Conditioned Positive Regard V.S. Unconditioned Positive Regard

[Miggz]

Hello, my fellow debaters. I know there has been a lot of drama within the postbit thread. In order to move on quickly I present to you my first debate topic for this forum. I hope you all like psychology because we are about to discuss a very important theory. This theory was created by a humanistic psychologist, Carl Rogers, and it consists of two important elements. After reading the two theories I'll ask you "which would more likely lead to the development of a healthy person? Positive regard, or unconditional positive regard?"


Unconditioned Positive Regard

The first of these two elements is known as unconditional positive regard. Unconditional positive regard refers to individuals, especially parents, teachers, or even friends, who demonstrate unconditional love. In simplest terms, these individuals like, love, and/or respect you for who you are, no matter what. An example would be the parents of a gay teen still loving their child, despite his or her homosexuality. According to Carl Rogers, if people were left unencumbered by social restrictions and were allowed to grow and develop freely, the result would be fully functioning people.

Now with that said, I'll share with you more info on this point of view.

. Respect: respecting a person in their dignity and brokenness as a person

· Non-judgmental: being neither judgmental against nor for

· Acceptance: accepting the person in all their fullness, missing nothing out, including how they treat the relationship with you.

· Valuing: embracing the person you encounter, and valuing them as a unique and valuable person

· Prizing: celebrating achievements and what is of value in the person’s eyes.

Source: http://www.btinternet.com/~p.g.h/counselling_training_unconditional_positive_regard.htm


Conditioned Positive Regard

Now for the second element of this theory, which is conditioned positive regard. This occurs when significant others, such as parents, peers, in a person's life accept some but not all of that person's actions, feelings, and attitudes. This leads to the individual's self concept to become defined as having worth only when their significant others approve. Carl Rogers believed that individuals who were raised via this style won't be able to reach their full potential, i.e. a healthy lifestyle. So let's take the example I used earlier. Let's say a teen tells their parent's of their homosexuality. Then the parents overreact and proceed to throw their child out of the house or seek "help." The reactions from the parents prove that they have conditioned love for their child. To get a clearer understanding of this theory, you can literally take the points I made above and think of them as the opposite.

So with that, I truly believe that parents who raise their kids with unconditioned positive regard can develop into "healthy" individuals of society. The thing is, we all make mistakes, and chose paths that a lot of others don't always agree with. Now imagine if there was only one person, out of the many others in your life, stuck by your side and respected your decision/path. Wouldn't you feel more reluctant to follow your goal to the fullest? Ok so what if this path you are taking is a mistake. There is hope for that troubled person, because they have someone who is still thinking of them. Therefor, there isn't any reason to not admit their mistakes, and aim to right the wrong. Perhaps a lot of the people who are chronically troublemakers feel this way because they have convinced themselves that nobody cares two ****s about them.

So now I ask you again, "which would more likely lead to the development of a healthy person? Positive regard, or unconditional positive regard?"

 

[Faithkeeper]

Well, in response to the question, I'd tend to think unconditioned positive regard would promote better growth, especially socially. That being said, I don't think humans are capable of unconditional positive regard. I believe there are many cases where people can have positive regard that is very close to unconditional, but true unconditional would require perfection in that area, a trait that is not present in humans. But aside from that, growing up in an environment where love is shown in nearly every circumstance promotes social confidence, which is the point I think you were getting at.

 

[KrazyGlue]

Well, in response to the question, I'd tend to think unconditioned positive regard would promote better growth, especially socially. That being said, I don't think humans are capable of unconditional positive regard. I believe there are many cases where people can have positive regard that is very close to unconditional, but true unconditional would require perfection in that area, a trait that is not present in humans. But aside from that, growing up in an environment where love is shown in nearly every circumstance promotes social confidence, which is the point I think you were getting at.

I concur.

Although, I think in some cases, unconditional positive regard (while impossible) could lead someone down the wrong road. One might interpret the support of someone else as reason to continue whatever they are doing, whether it is good or not.

I would say that ideally (as in, not likely to be realistic) the person has conditioned positive regard, but it is close to being unconditioned, and is only conditioned to the degree that they help steer the other person away from poor choices.

 

[Jam Stunna]

As a father, I will love my son no matter what he does, but I will not always support him. If he's wrong, I will tell him, so I suppose you can call that conditional positive regard.

Part of the job of a parent is not only to love, but to instruct a child on the correct way to live. Like you said, people make mistakes, but if you as a parent only say, "That's okay, we still love you anyway", then you're only doing half of your job.

 

[Oracle]

Jam is right
Unconditional positive regard yields disciplinary problems. The whole point of discipline is to associate a bad action with bad consequences. So if the parent says "that's ok, I still love you" to something bad, then the child doesn't see why he/she shouldn't do it

Unless, of course, unconditional positive regard can allow discipline. In which case disregard above sentences

 

[illinialex24]

Unfortunately, however, there is an obvious limit to having a conditional positive regard. You have to be able to set the right balance, set up too many conditions and you alienate yourself, have no conditions and you can be taken advantage of and can be surrounded by people who don't find you or are not very good people (using the friend option at the moment). Some things, like father son, should have many more conditions but a friendship should only have enough conditions so both would like each other, IE, if people take advantage of you or are *******es, you shouldn't make excuses for their behavior. Just strike a balance, and make it based off you wanting to be friends. IE, don't do something like this:

I think Calvin and Hobbes is often a good medium to view some ideas because it gives us an example and a humorous one to view the situation. We can see Calvin tries to set a condition on the friendship itself, and you can see it really doesn't work, it really comes down to as Hobbes say, do you want to be friends.

Obviously, this is very different for other relationships.

 

[Miggz]

Well, in response to the question, I'd tend to think unconditioned positive regard would promote better growth, especially socially. That being said, I don't think humans are capable of unconditional positive regard. I believe there are many cases where people can have positive regard that is very close to unconditional, but true unconditional would require perfection in that area, a trait that is not present in humans. But aside from that, growing up in an environment where love is shown in nearly every circumstance promotes social confidence, which is the point I think you were getting at.

This was very well said. I suppose it would be impossible to be 100% unconditioned positive regard. No wonder psychologists couldn't agree on anything. lol =P