Gordon Allport: Motivation and Personality
Introduction: Allport Brings Personality Into the Class and the Lab
● General
○ Responsible for making personality an academically respectable topic and
bringing it into the mainstream: released “Personality: A psychological
interpretation in 1937 and it blew up
○ He made a theory of personality in which traits play a prominent role
● Challenging Freud
○ Did not accept the notion of dominance of unconscious forces
■ Argued that this is only the case in neurotic people
○ Argued we are not prisoners of the past, but shaped by the present and hopes of
the future
○ Did not like collecting data from abnormal personalities
○ He thought the way only way to study personality was to collect data from
emotionally healthy adults
● Allport Makes Each Person Unique
○ Strong emphasis on the uniqueness of personality as defined by each person’s
traits and opposed traditional emphasis on universal laws or constructs.
The Life of Allport (1897-`1967)
● Restrictions, Morality, and no Bright Colors
○ Born in India, mother was a teacher and father was a doctor. Mother was very
religious and had strict rules about moral ideals
● Isolation and Rejection
○ Isolated socially, didn’t have friends
○ Considered himself skillful with words but not talented at sports or games
● Inferiority
○ From his isolation, he developed inferiority feelings for which he attempted to
compensate by striving to excel
○ Seeked his brothers accomplishments, also gained a PhD in psychology
○ Was still insecure about his brother as they both gained prominence
● College years
○ Had fun in college, volunteer and did a lot, helped him compensate
○ Would eventually find psychology casually
● Allport meets Freud
○ Had a very strange encounter with Freud where he tried to psychoanalyze him, it
struck Allport as incredibly strange
● Becoming a success
○ Published the first research ever on personality in the US
○ Also offered the first formal college ecourse on the subject
, ○ Would spend nearly four decades at Harvard conducting research and teaching
○ Considered an elder statesman in the field , received many honors for his
contributions
Allport Personality Theory
● The Nature of Personality
○ General
■ His definition of Psychology
● The dynamic organization within the individual of those
psychophysical systems that determine characteristic behavior
and thought
■ By dynamic organization, Allport means that although, personality is
constantly changing and growing, the growth is organized
■ By psychophysical, he means that personality is composed of both mind
and body functioning as a unit
■ By determine, he means that all facets of personality activate and direct
specific behaviors and thoughts
○ The role of heredity and environment
■ Argued that heredity provides the personality with raw materials:
physique, intelligence, and temperament, that may then be shaped
expanded or limited by the conditions of our environment
■ The chance that your genetic output will be just like someone else’s is
near impossible
■ He also believed that no two people have the exact same environment
■ He concluded that studying personality needs to focus on the individual
and not average findings among groups
○ Two distinct personalities for Two stages of life
■ He believed that personality is discrete
■ Each person is distinct from all others, but they are also divorced from
their past
■ He found no continuum of personality between childhood and adulthood
■ In a sense, there are two personalities: that of the adult and that of the
child. The adult is not constrained by the child
● Traits
○ General
■ Considered personality traits to be predispositions to respond to different
kinds of stimuli
■ Traits are consistent ways of responding to our environment
■ The characteristics of the traits
● Real and exist within each of us. They are not theoretical
constructs or labels made up to account for behavior
Introduction: Allport Brings Personality Into the Class and the Lab
● General
○ Responsible for making personality an academically respectable topic and
bringing it into the mainstream: released “Personality: A psychological
interpretation in 1937 and it blew up
○ He made a theory of personality in which traits play a prominent role
● Challenging Freud
○ Did not accept the notion of dominance of unconscious forces
■ Argued that this is only the case in neurotic people
○ Argued we are not prisoners of the past, but shaped by the present and hopes of
the future
○ Did not like collecting data from abnormal personalities
○ He thought the way only way to study personality was to collect data from
emotionally healthy adults
● Allport Makes Each Person Unique
○ Strong emphasis on the uniqueness of personality as defined by each person’s
traits and opposed traditional emphasis on universal laws or constructs.
The Life of Allport (1897-`1967)
● Restrictions, Morality, and no Bright Colors
○ Born in India, mother was a teacher and father was a doctor. Mother was very
religious and had strict rules about moral ideals
● Isolation and Rejection
○ Isolated socially, didn’t have friends
○ Considered himself skillful with words but not talented at sports or games
● Inferiority
○ From his isolation, he developed inferiority feelings for which he attempted to
compensate by striving to excel
○ Seeked his brothers accomplishments, also gained a PhD in psychology
○ Was still insecure about his brother as they both gained prominence
● College years
○ Had fun in college, volunteer and did a lot, helped him compensate
○ Would eventually find psychology casually
● Allport meets Freud
○ Had a very strange encounter with Freud where he tried to psychoanalyze him, it
struck Allport as incredibly strange
● Becoming a success
○ Published the first research ever on personality in the US
○ Also offered the first formal college ecourse on the subject
, ○ Would spend nearly four decades at Harvard conducting research and teaching
○ Considered an elder statesman in the field , received many honors for his
contributions
Allport Personality Theory
● The Nature of Personality
○ General
■ His definition of Psychology
● The dynamic organization within the individual of those
psychophysical systems that determine characteristic behavior
and thought
■ By dynamic organization, Allport means that although, personality is
constantly changing and growing, the growth is organized
■ By psychophysical, he means that personality is composed of both mind
and body functioning as a unit
■ By determine, he means that all facets of personality activate and direct
specific behaviors and thoughts
○ The role of heredity and environment
■ Argued that heredity provides the personality with raw materials:
physique, intelligence, and temperament, that may then be shaped
expanded or limited by the conditions of our environment
■ The chance that your genetic output will be just like someone else’s is
near impossible
■ He also believed that no two people have the exact same environment
■ He concluded that studying personality needs to focus on the individual
and not average findings among groups
○ Two distinct personalities for Two stages of life
■ He believed that personality is discrete
■ Each person is distinct from all others, but they are also divorced from
their past
■ He found no continuum of personality between childhood and adulthood
■ In a sense, there are two personalities: that of the adult and that of the
child. The adult is not constrained by the child
● Traits
○ General
■ Considered personality traits to be predispositions to respond to different
kinds of stimuli
■ Traits are consistent ways of responding to our environment
■ The characteristics of the traits
● Real and exist within each of us. They are not theoretical
constructs or labels made up to account for behavior
