Definition
The fully functioning person is a central term in Carl Rogers’s person-centered theory of personality, developed to describe the essence of a good life. Three elements are particularly important in his conceptualization: to be open to new experiences, to live in an existential fashion, and to find ones’ organism trustworthy. The general idea that goodness can be defined with reference to functioning was not born with Rogers though. Both Plato and Aristotle proposed theories about goodness in which functioning worked as the most central concept. Arguments about goodness and functioning keep developing in contemporary work on human goodness. The work of Sen, Staudinger, and Tomasello serves as renowned examples.
Fully Functioning
Historical Background
In Plato’s book The Republic, Socrates...
References
Aristotle. (1996). The Nicomachean ethics (trans: Ross, W. D.). Wordsworth Editions Limited. Ware: UK.
Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. London: Penguin Books.
Keyes, C. L. M. (2002). The mental health continuum: From languishing to flourishing in life. Journal of Health and Social Research, 43, 207–222.
Korsgaard, C. M. (2008). The constitution of agency: Essays on practical reason and moral psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Law, A., & Staudinger, U. M. (2016). Eudaimonia and wisdom. In J. Vittersø (Ed.), Handbook of eudaimonic well-being (pp. 135–146). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Maslow, A. (1954). Motivation and personality. Harper & Row Publishers, New York
Nussbaum, M. C. (2011). Creating capabilities. The human development approach. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press.
Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Proctor, C., Tweed, R., & Morris, D. (2016). The Rogerian fully functioning person: A positive psychology perspective. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 56, 503–529.
Rogers, C. (1961). On becoming a person. A therapist’s view of psychotherapy. Boston/London: Houghton Mifflin Co./Constable and Robinson.
Rogers, C. (1963). The concept of the fully functioning person. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 1, 17–26.
Ryan, R. M., Huta, V., & Deci, E. L. (2013). Living well: A self-determination theory perspective on eudaimonia. In A. Delle Fave (Ed.), The exploration of happiness: Present and future perspectives (pp. 117–139). New York: Springer Science.
Ryff, C. D. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1069–1081.
Sen, A. (1993). Capability and well-being. In M. C. Nussbaum & A. Sen (Eds.), The quality of life (pp. 30–53). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Straume, L. V., & Vittersø, J. (2012). Happiness, inspiration and the fully functioning person: Separating hedonic and eudaimonic well-being in the workplace. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 7, 387–398.
Tomasello, M. (2016). A natural history of human morality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vittersø, J. (2016). The feeling of excellent functioning: Hedonic and eudaimonic emotions. In J. Vittersø (Ed.), Handbook of eudaimonic well-being (pp. 253–276). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Straume, L.V., Vittersø, J. (2017). Fully Functioning Person. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1469-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1469-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences