Rogers phenomenological theory

The theories used to understand personality are categorized into two groups. The first category focuses on studying specific personality traits while the second group explores how various components of an individual join to form a whole. Rogers’ phenomenological theory belongs to the first category and mainly focuses on the subjectivity of human experience. This theory argues that in obtaining accurate knowledge concerning a person, it is critical to understand how he/she experiences the world. In other words, individual experiences represent immediate reality and also form the basis of one’s action. However, this technique has evolved from the initial factor analysis method of analyzing correlations between variables as a result of its use in various disciplines and settings. While other methods might use cards, opinion statements are mainly collected through focus groups and interviews in more formal or clinical settings.

Benefits The Q-sort technique has several strengths. Block and Robins (1993) argue that one of the advantages of the Q-sort method is that compared to the more direct approaches of measuring self-concept, this technique makes it difficult for respondents to manipulate data by providing responses that seem favorable to them. While one may argue that this would not be the case for a 40-items version, Butler (1968) asserts that this method does not yield similar results when conducted on the same person. The index is grounded on correspondence between each respondent’s self-perception and his/her value system as manifested through the wishes for an ideal self instead of normative judgments of self-worth (Brown & Robins, 1993). Another advantage of the Q-sort methodology is that it is less expensive since it requires fewer participants.

Notably, this can be observed in Butler’s (1968) study where in all six groups, the highest had only 43 subjects. While this may be regarded as a problem, Rogerian theories do not focus on measurement. Instead, they seek to assess the range of opinions and attitudes regarding various topics as well as uniqueness in personality types based on the differences. The goal of this technique is to express the diversity of subjects’ views instead of making claims concerning the ratio of people conveying them. Regarding this technique being able to analyze the building blocks and content of a person’s perception and individuality, the Q-sort method also falls short in certain circumstances. For instance, in some contexts like applying for a job, individuals might have a problem revealing their true selves.