Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
Chapter 12
Allport: Psychology of the Individual
Learning Objectives
After reading Chapter12, you should be able to:
1.
Discuss how Allport's meeting with Freud affected his choice of
a career.
2.
Discuss Allport's definition of personality.
3.
List and discuss Allport's characteristics of the psychologically
healthy personality.
4.
Discuss Allport's concept of personal dispositions, including
how they differ from traits.
5.
Explain the distinction between motivational and stylistic
dispositions.
6.
Define proprium and give reasons why Allport chose this term
rather than "self."
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
7.
List and illustrate the three levels of personal dispositions.
8.
Differentiate between reactive and proactive theories of
motivation.
9.
Explain and give examples of Allport's concept of functional
autonomy.
10. Explain the rationale and results of the analysis of Letters from
Jenny.
11. Summarize research on the Religious Orientation Scale.
12. Discuss how religion and prayer may be related to health.
I.
Overview of Allport's Psychology of the Individual
As a 22-year-old student, Gordon Allport had a short but
pertinent visit with Freud in Vienna, a meeting that changed
Allport's life and altered the course of personality psychology
in the United States. In Allport's mature theory, his major
emphasis was on the uniqueness of each individual. Allport
built a theory of personality as a reaction against what he
regarded as the non-humanistic positions of both
psychoanalysis and animal-based learning theory. However,
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Allport was eclectic in his approach and accepted many of the
ideas of other theorists.
II.
Biography of Gordon Allport
Gordon W. Allport was born in Indiana in 1897. He received
an undergraduate degree in philosophy and economics from
Harvard. After receiving a PhD from Harvard, Allport spent 2
years studying under some of the great German psychologists,
but he returned to teach at Harvard. Two years later he took a
position at Dartmouth, but after 4 years at Dartmouth, he
returned to Harvard, where he remained until his death in 1967.
III.
Allport's Approach to Personality Theory
Answers to three questions reveal Allport's view of personality
theory. (1) What is personality? What is the role of conscious
motivation? (3) What are the characteristics of the
psychologically healthy person?
A. What Is Personality?
Allport defined personality as "the dynamic organization within
the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine
[the person's] behavior and thought.” This definition includes
both physical and psychological properties and both stability
and flexibility. Also, personality not only is something but it
does something; that is, it includes both behavior and thinking.
B. What is the Role of Conscious Motivation?
More than any other personality theorist, Allport recognized
the importance of conscious motivation. His emphasis of
conscious motivation probably began with his short-lived
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
discussion with Freud, when Allport had not yet selected a
career in psychology. Rather than viewing Freud's comments
as an expression of an unconscious motive, Allport believed
that Freud missed the point of Allport's story. Whereas Freud
would attribute an unconscious desire in the story of the young
boy on the tram car, Allport saw the story as an expression of a
conscious motive.
C. What Are the Characteristics of a Healthy Person?
Several years before Maslow conceptualized the selfactualizing personality, Allport listed six criteria for
psychological health. These include (1) an extension of the
sense of self, (2) warm relationships with others, (3) emotional
security or self-acceptance, (4) a realistic view of the world.
IV.
Structure of Personality
To Allport, the most important structures of personality are
those that permit description of the individual in terms of
individual characteristics, and he called these individual
structures personal dispositions.
A. Personal Dispositions
Allport distinguished between common traits, which permit
inter-individual comparisons, and personal dispositions, which
are peculiar to the individual. He recognized three overlapping
levels of personal dispositions, the most general of which are
cardinal dispositions that are so obvious and dominating that
they can not be hidden from other people. Not everyone has a
cardinal disposition, but all people have 5 to 10 central
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
dispositions, or characteristics around which their lives
revolve. In addition, everyone has a great number of secondary
dispositions, which are less reliable and less conspicuous than
central traits.
B. Motivational and Stylistic Dispositions
Allport further divided personal dispositions into (1)
motivational dispositions, which are strong enough to initiate
action and (2) stylistic dispositions, which refer to the manner
in which an individual behaves and which guide rather than
initiate action.
