Allport

• Allport's mature theory


  Major emphasis was on the uniqueness of each individual
• Allport's theory of personality

  • Built as a reaction against the non-humanistic positions of both psychoanalysis and animal-based learning theory
  • Allport was eclectic in his approach and accepted many of the ideas of other theorists
• Personality


  The dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine [the person's] behavior and thought
• Conscious motivation


  Allport believed Freud missed the point of Allport's story, which was an expression of a conscious motive rather than an unconscious desire
• Characteristics of a healthy person

  • Extension of the sense of self
  • Warm relationship with others
  • Emotional security or self-acceptance
  • A realistic view of the world
  • Insight and humor
  • A unifying philosophy of life
• Common traits


  Permit inter-individual comparisons
• Personal dispositions


  Peculiar to the individual
• Levels of personal disposition

  • Cardinal disposition
  • Central disposition
  • Secondary disposition
• Motivational disposition


  One type of personal disposition
• Stylistic disposition


  One type of personal disposition
• Proprium


  All those behaviors and characteristics that people regard as warm and central in their lives
• Allport's theory of motivation

  • People not only react to their environment, but they also shape their environment and cause it to react to them
  • Proactive approach emphasizing that people often seek additional tension and purposefully act on their environment in a way that fosters growth toward psychological health
• Levels of functional autonomy

  • Perseverative functional autonomy
  • Propriate functional autonomy
• Processes that are not functionally autonomous


  • Biological drives
  • Motives directly linked to the reduction of basic drives
  • Reflex actions
  • Constitutional equipment
  • Habits in the process of being formed
  • Patterns of behavior that require primary reinforcement
  • Sublimations that can be tied to childhood sexual desires
  • Some neurotic or pathological symptoms