Inherent Potentialities of Actualization

Abstract

Biological factors are strongly emphasized in the actualization theories of Maslow and Rogers. Despite this emphasis, functionally nothing is known about the composition of the inherent potentialities of actualization. This study was intended to provide specific information about such potentialities. Toward that end, the study focused on the construct of the personality temperament, a trait having a significant genetic foundation. Using the temperaments of emotionality, activity level, and sociability, it was hypothesized that if these organismic potentialities were not actualized, then maladjustment would result, a deduction from Rogers's theory of personality. Degree of actualization was operationally defined by the discrepancy between retrospective parental recall of the participant's temperament profile as a young child and the college-aged participant's current self-perceptions of these temperaments. All temperament and maladjustment measures were taken by paper-and-pencil inventories, and the hypothesis was confirmed: The greater the child/adult temperament discrepancy, the greater were levels of current maladjustment. The results point to the personality temperament as a useful theoretical construct for understanding inherent potentialities of actualization. The findings are integrated into Maslow's and Rogers's theories, and the relevance of this research to the current crisis of general actualization theory in humanistic psychology is discussed.