I.

Overview of Allport's Psychology of the Individual

Gordon Allport, whose major emphasis was on the uniqueness of each individual, 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, 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, and taught in Europe for a year. While in Europe, he had a fortuitous meeting with
Sigmund Freud in Vienna, which helped him decide to complete a Ph.D. in psychology. After receiving his
Ph.D. from Harvard, Allport spent two 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 four years at
Dartmouth, he again returned to Harvard, where he remained until his death in 1967.
III. Allport's Approach to Personality
Allport believed that psychologically healthy humans are motivated by present, mostly conscious drives and
that they not only seek to reduce tensions but to establish new ones. He also believed that people are
capable of proactive behavior, which suggests that they can consciously behave in new and creative ways
that foster their own change and growth. He called his study of the individual morphogenic science and
contrasted it with traditional nomothetic methods.
IV. Personality Defined
Allport defined personality as "the dynamic organization within the individual
of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behavior
and thought."
V. Structure of Personality
According to Allport, the basic units of personality are personal dispositions and
the proprium.
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 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. 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.
B. 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.
VI. 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. Reactive and Proactive Theories 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 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 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.
C. Conscious and Unconscious Motivation
Although Allport emphasized conscious motivation more than any other personality theorist, he did not
completely overlook the possible influence of unconscious motives on pathological behaviors. Most people,
however, are aware of what they are doing and why they are doing it.
VII. The Psychologically Healthy Personality
Allport believed that people are motivated by both the need to adjust to their environment and to grow
toward psychological health; that is, people are both reactive and proactive. Nevertheless, psychologically
healthy persons are more likely to engage in proactive behaviors. Allport listed six criteria for psychological
health: (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, (5) insight and humor, and (6) a unifying philosophy of life.
VIII. The Study of the Individual
Allport strongly felt that psychology should develop and use research methods that study the individual
rather than groups.
A. Morphogenic Science
Traditional psychology relies on nomothetic science, which seeks general laws from
a study of groups of people, but Allport used idiographic or morphogenic procedures that study the single
case. Unlike many psychologists, Allport was willing to accept self-reports at face value.
B. The Diaries of Marion Taylor
In the late 1930's, Allport and his wife became acquainted with diaries written
by woman they called Marion Taylor. These diaries-along with descriptions of 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 studythat of Jenny Gove Masterson. Jenny had written a series of 301 letters to Gordon and Ada Allport, whose
son had been a roommate of Jenny's son. Two of Gordon Allport's students, Alfred Baldwin and Jeffrey Paige
used a personal structure analysis and factor analysis respectively, while Allport used a commonsense
approach to discern Jenny's personality structure as revealed by her letters. All three approaches yielded
similar results, which suggests that morphogenic studies can be reliable.
IX. 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.
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 extrinsic orientation toward religion. Allport and Ross 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. Religious Orientation and Psychological Health
Research has found that people who score high on the Intrinsic scale of the ROS tend to have overall better
personal functioning than those who score high on the Extrinsic scale. In general, these studies have found

that some highly religious people have strong psychological health whereas others suffer from a variety of
psychological disorders. The principal difference between the two groups is one of intrinsic or 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.
X. Critique of Allport
Allport has written eloquently about personality, but his views are based more on philosophical speculation
and common sense than on scientific studies. As a consequence, his theory is very narrow, being limited
mostly to a model of human motivation. Thus, it rates low on its ability to organize psychological data and to
be falsified. It rates high on parsimony and internal consistency and about average on its ability to generate
research and to help the practitioner.
XI. 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.