GORDON ALLPORT: BIOGRAPHY AND PERSONALITY THEORY - PSYCHOLOGY - 2024

Gordon Allport (1897-1967) was an American psychologist who devoted himself to the study of personality. In fact, he is frequently spoken of as one of the key characters in the development of personality psychology.

He did not agree with either the psychoanalyst school or the behavioral school, since he thought that the former studied the human being from a very deep level and the latter did so from a superficial level.

Gordon allport

Gordon Allport has been recognized for his work in the field of personality psychology, which was instituted as an autonomous psychological discipline since 1920. In his work, this psychologist is in charge of emphasizing the uniqueness of individual human behavior.

He also makes a criticism of Freud's theory, radical behaviorism and all theories of personality that are based on observing the behavior of animals.

Birth and childhood

Gordon Willard Allport is originally from the city of Montezuma, in the state of Indiana in the United States. He was born on November 11, 1897 and died on October 9, 1967 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Allport was the youngest of four siblings. When he was six they moved to Ohio City. His parents were Nellie Edith and John Edwards Allport, who was a country doctor.

Due to inadequate medical facilities at the time, his father converted his house into a makeshift hospital. Thus, Allport spent her childhood among nurses and patients.

He was described by biographers as a withdrawn and very dedicated boy who lived a lonely childhood. During his teens, Allport started his own printing company, while also working as an editor for his school newspaper in high school.

In 1915, at the age of 18, he graduated from the Glenville Institute, the second in his class. Allport landed a scholarship that took him to Harvard University, the same place where one of his older brothers, Floyd Henry Allport, was studying for a Ph.D. with a specialty in Psychology.

Your career in the field of psychology

During his years at Harvard, Allport studied with Hugo Münsterberg and thoroughly discovered experimental psychology with Langfeld. He was also introduced to epistemology and the history of psychology with Holt. At that time she also became involved in social service for foreign students, belonging to the department of social ethics.

Subsequently, Allport served in the military in the Student Army Training Corps. In 1922 he received a doctorate in Psychology and his thesis was devoted to personality traits, the subject that would be the basis of his professional career.

After graduating he lived in Berlin, Hamburg and Cambridge. In this last place, he had the opportunity to study with personalities such as C. Stumpf, M. Wertheimer, M. Dessoir, E. Jaensch, W. Köhler, H. Werner and W. Stern. In 1924 he returned to Harvard University, where he taught until 1926.

First personality course

The first course Allport taught at Harvard was called "Personality: Its Psychological and Social Aspects." This was perhaps the first course in personality psychology taught in the United States.

During those years, Allport married Lufkin Gould, who was a clinical psychologist. They had a son who later became a pediatrician.

Later Allport decided to teach classes in social psychology and personality at Dartmouth College, a university located in New Hampshire, United States. There he spent four years and after that time he returned once more to Harvard University, where he would finish his career.

Allport was an influential and prominent member of Harvard University between 1930 and 1967. In 1931 he served on the committee that established the Harvard Department of Sociology. In addition, between 1937 and 1949 he was editor of the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology.

President of the APA and other organizations

In 1939 he was elected as president of the American Psychological Association (APA). In this organization, Allport was responsible for the section that dealt with foreign exchanges.

From this position he worked hard to get help for many European psychologists who had to flee Europe due to the arrival of Nazism. Allport helped them to seek refuge in the United States or South America.

During his career, Allport was president of many organizations and associations. In 1943 he was elected president of the Eastern Psychological Association and the following year he was president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

Main works and recognitions

In 1950 Allport published one of his most relevant works entitled The Individual and His Religion. In 1954 he published The Nature of Prejudice, where he talks about his experience working with refugees during World War II.

In 1955 he published another book entitled Becoming: Basic Considerations for Psychology of Personality, which became one of his most recognized works. In 1963 he was awarded the Gold Medal Award from the American Psychological Association. The following year he was awarded the APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions.

Death

Allport died in 1967 as a result of lung cancer. He was 70 years old.

Personality psychology according to Gordon Allport

In the book Personality: A Psychological Interpretation, published in 1937, Allport described some fifty different meanings of the term "personality", as well as others related to it, such as "self" ("self"), "character" or " person".

For Allport, personality is a dynamic organization that is within the psychophysical systems of each individual, which determines their adaptation to the environment. In this definition, the psychologist emphasizes that the personality is different in each individual.

