Explain Rogers’ views of conditions of worth and the importance of congruence vs incongruence
The following demonstration test illustrates a version of a “Q-sort”, a self-assessment procedure for measuring congruence, a state of internal consistency which Carl Rogers saw as important to healthy personality growth. A
brief discussion follows the test, which is self-scoring (as described below). Please read the directions, and complete part A
before going on to part B!
Part A
- Please select ten adjectives from the attached list which you feel describe what you are like. (You may find it useful to write them down on a sheet of paper, or print this page, and cut them out individually). Try to be as honest and accurate as possible in making the choices to describe yourself. (For example, don’t omit an adjective that describes you well if it happens to be somewhat negative, like “anxious”.)
- Once you have selected the ten which best describe you, then arrange them in order, from the most important/significant aspects, to those which are least significant in describing your personality. Write them down, with the rank order, on a piece of paper, then fold it and put it aside. Place all the words together, shuffle them, and then go on to part B.
Part B
- Do the same task again, but this time select ten terms to describe what you wish you were like–that is, your personal ideal. (For example, you may feel that you are shy, but would like to be extraverted.) Do not refer to the list from part A in making your choices!
- Once you have selected ten, arrange them in rank order, from the most important/significant, to those which are relatively unimportant in your imagined ideal. As in part A, write them down, in ranked order, on a piece of paper.
Scoring
- Take the lists from Part A, and rank the words in from 10-1. Your most important word (the one you feel like describes you the most/best/strongest) will have the value of 10; the least descriptive or important adjective will have a rank of 1.
- Repeat this for the list of words from Part B. Your most important word (the one you wish would describe you the most/best/strongest) will have the value of 10; the one you wish described you least will have a rank of 1.
- Now, identify any adjectives that do not appear in both lists (in doesn’t matter if they are ranked in a different position on each list appearing).
- For any words which do not appear in both lists, change the value to zero.
- For terms which appear in both lists, whatever the rank value that you gave to the word in List A, give that same value to the word in List B.
- Then, using the values you have assigned to the two lists (including the zero terms), apply the following formula:
(sum of list A + sum of list B)/(1.1) = score
The score range is from 0 to 100, with 100 representing a perfect match of self and ideal self (i.e., complete congruence). If half the terms appear in both lists (but with different ranks), the median score would be approximately 50. In general, the lower the score, the less congruent is the relationship between one’s self and ideal self. (For further information on these concepts, refer to the textbook.)
Note that this demonstration is not meant to be a serious clinical device, and no claims are made as to its validity or reliability! (Even the scoring system is an approximation, as a correlation coefficient would provide a more precise indicator.) It is provided here simply as a learning tool, to better understand Rogers’ concepts of self, ideal self, and congruence.
Now reflect:
- Explain Rogers’ views of conditions of worth and the importance of congruence vs incongruence.
- How do you feel about your results? Do you feel like there is sufficient congruence in your life or would you like more?
- Rogers says that our conditions of worth are set up by our parents. How difficult is it to challenge those ideas and create new conditions of worth for ourselves?
- Rogers says that a fully functioning person has free choice in creating their selves. What steps could you take that would encourage more growth towards that ideal? Does your faith or your relationship with God impact your developing self?
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