Self-Esteem Research, Theory, and Practice Toward a Positive ...

238 SELF-ESTEEM RESEARCH, THEORY, AND PRACTICEOthers use even stronger language to show how this type of criticismignores a large body of high quality, publishable and published literatureon humanistic positive psychology and positive topics.For instance, Eugene Taylor, who specializes in the history and philosophyof psychology, pointed out in the same issue of the journal thatthere is a long line of work by Henry Murray, Gardner Murphy, GordonAllport and others that called for more positive work. He said that subsequenthumanistic psychology introduced by Maslow, Rogers, andothers has, in fact, generated a substantial body of research and findings.Taylor supported his argument by first pointing out that considerablelaboratory-based work on meditation has been performed from a humanisticperspective. He then noted that key humanistic concepts, ones thatare also central to the new positive psychology, have been researchedempirically and published significantly by humanistic psychologists since1960.A simple search of PsychInfo shows that the construct of self-actualizationhas appeared in psychological literature in more than 2,700 articlessince the 1960s. Moreover, most of these studies refer to the measurementof self-actualization as a personality construct using Shostrom’sPersonal Orientation Inventory, obviously now a well-establishedresearch tool in psychology. (Taylor, 2001, p. 21)Meditation and self-actualization are only two examples of humanisticliterature about positive psychological phenomena and there aremany more. Therefore, it is unlikely that the humanistic approach to positivepsychological studies has been limited by its ability to stimulate asignificant body of publishable or published results. In other words,something else prevented the kind of recognition that is usually awardedsuch a body of work. The only other reasonable explanation concernsparadigmatic conflicts and the scientific, as well as economic, politics thatsurround them.In discussing the history of humanistic psychology, Taylor (2001)noted that it began as an academic movement that emerged from an interfaceamong three disciplines: personality theory, educational counseling,and motivational psychology. From the beginning, humanistic psychologywas concerned with positive growth and development across theboard in personal, academic, educational, organizational, social, andapplied settings. However, he also pointed out that the combination ofdisciplines, tolerance of multiple methodologies, and an active interest ingenerating change quickly spiraled out of the academic setting into amyriad of disciplines and therapies. Both forms of positive psychologygenerally agreed that one result of this openness was that the humanisticversion of positive psychology was diluted and popularized. Even though