GORDON ALLPORT

• Allport's approaches to personality

  Dynamic organization within the individual that determines their unique adjustments of the environment
• Role of conscious motivation


  Individuals are generally aware of the action and reasons behind them
• Characteristics of a healthy person

  • Extension of self
  • Warm relating to others
  • Emotional security
  • Realistic perception
  • Insight and humor
  • Unifying philosophy in life
• Structure


  Refers to its basic units or building blocks
• Personal dispositions


  Most important structure for describing individual characteristics
• Common traits


  General characteristics shared by many people, while personal dispositions are individual traits peculiar to each person
• Personal dispositions


  A generalized neuropsychic structure peculiar to the individual
• Levels of personal dispositions

  • Cardinal dispositions
  • Central dispositions
  • Secondary dispositions
• Cardinal dispositions


  Eminent characteristic dominating a person's life, rare, defining, and cannot be hidden
• Central dispositions


  5 to 10 most outstanding characteristics in a person's life, described in an accurate letter of recommendation
• Secondary dispositions


  Less conspicuous but more numerous than central dispositions, responsible for specific behaviors, not central to personality
• Propium


  Refers to behaviors regarded as warm, central, and important in one's life, includes aspects of life important to self-identity and self-enhancement, such as values and personal conscience
• Morphogenic psychology


  Interviews, dreams, confessions, diaries
• Refers to behaviora regarded as warm, central, and important in one’s life

  Propium