Impact of a Humanistic Approach on Students' Attitudes, Attributions, and Ethical Conflicts

Abstract

22 graduate students in nursing, enrolled in a humanistic psychology course, were exposed to the principles of humanistic psychology and to a debunking of the medical model. Analyses of participants' pre-post responses on three self-report instruments indicated that the humanistic approach apparently increased students' humanistically oriented attitudes toward mental illness, positive attributions to mental patients, and reported ethical conflict in hypothesized clinical decision-making. Followup data generally confirmed the stability of these reported changes.