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• Gordon Allport


  American Psychologist (1897-1967)
• Allport was born on November 11, 1897 in Montezuma, Indiana
• Allport was the son of a country doctor and the youngest of four (4) boys
• Allport characterized his family life as marked by trust and affection, along with a strong emphasis on the virtue of hard work
• Allport was scholarly from an early age and was good at using words, but performed poorly when it comes to sports
• Allport finished second in his high school class out of 100 students
• Allport insisted that he was "a good routine student" but uninspired about anything beyond the usual adolescent concerns
• Allport followed his older brother, Floyd, who was a graduate at Harvard and squeezed through the entrance tests and matriculated at the said university in 1915
• Allport described his years at Harvard to be stimulating and enlightening, although he was overwhelmed by the intellectual atmosphere and the strict adherence to the highest academic standards
• Allport majored in the program of psychology
• Allport received his baccalaureate in 1919 and then taught English and Sociology at Robert College in Constantinople, Turkey
• Allport visited his brother who was working in Vienna before returning to Cambridge and wanted to see if he could arrange a private meeting with Sigmund Freud
• Allport wrote a letter to Freud announcing that he was in Vienna, implying that the man would in no doubt be glad to meet him, and Freud replied and invited Allport for a visit in his office
• Allport entered graduate school in psychology and finished his doctorate in just two years, receiving his Ph.D. in 1922 at the young age of 24
• Allport was invited to attend a meeting of experimental psychologists at Clark University to discuss current problems and issues in sensory psychology, and after two days of such discussions, the eminent psychologist Titchener allotted three minutes to each graduate student to describe his own investigations, and Allport reported his work on personality traits and was punished by total silence and stares
• Allport passed away on October 9, 1967 at age 69 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
• Personality


  What a man really is
• Personality


  The dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behavior and thought
• Allport's view of personality

  • Personality is striving toward unity and is continually evolving and changing
  • The person is in a state of becoming
• Allport's view on behavior

  • Even behavior that seems to be controlled by external forces is really controlled by internal forces
• Allport's view on personality development

  • At birth, our traits are mostly determined by genetics, but not all inherited tendencies are obvious at birth
  • Throughout life, both genetics and the environment influence our development
  • As we mature, our interactions with the environment and learning experiences shape us
• Trait


  A generalized and focalized neuropsychic system peculiar to the individual, capable of rendering many stimuli functionally equivalent and guiding consistent forms of behavior
• Types of traits


  • Cardinal traits
  • Central traits
  • Secondary traits
• Cardinal traits


  Pervasive, dominant traits in a person's life, such as master motives or ruling passions
• Central traits


  Important characteristics controlling less of a person's behavior but significant in various situations
• Secondary traits


  Less important, conspicuous, and generalized traits, such as preferences
• Types of traits


  • Common traits
  • Personal dispositions
• Common traits


  Generalized dispositions for classifying groups of people on a particular dimension, of limited usefulness
• Personal dispositions


  Unique characteristics of the individual, not shared with others, reflecting the individual's personality structure
• Allport's view on personality development

  • Centers on the concept of the self
  • Acknowledges the varied interpretations and opposition faced by the concept
  • Maintains the importance of the term "self" despite its challenges
• Proprium


  What is "peculiarly ours" in personality, including all aspects contributing to inward unity
• Stages of proprium development

  • Bodily self (prominent in infancy)
  • Self-identity (develops during the first 18 months of life)
  • Self-esteem (merges during the second and third years of life)
  • Self-extension (occurs approximately between 4 to 6 years of age)
  • Self-image (develops alongside self-extension)
  • Self-as-rational-coper (begins to develop between ages 6 and 12)
  • Propriate striving (begins from the beginning of adolescence at age 13)
• Peripheral motives


  Impulses and drives, the striving toward the immediate gratification of needs and reduction of tension
• Propriate motives


  Involve the deliberate increase or maintenance of tensions in the service of important goals, characterized by the unification of personality in pursuit of major life goals
• Must conscience


  A conscience based on fear of punishment
• Ought conscience


  Obedience to internal, self-generated rules rather than external standards of authority
• Self-as-knower


  Develops in adulthood, a gradual process characterized by shifts and transformations
• Characteristics of mature personality

  • Extension of the sense of self
  • Warm relatedness to others
  • Self-acceptance
  • Realistic perception of reality
  • Self-objection
  • Unifying philosophy of life
• Functional autonomy


  The independence of adult motives from their antecedent systems
• Levels of functional autonomy

  • Perseverative functional autonomy
  • Propriate functional autonomy