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

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

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. 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

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

motivation probably began with his short-lived 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 self-actualizing
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

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

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.
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

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

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 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

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

tied to childhood sexual desires, and (8) some neurotic or

pathological symptoms.
VI. The Study 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

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

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 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 church-goers
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,

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

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
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 fond 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

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

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 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).

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

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 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

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

1. After teaching a year in Turkey, Allport had a memorable visit

with ____________________ .

2. Allport's major interest was in the _____________________ of

personality, rather than the commonalties.

3. Allport emphasized _____________________ behavior rather

than reactive behavior.

4. Allport was ______________________ 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 ________________

organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems
that determine his characteristic behavior and thought."

6. More than any other personality theorists, Allport emphasized

____________________ motivation.

7. To Allport, psychologically mature people are ______________ of

their behavior and the reasons for their behavior.

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

8. Allport's healthy individual would possess a _______________

philosophy of life.

9. Allport believed that the average person has about 5 to 10

___________________ traits.

10. Traits shared by many people are called ______________ traits.

11. Allport would say that the Marquis de Sade had a ____________
disposition, because his entire adult life revolved around a single
motive.

12. Allport would agree with Adler and Maslow that psychologically
healthy people would have high levels of __________________.

13. The manner in which people behave refers to their ______ traits.

14. Motivational traits ___________ action, whereas stylistic traits

guide action.

15. The ___________includes all those behaviors and characteristics

that we regard as peculiarly our own.

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

16. Allport recognized two levels of functional autonomy: ________

and perseverative.

17. A motive is functionally autonomous to the extent that it seeks

new _________________.

18. Nonothetic approaches to science seek general laws, whereas

_______________________ procedures refer to the single case.

19. Allport recognized a ____________ relationship between church

attendance and prejudice.

20. People with an _________________ orientation toward religion

see religion as a means to some end, for example, a good way of
meeting new people.

True-False

______1. Allport's principal concern was with the uniqueness of the

individual.

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

______2. As a young man, Allport had a memorable meeting with Carl

Jung.

______3. Allport questioned the reliability and validity of self-reports

such as diaries and letters.

______4. Allport believed that psychoanalysis and animal-based

learning theories were basically reactive theories.

______5. Allport made no apologies for his eclecticism.

______6. Allport's personality theory was unique in its emphasis on

conscious motivation.

______7. Allport regarded himself as a trait psychologist.

______8. Common traits are shared by several people.

______9. Common traits are also called personal dispositions.

_____10. Each person has about four or five cardinal dispositions.

_____11. Motivational dispositions initiate action.

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

_____12. In the United States, driving on the right side of the road
would be a peripheral aspect of personality.

_____13. Allport's most famous study of a single individual was of

Marion Taylor, which he published in 1953.

_____14. Allport's most distinctive and controversial concept is that of

functional autonomy.

_____15. Allport's theory of motivation emphasizes the drive-

reduction hypothesis.

_____16. Functional autonomous behaviors do not need constant

reinforcement in order to maintain themselves.

_____17. Allport's theory of personality is based mostly on his clinical

experiences as a therapist.

_____18. Allport and Ross found a positive and direct correlation

between church attendance and prejudice.

_____19. People who endorse both intrinsic and extrinsic items on the
Religious Orientation Scale are called indiscriminately
proreligious.

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

_____20. Allport's concept of personality is basically optimistic and

hopeful.

Multiple Choice

______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.

______2. This term best describes Allport's approach to the study of

personality.
a. eclectic
b. theoretical
c. trait and factor
d. behavioristic

______3. In his study of personality, Allport emphasized

a. cultural influences.
b. the normal healthy person.
c. group characteristics.
d. factor analytic techniques.

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

______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.

______5. Allport insisted that the basic units of personality are

a. common traits.
b. cardinal traits.
c. types.
d. personal dispositions.

_____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.
e. all of these.

______7. Allport recognized these two kinds of traits:

a. primary and secondary
b. source and surface
c. common and individual

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

d. proactive and reactive

_____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.

_____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.

____10. Secondary dispositions

a. cannot be hidden.
b. are not central to the person yet occur with some regularity.
c. are those 5 to 10 personal dispositions that characterize most
people.
d. are common traits.
e. are too weak to initiate action.

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

_____11. This term is LEAST descriptive of Allport's approach to

personality.
a. personal disposition
b. morphogenic
c. types
d. functional autonomy

_____12. Stylistic traits

a. are intensely felt.
b. guide action.
c. are usually cardinal traits.
d. are common traits.

_____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.

_____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.

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

d. both sex and aggression.

_____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.

_____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

_____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.
e. concept of factor analysis.

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

_____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.

_____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.

_____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

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 Chapter 12 Allport: Psychology of the Individual

1. Freud 1. T. 1. d
2. uniqueness 2. F 2. a
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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