C. Proprium
The proprium refers to all those behaviors and characteristics
that people regard as warm and central in their lives. Allport
preferred the term proprium over self or ego, because the latter
terms could imply an object or thing within a person that
controls behavior, whereas proprium suggests the core of one's
personhood.
V.
Motivation
Allport insisted that an adequate theory of motivation must
consider the notion that motives change as people mature and
also that people are motivated by present drives and wants.
A. A Theory of Motivation
To Allport, people not only react to their environment, but they
also shape their environment and cause it to react to them. His
proactive approach emphasized the idea that people often seek
additional tension and that they purposefully act on their
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
environment in a way that fosters growth toward psychological
health.
B. Functional Autonomy
Allport's most distinctive and controversial concept is his
theory of functional autonomy, which holds that some (but not
all) human motives are functionally independent from the
original motive responsible for a particular behavior. Allport
recognized two levels of functional autonomy: (1) perseverative
functional autonomy, which is the tendency of certain basic
behaviors (such as addictive behaviors) to perseverate or
continue in the absence of reinforcement: and (2) propriate
functional autonomy, which refers to self-sustaining motives
(such as interests) that are related to the proprium. According
to Allport, a behavior is functionally autonomous to the extent
that it seeks new goals, as when a need (eating) turns into an
interest (cooking). Not all behaviors are functionally
autonomous, and Allport listed eight such processes: (1)
biological drives, such as eating, breathing, and sleeping; (2)
motives directly linked to the reduction of basic drives; (3)
reflex actions such as an eye blink; (4) constitutional equipment
such as physique, intelligence, and temperament; (5) habits in
the process of being formed; (6) patterns of behavior that
require primary reinforcement; (7) sublimations that can be tied
to childhood sexual desires, and (8) some neurotic or
pathological symptoms.
VI.
The Study of the Individual
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
Allport strongly felt that psychologists should develop and use
research methods that study the individual rather than groups.
A. Morphogenic Science
Allport favored morphogenic procedures over nomothetic ones.
Morphogenic investigations study only one person at a time
person and are opposed to nomothetic methods that study large
numbers of people. Presently, nearly all psychology studies
investigate groups of people. Allport's two most famous
morphogenic reports were the diaries of Marion Taylor and the
letters from Jenny.
B. The Diaries of Marion Taylor
In the late 1930's, Allport and his wife became acquainted with
diaries written by a woman they called Marion Taylor. These
diaries, along with descriptions on Marion Taylor by her
mother, younger sister, favorite teacher, friends, and a neighbor
provided the Allports with a large quantity of material that
could be studied using morphogenic methods. However, the
Allports never published this material.
C. Letters From Jenny
Even though Allport never published data from Marion
Taylor's dairies, he did publish a second case study—that of
Jenny Gove Masterson, whose son had been Gordon Allport's
college roommate. During the last 11 1/2 years of her life,
Jenny wrote a series of 301 letters to Gordon and Ada Allport
(although Allport tried to hide the identity of the young couple
who had received these letters). Two of Gordon Allport's
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
students, Alfred Baldwin and Jeffrey Paige, used a personal
structure analysis and factor analysis respectively, while
Allport used a common-sense approach to discern Jenny's
personality structure as revealed by her letters. All three
approaches yielded similar results, suggesting that
morphogenic studies can be reliable.
VII. Related Research
Allport believed that a deep religious commitment was a mark
of a mature person, but he also saw that many regular churchgoers did not have a mature religious orientation and were
capable of deep racial and social prejudice. In other words, he
saw a curvilinear relationship between church attendance and
prejudice. That is, people who score high on the Intrinsic scale
of the Religious Orientation Scale (ROS) tend to have overall
better personal functioning than those who score high on the
Extrinsic scale. Early studies found that some highly religious
people had high levels of psychological health, whereas others
suffered from a variety of psychological disorders. The
principal difference between the two church-going groups is
one of intrinsic versus extrinsic religious orientation; that is,
people with an intrinsic orientation tend to be psychologically
healthy, but those with an extrinsic orientation suffer from poor
psychological health.
