Gordon Allport facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Gordon Allport
Born	November 11, 1897 Montezuma, Indiana, US
Died	October 9, 1967(1967-10-09) (aged 69) Cambridge, Massachusetts, US
Alma mater	Harvard
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology

Gordon Willard Allport (born November 11, 1897 – died October 9, 1967) was an American psychologist. He was one of the first psychologists to focus on studying personality. Because of this, he is often called one of the founders of personality psychology.

Allport helped create ways to measure people's values. He didn't agree with the psychoanalytic approach, which he felt looked too deeply into hidden meanings. He also didn't like the behavioral approach, which he thought didn't explain things enough. Instead, he created his own theory based on "traits." He believed that every person is unique. He also thought it was important to understand a person based on their current situation, not just their past.

Allport had a big impact on psychology, even if his work isn't always mentioned as much as others. He was good at exploring interesting topics like rumors, prejudice, religion, and personality traits. He also greatly influenced his students during his long teaching career. Many of them became important psychologists themselves. Some of his famous students included Jerome S. Bruner, Stanley Milgram, and Thomas Pettigrew. His brother, Floyd Henry Allport, was also a well-known professor of social psychology. In 2002, a survey ranked Gordon Allport as the 11th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Gordon Allport's Life Story

Gordon Allport grew up in a religious family. He was born in Montezuma, Indiana. He was the youngest of four sons. When Gordon was six, his family moved to Ohio. He went to public schools in Cleveland, Ohio.

Gordon's father was a country doctor. He even had his clinic and hospital right in their family home. Gordon and his brothers grew up around patients, nurses, and medical tools. They often helped their father in the clinic. Allport once said that "Tending office, washing bottles, and dealing with patients were important aspects of my early training." His mother was a former teacher. She strongly encouraged her children to learn and be religious.

People who wrote about Allport say he was a shy and studious boy. He had a somewhat quiet childhood. As a teenager, Allport started his own printing business. He was also the editor of his high school newspaper. In 1915, he graduated from Glenville High School at age eighteen. He was second in his class. He won a scholarship to Harvard University. His older brother, Floyd Henry Allport, was already studying psychology there.

Gordon Allport earned his first degree in 1919. It was in Philosophy and Economics, not psychology.

After Harvard, Allport taught economics and philosophy for a year in Istanbul, Turkey. He then returned to Harvard in 1920 to get his Ph.D. in psychology. His first published paper, Personality Traits: Their Classification and Measurement (1921), was written with his brother, Floyd Henry Allport. Gordon earned his master's degree in 1921 and his Ph.D. in 1922.

Harvard then gave Allport a special scholarship to travel. He spent a year studying Gestalt ideas in Germany. Then he spent another year at Cambridge University in England.

From 1921 to 1937, Allport helped make personality a key area of study in American psychology. He returned to Harvard as a teacher from 1924 to 1926. In 1924, he started teaching his famous course, "Personality: Its Psychological and Social Aspects." During this time, Allport married Ada Lufkin Gould, who was also a psychologist. They had one son, who later became a doctor. After teaching at Dartmouth College for four years, Allport came back to Harvard. He stayed there for the rest of his career.

Allport was a professor at Harvard University from 1930 to 1967. He helped create Harvard's Sociology Department in 1931. In the late 1940s, he helped develop a new course for the Social Relations Department. He was also the editor of the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. Allport was a director for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In 1933, he was chosen as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

By 1937, Allport became a leading voice for personality psychology. He appeared on radio shows and wrote many articles and a textbook. In 1939, he was elected President of the American Psychological Association. He was the second youngest person to hold that job. He also led the Eastern Psychological Association in 1943. In 1944, he was President of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

In 1950, Allport published his book The Individual and His Religion. His book, The Nature of Prejudice, came out in 1954. This book was based on his work with refugees during World War II. His book Becoming: Basic Considerations for Psychology of Personality was published in 1955. In 1963, Allport received the Gold Medal Award from the American Psychological Foundation. The next year, he got the APA's Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. Gordon Allport passed away on October 9, 1967, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He died from lung cancer, just a month before his 70th birthday.

