Humanism as a approach to education and learning paradigm was mostly developed during 1960s. Humanism in general starts from belief in human inherent goodness and views learning as a mean of self-actualization and development of personal potentials. Most important humanist authors that shaped this theory were Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow whose works were mostly orientated on understanding of personality.

Humanists emphasize importance responsibility for individuals actions, importance of present moment, worth of every individual and happiness through self-achievement as the ultimate living goal. Humanist approach of free will and inherent human goodness contrasts Freud's and biological approaches, which claim human behavior and cognition are determined by experience and prior events.

One of Maslow's contributions widely accepted even far beyond borders of humanism is the hierarchy of needs in which he tried to formulate the human motivation framework. Hierarchy of needs approaches human motivation in terms of different kind of needs that have to be satisfied in order to move to the higher level of needs. Those levels include psychology, safety, society, esteem and self-actualization needs and need to be satisfied in the mentioned order.

• Experiential Learning (David Kolb)
• Facilitation theory (Carl Rogers)

Although there are viewpoint and personality tests like William Stephenson's Q methodology or Q-Sort, one of first noticed disadvantages of humanist approach is the reduced capacity for experimental research.

Other disadvantages of humanism include lack of methods for treating of different mental health problems and disagreement on the basic humanist assumption of inherent human goodness.

Abraham Maslow - Father of Modern Management.