill-
ment of inner potential. Both were inspired by Kurt Goldstein, the
Jewish-German psychiatrist World War II emigre who first coined the
term self-actualization to denote the reorganizational capability of the
organism after injury (DeCarvalho, 1990a). Goldstein argued that an
injured organism reorganizes itself into a new unit that incorporates the
damages. Maslow and Rogers acknowledged to have adopted the
concept of self-actualization from Goldstein, although they used it
more broadly. In his version of Goldstein's growth hypothesis, Maslow
(1954a, pp. 107-122,146-154,183,379,1961a) argued that persons have
basic needs, emotions, and capacities that are neutral, pre-moral, posi-
tive and good. If they guide our lives, we grow healthier and happier;
but if we deny or suppress them, sickness is virtually a certainty, In this
view, there are higher and lower needs arranged in levels of potency,
where the fulfillment of less potent needs relies upon the gratification
of the more potent ones. The higher aspects of human nature, in other
words, rest upon the fulfillment of the lower nature.
Physiological needs related to basic survival, such as food, shelter,
safety and security, belong to the lower aspects of human nature and
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
All rights, including for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies, are reserved.