Allport's Trait Theory

Allport helped develop the trait theory of personality. He is known as a "trait" psychologist. He believed that people cannot be simply put into a few groups based on traits. Instead, he thought each person is unique. Each person has special traits that make them who they are. In his 1927 article, Concepts of Trait and Personality, Allport said that traits are "habits possessed of social significance." This means they are habits that become very predictable. Traits are a basic part of a person's personality. Allport believed that a person's personality is the most unique thing about them.

One of his first projects was to look through the dictionary. He found every word he thought could describe a person. From this, he made a list of 4,500 words that seemed like traits. He then put these words into three levels of traits. This idea is similar to the lexical hypothesis. This idea suggests that over time, humans create common words to describe differences between people in their daily lives.

Allport's three levels of traits are:

• Cardinal trait - These traits are very rare. They are the main traits that control and shape a person's behavior. Think of them as ruling passions or obsessions, like a strong need for money or fame.

• Central trait - These traits are general characteristics. Most people have them to some degree. They are the basic building blocks that shape most of our behavior. However, they are not as strong as cardinal traits. They influence behavior but don't completely control it. An example of a central trait would be honesty.

• Secondary trait - These traits are at the bottom of the list. They are not as obvious as central traits. Secondary traits are characteristics seen only in certain situations. For example, specific likes or dislikes that only a very close friend might know about. These traits are needed to fully understand how complex people are.

How the "Proprium" Develops

Allport used the term "proprium" to describe the self or ego. He believed it develops through different stages as a person grows.

1. Sense of Bodily "Me" (First Year)

Babies start to understand themselves through their senses. They learn what is part of their body and what is not.

2. Sense of Self-Identity (Second Year)

Children begin to understand who they are by knowing their name. This helps them feel important and understand their place in the world.

3. Sense of Self-Esteem (Third Year)

At this stage, children want to be independent. They want to do things on their own, away from adult supervision.

4. Sense of Self-Extension (Fourth Year)

Children start to see their bodies and their toys as extensions of themselves. They often say "mine!"

5. Emergence of Self-Image (Fourth to Sixth Year)

Children become aware of a "good me" and a "bad me." They start to think about what others expect from them. They also begin to set goals for themselves.

6. Emergence of Self as a Rational Coper (Sixth to Twelfth Year)

At this stage, children realize that thinking can help them solve problems. They start to think a lot about their own thoughts.

7. Emergence of Propriate Striving (Twelfth Year Through Adolescence)

Teenagers start to set future goals. These goals give meaning to their lives. Allport believed that healthy people create goals that might seem hard to reach. Setting these long-term goals helps people grow and shows a healthy personality.

8. Emergence of Self as Knower (Adulthood)

In this final stage, the self is seen as someone who understands. They can be aware of and use all the other seven "proprium" functions. When you go through all stages, you tend to use several or all of them in your daily life.

Genotypes and Phenotypes

Allport suggested there are inner and outer forces that affect how a person behaves. He called these forces Genotypes and Phenotypes.

Genotypes are internal forces. They relate to how a person takes in information and uses it to interact with the world around them. Phenotypes are external forces. These relate to how a person reacts to their surroundings and how others influence their behavior. These forces create the ways we behave and form the basis for our individual traits.

The challenge with this idea is that it's hard to prove. These are internal theories, even though they are likely influenced by the outside world.

Functional Autonomy of Motives

Allport was one of the first researchers to explain the difference between a motive and a drive.

He suggested that a drive forms as a reaction to a motive. But the drive can become more important than the original motive for a behavior. The drive then becomes independent and separate from the original motive. This idea, that drives can become independent of the original reasons for a behavior, is called "functional autonomy."

Allport gave an example of a person who wants to be perfect at their job or craft. Their first reason might be a feeling of not being good enough from childhood. But later, their hard work and the reason for it become a need to be excellent in their chosen job. This need then becomes the person's main drive.

See also

• Allport's scale - a way to measure prejudice in society, created by Gordon Allport in 1954.
• List of science and religion scholars
• Contact hypothesis
• Labels of Primary Potency