A. The Religious Orientation Scale
This insight led Allport to develop and use the Religious
Orientation Scale to assess both an intrinsic orientation and an
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
extrinsic orientation toward religion. Allport and Michael Ross
(1967) found that people with an extrinsic orientation toward
religion tend to be quite prejudiced, whereas those with an
intrinsic orientation tend to be low on racial and social
prejudice.
B. Religion, Prayer, and Health
Recent research has found a consistent relationship between
religious involvement and health. Attending church regularly
tends to be associated with feeling better and living longer
(Powell, Shahabi, & Thoresen, 2003). Kevin Masters and his
colleagues (2005) studied religious orientation and
cardiovascular health. They found that, as they predicted, those
with an intrinsic religious orientation did not have the same
increases of blood pressure in reaction to moderate stress as
those with an extrinsic orientation did. These results
demonstrated that an intrinsic religious orientation serves as a
buffer against the stressors of everyday life. Timothy Smith
and colleagues (2003) reviewed all the research on religion and
depression to see whether religion could also serve as a buffer
against depression. Their findings generally supported
Allport’s view that there are good and bad ways to be religious:
The more intrinsically oriented toward religion a person is, the
less likely the person is to experience depression; the more
extrinsically oriented, the more likely a person is to be
depressed. The conclusion is that while religion can be good
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
for one’s health, it is important to be religious for the right
reasons in order to derive health benefits.
C. Prejudice Reduction: Optimal Contact
Allport conducted some research himself on the topic of
reducing prejudice, and he proposed the contact hypothesis,
stating that more contact under optimal conditions was one of
the most important components to reducing prejudice (Allport,
1954). Thomas Pettigrew, one of Allport’s students, has
continued the work on prejudice that Allport began (Pettigrew
& Tropp, 2006; Tropp & Pettigrew, 2005). Pettigrew and
Linda Tropp reviewed more than 500 studies testing Allport’s
contact hypothesis. They found that the four specific criteria
originally outlined by Allport are indeed essential to reduction
of prejudice. They also found that while the concept of optimal
contact was originally a way to reduce racial prejudice, it also
works to reduce prejudice toward the elderly and the mentally
ill (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). While Allport’s ideas continue
to enrich research in personality psychology, his methods for
prejudice reduction additionally have enriched the lives of
people who have benefited, perhaps without knowing it, from
his deep commitment to reducing prejudice in our society.
VIII. Critique of Allport
Allport wrote eloquently about personality, but his views are
based more on philosophical speculation and common sense
than on scientific studies. As a consequence, his theory rates
low on its ability to organize psychological data and to be
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
falsified. It rates high on parsimony and internal consistency
and about average on its ability to generate research and to help
the practitioner.
IX.
Concept of Humanity
Allport saw people as thinking, proactive, purposeful beings
who are generally aware of what they are doing and why. On
the six dimensions for a concept of humanity, Allport rates
higher than any other theorist on conscious influences and on
the uniqueness of the individual. He rates high on free choice,
optimism, and teleology and about average on social
influences.
Test Items
Fill-in-the-Blanks
1.
After teaching a year in Turkey, Allport had a memorable visit
with Freud.
2.
Allport's major interest was in the uniqueness of personality,
rather than the commonalties.
3.
Allport emphasized proactive behavior rather than reactive
behavior.
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
4.
Allport was eclectic in his approach to personality study,
meaning that he was willing to use ideas from psychoanalysis,
behaviorism, and other theoretical models.
5.
Allport defined personality as "the dynamic organization within
the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine
his characteristic behavior and thought."
6.
More than any other personality theorists, Allport emphasized
conscious motivation.
7.
To Allport, psychologically mature people are conscious (aware)
of their behavior and the reasons for their behavior.
