Summary Of Jerry's Self-Actualization Theory

The following paper will be about juror #3, or rather, Jerry. Jerry is a fascinating individual with a deeply rooted disdain for children. One could imagine that it came from his rough upbringing with his own father that caused him to begin to see kids in much the same way as his father did. Jerry has always had a rough time maintaining social relations due to his narrowmindedness on almost every subject which leads him to have a short temper. Once his mind is focused on one set of beliefs, he seems to maintain the same belief regardless of anything and everything that could prove him wrong. It takes a great deal to break the concrete that he lays every time he has to think about a certain subject matter. This is especially true when it comes to kids. As previously mentioned, Jerry had a rough time growing up as his father never truly demonstrated love in a constructive manner. Misinterpreting the message of a steely man such as his father ended up causing him to repeat history by doing the same treatment with his own son. By not changing his ways, and falling victim to the same mentality as his predecessor, he ends up having a harsh relationship with his own son. Much of his bias toward the defendant can be founded upon his own broken home life. However, Jerry isn’t a bad man for all of his faults because most of his faults were not made on his own. He’s a hardworking man with much of life already under his belt. He was a high school graduate that didn’t attend college, but rather he started his own business. The theory that correlates with Jerry’s condition would be that of Carl Roger’s “Self-Actualization Theory”. …show more content…
Roger’s theory of fully functioning persons is the fully functioning person is the most desirable end result of psychological development and social evolution. Although Jerry has his life together for the most part, he is still missing some grand scale components that would help him to actually achieve actualization. His positive self-regard had been damaged at a young age which made it hard for him to maintain positive regard for others. That was made very evident with his treatment of his own son. In many ways, Jerry is the type of guy that always gets his way either by shouting, bullying, or belittling. He subconsciously maintains a set of conditional values that one must attain in order to receive worth from him, which makes it apparent that his path toward truly coming to terms with himself and the people around him is rough with many forks along the way. Jerry knows about his own demons and simply doesn’t want to confront them. With all of that being said, Jerry is making progress toward being a better person. Though his choices have been preordained to some degree, he is actively seeking to open himself to new experiences regardless of how they conflict with his ideologies. He doesn’t trust in himself at the moment in regards to his feelings because he knows that the hatred that he feels is misguided and unhealthy, to say the very least. He is definitely making an attempt to free himself from the rigidity of his old views by taking into account more experiences than his own in making decisions. Fully functioning persons are aware of all