Allport

• Gordon Allport emphasized the uniqueness of the individual.
• He believed that attempts to describe people in terms of general traits rob them of their unique individuality.

  Gordon Allport
• Allport called the study of the individual morphogenic science and contrasted it with the nomothetic methods used by most other psychologists.
• What is the theory of personality of Gordon Allport?

  Psychology of the Individual
• Morphogenic methods are those that gather data on a single individual.
• Nomothetic methods gather data on groups of people.
• Allport also advocated an eclectic approach to theory building.
• After tracing the history of the term, Allport spelled out 49 definitions of personality as used in theology, philosophy, law, sociology, and psychology.
• He then offered a 50th definition, which in 1937 was “the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment”.
• Allport realized that the phrase “adjustments to his environment” could imply that people merely adapt to their environment.
• The term dynamic organization implies an integration or interrelatedness of the various aspects of personality.
• The term psychophysical emphasizes the importance of both the psychological and the physical aspects of personality.
• Another word in the definition that implies action is determine, which suggests that “personality is something and does something”.
• The word “character” originally meant a marking or engraving, terms that give flavor to what Allport meant by “characteristic.”
• Characteristics are marked with a unique engraving, a stamp or marking, that no one else can duplicate.
• The words behavior and thought simply refer to anything the person does.
• Allport’s comprehensive definition of personality suggests that human beings are both product and process; people have some organized structure while, at the same time, they possess the capability of change. Pattern coexists with growth, order with diversification.
• Psychologically mature people are characterized by proactive behavior; that is, they not only react to external stimuli but they are capable of consciously acting on their environment in new and innovative ways and causing their environment to react to them.
• Allport (1961) summed up this first criterion by saying: “Everyone has self-love, but only self-extension is the earmark of maturity”.

  extension of the sense of self
• They have the capacity to love others in an intimate and compassionate manner. What criteria of mature relationship is this?

  warm relating of self to others
• They do not dwell on minor irritations, and they recognize that frustrations and inconveniences are a part of living. What criteria of mature relationship is this?

  Emotional security of self-acceptance
• They do not live in a fantasy world or bend reality to fit their own wishes. They are problem oriented rather than self-centered, and they are in touch with the world as most others see it. What criteria of mature relationship is this?

  Realistic perception of their environment
• Mature people know themselves and, therefore, have no need to attribute their own mistakes and weaknesses to others. They also have a nonhostile sense of humor, which gives them the capacity to laugh at themselves rather than relying on sexual or aggressive themes to elicit laughter from others. What criteria of mature relationship is this?

  Insight and Humor
• Healthy people have a clear view of the purpose of life. What criteria of mature relationship is this?

  Unifying philosophy of life
• The structure of personality refers to its basic units or building blocks.
• Common traits are general characteristics held in common by many people.
• Personal dispositions are of even greater importance because they permit researchers to study a single individual.
• Allport (1961) defined a personal disposition as “a generalized neuropsychic structure (peculiar to the individual), with the capacity to render many stimuli functionally equivalent, and to initiate and guide consistent (equivalent) forms of adaptive and stylistic behavior”.
• Levels of Dispositions: Cardinal, Central, and Secondary Dispositions
• Some people possess an eminent characteristic or ruling passion so outstanding that it dominates their lives. Allport (1961) called these personal dispositions cardinal dispositions.
• Allport (1961) described central dispositions as those that would be listed in an accurate letter of recommendation written by someone who knew the person quite well.
• Less conspicuous but far greater in number than central dispositions are the secondary dispositions.
• Allport used the term proprium to refer to those behaviors and characteristics that people regard as warm, central, and important in their lives.
• Peripheral motives are those that reduce a need, whereas propriate strivings seek to maintain tension and disequilibrium.
• The concept of functional autonomy represents Allport’s most distinctive and, at the same time, most controversial postulate.
• Functional autonomy is a reaction to what Allport called theories of unchanging motives, namely, Freud’s pleasure principle and the drive-reduction hypothesis of stimulus-response psychology.
• Functional autonomy represents his attempt to explain these conscious, self-sustaining contemporary motivations.
• The more elementary of the two levels of functional autonomy is perseverative functional autonomy. Allport borrowed this term from the word “perseveration,” which is the tendency of an impression to leave an influence on subsequent experience.
• Functional autonomy represents a theory of changing rather than unchanging motives and is the capstone of Allport's ideas of motivation.
• Stylistic dispositions guide action, whereas motivational dispositions initiate action.