8.
Allport's healthy individual would possess a unifying philosophy
of life.
9.
Allport believed that the average person has about 5 to 10 central
traits.
10. Traits shared by many people are called common traits.
11. Allport would say that the Marquis de Sade had a cardinal
disposition, because his entire adult life revolved around a single
motive.
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
12. Allport would agree with Adler and Maslow that psychologically
healthy people would have high levels of social interest
13. The manner in which people behave refers to their stylistic traits.
14. Motivational traits initiate action, whereas stylistic traits guide
action.
15. The proprium includes all those behaviors and characteristics
that we regard as peculiarly our own.
16. Allport recognized two levels of functional autonomy: propriate
and perseverative.
17. A motive is functionally autonomous to the extent that it seeks
new goals
18. Nonothetic approaches to science seek general laws, whereas
morphogenic procedures refer to the single case.
19. Allport recognized a curvilinear relationship between church
attendance and prejudice.
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
20. People with an extrinsic orientation toward religion see religion
as a means to some end, for example, a good way of meeting new
people.
True-False
T______1. Allport's principal concern was with the uniqueness of
the individual.
F______2. As a young man, Allport had a memorable meeting with
Carl Jung.
F______3. Allport questioned the reliability and validity of selfreports such as diaries and letters.
T______4. Allport believed that psychoanalysis and animal-based
learning theories were basically reactive theories.
T______5. Allport made no apologies for his eclecticism.
T______6. Allport's personality theory was unique in its emphasis
on conscious motivation.
F______7. Allport regarded himself as a trait psychologist.
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
T______8. Common traits are shared by several people.
F______9. Common traits are also called personal dispositions.
F_____10. Each person has about four or five cardinal dispositions.
T_____11. Motivational dispositions initiate action.
T_____12. In the United States, driving on the right side of the road
would be a peripheral aspect of personality.
F_____13. Allport's most famous study of a single individual was of
Marion Taylor, which he published in 1953.
T_____14. Allport's most distinctive and controversial concept is
that of functional autonomy.
F_____15. Allport's theory of motivation emphasizes the drivereduction hypothesis.
T_____16. Functional autonomous behaviors do not need constant
reinforcement in order to maintain themselves.
F_____17. Allport's theory of personality is based mostly on his
clinical experiences as a therapist.
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
F_____18. Allport and Ross found a positive and direct correlation
between church attendance and prejudice.
T_____19. People who endorse both intrinsic and extrinsic items on
the Religious Orientation Scale are called indiscriminately
proreligious.
T_____20. Allport's concept of personality is basically optimistic
and hopeful.
Multiple Choice
D______1. Allport's personality theory is marked chiefly by its
emphasis on
a. unconscious motivation.
b. personality types.
c. early childhood experiences.
d. uniqueness of the individual.
A______2. This term best describes Allport's approach to the study
of personality.
a. eclectic
b. theoretical
c. trait and factor
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
d. behavioristic
B______3. In his study of personality, Allport emphasized
a. cultural influences.
b. the normal healthy person.
c. group characteristics.
d. factor analytic techniques.
A______4. According to Allport, people are motivated by
a. a variety of drives.
b. the need for self-actualization.
c. the need to reduce tension and seek pleasure.
d. the need for relatedness with others.
D______5. Allport insisted that the basic units of personality are
a. common traits.
b. cardinal traits.
c. types.
d. personal dispositions.
A_____6. According to Allport, the psychologically mature person
would
a. have a unifying philosophy of life.
b. lack a sense of humor.
c. be motivated mostly by unconscious needs.
d. none of these.
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
e. all of these.
C______7. Allport recognized these two kinds of traits:
a. primary and secondary
b. source and surface
c. common and individual
d. proactive and reactive
B_____8. Personal dispositions
a. are also referred to as common traits.
b. make various stimuli functionally equal.
c. initiate and guide the behavior of individuals.
d. all of these.
e. none of these.
