CH12: Gordon Allport's Psychology of the Individual

• Uniqueness of the individual. Allport believed that attempts to describe people in terms of general traits rob them of their unique individuality
• Allport objected to trait and factor theories that tend to reduce individual behaviors to common traits.
• He called the study of the individual morphogenic science and contrasted it with the nomothetic methods used by most other psychologist.
• Morphogenic methods are those that gather data on a single individual, whereas nomothetic methods gather data on groups of people. Allport also advocated an eclectic approach to theory building.
• Allport also advocated an eclectic approach to theory building. He accepted some of the contributions of Freud, Maslow, Rogers, Eysenck, Skinner, and others; but he believed that no one of these theorists is able to adequately explain the total growing and unique personality.
• To Allport, a broad, comprehensive theory is preferable to a narrow, specific theory even if it does not generate as many testable hypotheses.
• 50th definition, psychology is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment.
• Allport conveyed the idea that behavior is expressive as well as adaptive. People not only adjust to their environment but also reflect on it and interact with it in such a way as to cause their environment to adjust to them.
• Dynamic organization implies an integration or interrelatedness of the various aspects of personality. Personality is organized and patterned. However, the organization is always subject to change: hence, the qualifier “dynamic.”
• The term psychophysical emphasizes the importance of both the psychological and the physical aspects of personality.
• The words behavior and thought simply refer to anything the person does. They are omnibus terms meant to include internal behaviors (thoughts) as well as external behaviors such as words and actions.
• Human beings are both product and process; people have some organized structure while, at the same time, they possess the capability of change.
• it not only is something, but it does something. Personality is both substance and change, both product and process, both structure and growth.
• Role of conscious motivation - Healthy adults are generally aware of what they are doing and their reasons for doing it.
• First, 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.
• mature personalities are more likely than disturbed ones to be motivated by conscious processes, which allow them to be more flexible and autonomous than unhealthy people, who remain dominated by unconscious motives that spring from childhood experiences.
• Healthy people ordinarily have experienced a relatively trauma-free childhood, even though their later years may be tempered by conflict and suffering.
• Criteria for maturity

  • Extension of the sense of self - Mature people continually seek to identify with and participate in events outside themselves
  • Warm relating of self to others - Treat other people with respect, and they realize that the needs, desires, and hopes of others are not completely foreign to their own
  • Emotional security or self-acceptance - Mature individuals accept themselves for what they are, and they possess called emotional poise
  • Realistic perception of their environment - They do not live in a fantasy world or bend reality to fit their own wishes
  • Insight and humor - Non-hostile
  • Unifying philosophy of life - Healthy people have a clear view of the purpose of life