Gordon Allport
Gordon Allport was an influential American psychologist born on November 11, 1897, in Montezuma, Indiana, and he passed away on October 9, 1967, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is best known for his pioneering work in personality psychology and social psychology, rejecting behaviorism and psychoanalysis in favor of a more humanistic approach. Allport emphasized the study of individual personality traits and the self, notably introducing the concept of the "proprium," which refers to the core aspects of the self. His academic journey included a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University and a doctorate from the same institution, alongside studies in Germany and England that shaped his ideas.
Allport's major contributions include significant publications such as "Personality: A Psychological Interpretation" and "The Nature of Prejudice," which explore the complexities of personality and social attitudes. He developed theories like functional autonomy and the contact hypothesis, which aim to address prejudice reduction. His work has had a lasting impact on psychology, particularly in understanding individual differences and the dynamics of personality traits. Allport's legacy continues to resonate in contemporary psychological research, making him a foundational figure in the study of personality.
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Subject Terms
Gordon Allport
- Born: November 11, 1897
- Birthplace: Montezuma, Indiana
- Died: October 9, 1967
- Place of death: Cambridge, Massachusetts
TYPE OF PSYCHOLOGY: Personality; social psychology
Allport rejected behaviorism and studied personality, the self, and practical aspects of social psychology, such as the functioning of values, rumor, and prejudice. He promoted a humanistic psychology.
Life
Gordon Allport was the youngest of four boys in a midwestern family. His father was a physician; an elder brother, Floyd, became an important figure in social psychology. Allport received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1919, taught English in the Republic of Türkiye (Turkey) for a year, and received a doctorate from Harvard in 1922. For the next two years, he studied in Germany and England, making contacts that would influence him for a lifetime. He returned to spend the rest of his life teaching and conducting research at Harvard, except during a four-year hiatus from 1926 to 1930 spent at Dartmouth College.
Influenced heavily by his European studies, he was one of the few who successfully resisted both behaviorism and psychoanalysis as defining schools of thought. One of Allport’s mentors was the German psychologist William Stern, whose personalistic psychology was seen by Allport as a step toward his own idiographic method (a study of the individual, as opposed to the study of the group, which is labeled nomothetic). Allport claimed that the closest counterpart of Stern’s system of thought in the United States was the self-psychology of Mary W. Calkins, a student of William James. Allport left a rich store of ideas about the personality and the self, or the ego, which he finally designated as the proprium.
In 1937, Allport published his major work, Personality: A Psychological Interpretation. He introduced the concept of functional autonomy and prominently mentioned Alfred Adler, the psychoanalyst who first stressed social variables. In 1955, he published Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality. In this work, he first introduced the term “proprium,” addressing whether the concept of self is necessary and, making note of valid criticisms, opting for a bare minimum of self functions.
In a 1961 revision of Personality titled Pattern and Growth in Personality, Allport elaborated on the concept of the proprium but followed his 1937 scheme of presenting the aspects of the self in a developmental context. He also enlarged his thinking on the mature person. His best-known and most popular work, The Nature of Prejudice (1954), represents a practical area in which he was interested. He also published focused studies of religion, expressive movement, social attitudes, rumor, and radio.
Allport’s legacy in the field of psychology is multifaceted. He pioneered the understanding of individual personality traits and unique personal differences, and he is considered a founder of personality psychology. He is recognized for his willingness to challenge the prevailing fields of psychology study, including behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Allport greatly impacted the future study of psychology, and his ideas, especially his trait theory of personality and the contact hypothesis for reducing prejudice, are still frequently referenced in modern psychology.
Bibliography
Cherry, Kendra. "Gordon Allport: Theory, Life, and Impact on Psychology." Verywell Mind, 14 Nov. 2023, www.verywellmind.com/gordon-allport-biography-2795508. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.
Deaux, Kay, and Mark Snyder, editors. The Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology. New York: Oxford UP, 2012.
Evans, Richard I. Gordon Allport: The Man and His Ideas. New York: Praeger, 1981.
"Gordon W. Allport - Department of Psychology." Harvard Psychology, psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/gordon-w-allport. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.
Hewstone, Miles, Wolfgang Stroebe, and Klaus Jonas, editors. An Introduction to Social Psychology. 5th ed., Chichester: Wiley, 2012.
Monte, Christopher. "Gordon W. Allport: Humanistic Trait and Self Theory." Beneath the Mask: An Introduction to Theories of Personality. Edited by Christopher F. Monte and Robert N. Sollod. 7th ed., Hoboken: Wiley, 2003.
Nicholson, Ian A. M. Inventing Personality: Gordon Allport and the Science of Selfhood. Washington: Amer. Psychological Assn., 2003.
Sheehy, Noel. Fifty Key Thinkers in Psychology. New York: Routledge, 2013.