B_____9. Cardinal dispositions
a. are found in everyone.
b. cannot be hidden.
c. are also called central personal dispositions.
d. are common traits.
e. have been extensively studied in the psychology literature.
B____10. Secondary dispositions
a. cannot be hidden.
b. are not central to the person yet occur with some regularity.
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
c. are those 5 to 10 personal dispositions that characterize
most people.
d. are common traits.
e. are too weak to initiate action.
C_____11. This term is LEAST descriptive of Allport's approach to
personality.
a. personal disposition
b. morphogenic
c. types
d. functional autonomy
B_____12. Stylistic traits
a. are intensely felt.
b. guide action.
c. are usually cardinal traits.
d. are common traits.
A_____13. The proprium is Allport's term for
a. those behaviors and characteristics that people regard as
central to their lives.
b. the conscious portion of the ego.
c. the unconscious portion of the ego.
d. those behaviors and characteristics that people regard as
belonging to the periphery of their lives.
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
C_____14. According to Allport, people are motivated mostly by
a. unconscious forces originating in childhood.
b. the need for competence and superiority.
c. both the need to adjust and the need to grow.
d. both sex and aggression.
D_____15. When motives change to self-sustaining interests, Allport
would say that they have become
a. extinct.
b. needs.
c. habituated.
d. functionally autonomous.
e. secondary drives.
_C____16. Which of these did Allport NOT recognize as a criterion
for an adequate theory of motivation?
a. the contemporaneity of motives
b. the pluralistic nature of motives
c. a single master motive that unifies all behavior
d. the cognitive processes of planning and attention
A_____17. Propriate functional autonomy is Allport's
a. master system of motivation.
b. concept of unconscious motivation.
c. explanation for pathological behaviors.
d. term for self-actualization.
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
e. concept of factor analysis.
C_____18. Allport assumed that people who attend church regularly
may have
a. an extrinsic religious orientation.
b. an intrinsic religious orientation.
c. both of these.
d. neither of these.
A_____19. Research has suggested that people who score high on
the Extrinsic scale of the Religious Orientation Scale
a. are more prejudiced than those who score high on the
Intrinsic scale.
b. have less anxiety and better personal functioning than
people who score high on the Intrinsic scale.
c. do not attend church regularly.
d. attend church more regularly than people who score high
on the Intrinsic scale.
A_____20. Allport's theory of personality is basically
a. optimistic.
b. reactive.
c. causal.
d. trait-oriented.
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
Short Answers
1 Explain the difference between a trait and a personal disposition.
2. Discuss Allport's concept of a psychologically healthy person.
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
3. Explain the difference between motivational and stylistic personal
dispositions.
4. Discuss Allport's idea of a proprium and explain why he used that
term instead of "self."
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
5. From Allport's point of view, explain the difference between a
functionally autonomous motive and a habit in the process of
becoming extinct.
6. Explain Allport and Ross's Religious Orientation Scale (ROS).
What does it measure? What personal characteristics are associated
with high scores on the ROS?
Answers
Fill-in-the-Blanks
True-False
Multiple Choice
1.
Freud
1.
T.
1.
d
2.
uniqueness
2.
F
2.
a
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Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual
3.
proactive
3.
F
3.
b
4.
eclectic
4.
T
4.
a
5.
dynamic
5.
T
5.
d
6.
conscious
6.
T
6.
a
7.
conscious (aware)
7.
F
7.
c
8.
unifying
8.
T
8.
b
9.
central
9.
F
9.
b
10.
common
10.
F
10.
b
11.
cardinal
11.
T
11.
c
12.
social interest
12.
T
12.
b
13.
stylistic
13.
F
13.
a
14.
initiate
14.
T
14.
c
15.
proprium
15.
F
15.
d
16.
propriate
16.
T
16.
c
17.
goals
17.
F
17.
a
18.
morphogenic
18.
F
18.
c
19.
curvilinear
19.
T
19.
a
20.
extrinsic
20.
T
20.
a
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