For him none of the theoretical models that had been used in the study of human behavior provided a useful basis for understanding personality. Allport believed that the study of personality could only be undertaken from an empirical point of view.

One of the motivations of human beings has to do with the satisfaction of biological survival needs. This human behavior was defined by Allport as opportunistic functioning and according to him it is characterized by its reactivity, by its orientation to the past and by having a biological connotation.

However, Allport thought that opportunistic functioning was not very relevant to understanding most human behavior. In his view, human behaviors were motivated by something different, which was rather a functioning as an expressive form of the self.

This new idea defined it as own operation or proprium. This functioning, unlike the opportunistic one, is characterized by its activity, by its orientation to the future and by being psychological.

The propium

To show that opportunistic functioning does not play such an important role in personality development, Allport focused on precisely defining his concept of the self or proprium. To describe it, he worked with two perspectives: one phenomenological and the other functional.

From the phenomenological perspective, he described the self as something that is experienced, that is, felt. According to the expert, the self is made up of those aspects of the experience that the human being perceives as essential. In the case of the functional perspective, the self has seven functions that arise at certain moments in life. These are:

• Body sensation (for the first two years)
• Own identity (during the first two years)
• Self-esteem (between two and four years)
• Extension of oneself (between the ages of four and six)
• Self image (between four and six years old)
• Rational adaptation (between the ages of six and twelve)
• Self-effort or struggle (after age twelve)

Theory of traits

Dr. Gordon W. Allport, Harvard University. Image: snl.no

According to Allport, the human being also develops other characteristics that he called personal traits or personal dispositions. The psychologist defined the trait as the predisposition, attitude or tendency that a person has to respond in a certain way.

It is a neuropsychic system that is generalized and localized, with an ability to convert many stimuli into functional equivalents, while initiating and guiding equivalent forms of expressive and adaptive behavior.

In the case of expressive behavior it has to do with "how" such behavior is performed. In the case of adaptive behavior, it refers to the “what”, that is to say, the content.

This is explained by the fact that several people are able to carry out the same activity but in very different ways. The "what", for example, can be a conversation and the "how" is the way it is carried out, which can be enthusiastic, complacent or aggressive. Talking would be the adaptive component and the ways to do it is the expressive component.

Individual and common traits

Allport proposes in his theory the distinction between individual traits and common traits. The former are those traits that are applicable to a group of people who share the same culture, language or ethnic origin. The latter are the traits that form a set of personal dispositions based on individual experiences.

The psychologist defends the position that each person has essentially unique traits. One way to understand that traits are truly unique is when we realize that no one learns with the knowledge of other people.

Ideographic methods

To test his theory, Allport used what he called ideographic methods, which were nothing more than a set of methods focused on the study of a single individual, either through interviews, analysis of letters or newspapers, among other elements..

Today this method is known as qualitative. Despite this, Allport also recognizes the existence of common traits within any culture.

Cardinal, central and secondary features

The author classifies individual traits into three types: cardinal, central, and secondary. The cardinal traits are those that dominate and shape the behavior of each individual.

This type of trait is the one that practically defines a person's life. To exemplify this characteristic, specific historical figures such as Joan of Arc (heroic and sacrificed), Mother Teresa (religious service) or the Marquis de Sade (sadism) are used.

Allport also ensures that some traits are more tied to proprium (one's own self) than others. An example of this are the characteristic features of individuality that are inferred from the subject's behavior. They are the cornerstone of personality.

When describing a person, words are often used that refer to central features such as silly, smart, shy, wild, shy, gossipy, etc. According to Allport's observation, most individuals have between five and ten of these traits.

The case of secondary traits is different. These are those that are not so obvious because they manifest themselves to a lesser extent. They are also less important when defining the personality of a particular individual. They generally have less influence on people's lives, although they are related to personal tastes and beliefs.

For Allport, individuals with well-developed proprium, as well as a rich set of dispositions, have reached psychological maturity. This term has been used by the psychologist to describe mental health.

Theory Conclusions

Gordon Allport, to describe the personality, highlights four essential points. First, its postulates emphasize individuality for the study of personality. Second, human behavior is explained from various perspectives.

On the other hand, at a methodological level, it defends the expressive dimension of behavior as an indicator of personality. And finally, he reinterprets the concept of himself to interpret individual behavior.