Similarities between Prescott Lecky's Theory of Self-Consistency and Carl Rogers' Self-Theory

Abstract

The teachings of Prescott Lecky on the self-concept at Columbia University in the 1920s and 1930s and the posthumous publications of his book on self-consistency beginning in 1945 are compared with the many publications of Carl Rogers on the self-concept beginning in the early 1940s. Given that Rogers was a graduate student at Columbia in the 1920s and 1930s, the striking similarities between these two theorists, as well as claims attributed to Rogers by Rogers' biographers and writers who have quoted Rogers on his works relating to self-theory, strongly suggest that Rogers borrowed from Lecky without giving him the proper credit. Much of Rogers' writings on the self-concept included not only terms and concepts which were original with Lecky, but at times these were actually identical.