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'{{Refimprove|date=June 2007}} {{Infobox scientist |name = Gordon Allport |image =Allport.gif |image_size =150px |caption = Gordon Allport |birth_date = November 11, 1897 |birth_place = [[Montezuma, Indiana|Montezuma]], [[Indiana]] |death_date = October 9, 1967 |death_place = [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] |residence = |citizenship = |nationality = [[United States]] |ethnicity = |field = [[Psychology]] |work_institutions = |alma_mater = [[Harvard]] |doctoral_advisor = |doctoral_students = |known_for = |author_abbrev_bot =|author_abbrev_zoo = |influences = |influenced = |prizes = |religion = |footnotes = |signature = }} '''Gordon Willard Allport''' (November 11, 1897 – October 9, 1967) was an American [[psychologist]]. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personality psychology. He contributed to the formation of [[Values Scales]] and rejected both a [[psychoanalytic]] approach to personality, which he thought often went too deep, and a [[behavioral]] approach, which he thought often did not go deep enough. He emphasized the uniqueness of each individual, and the importance of the present context, as opposed to past history, for understanding the personality. Allport had a profound and lasting influence on the field of psychology, even though his work is cited much less often than that of other well-known figures.<ref>[http://www.stolaf.edu/people/huff/misc/Allporttalk.html Why should we care about Gordon Allport?<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Part of his influence stemmed from his knack for attacking and broadly conceptualizing important and interesting topics (e.g. rumor, prejudice, religion, traits). Part of his influence was a result of the deep and lasting impression he made on his students during his long teaching career, many of whom went on to have important psychological careers. Among his many students were [[Jerome S. Bruner]], [[Anthony Greenwald]], [[Stanley Milgram]], [[Leo Postman]], Thomas Pettigrew, and [[M. Brewster Smith]]. His brother [[Floyd Henry Allport]], was professor of social psychology and political psychology at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (in Syracuse, New York, USA) from 1924 until 1956, and visiting professor at University of California, Berkeley == Biography == Allport was born in [[Montezuma, Indiana|Montezuma]], [[Indiana]], the youngest of four sons of John Edwards and Nellie Edith (Wise) Allport. His early education was in the public schools of Cleveland, Ohio, where his family moved when he was six years old. His father was a country doctor with his clinic and hospital in the family home. Because of inadequate hospital facilities at the time, Allport's father actually turned their home into a makeshift hospital, with patients as well as nurses residing there. [http://shrike.depaul.edu/~kmerz/early_life1.htm Gordon Allport] and his brothers grew up surrounded by their father's patients, nurses, and medical equipment, and he and his brothers often assisted their father in the clinic. Allport reported that "Tending office, washing bottles, and dealing with patients were important aspects of my early training" (p.&nbsp;172).<ref name="HJelle, L.A. 1992">HJelle, L.A., Ziegler, D.J. (1992). ''Personality Theories: Basic Assumptions, Research, and Applications.'' New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.</ref> Allport's mother was a former school teacher, who forcefully promoted her values of intellectual development and religion. One of Allport's biographers states, "he grew up not only with the Protestant religion, but also the [[Protestant work ethic]], which dominated his home life." [http://shrike.depaul.edu/~kmerz/early_life1.htm Gordon Allport]'s father, who was Scottish, shared this outlook, and operated by his own philosophy that "If every person worked as hard as he could and took only the minimum financial return required by his families needs, then there would be just enough wealth to go around."<ref name="HJelle, L.A. 1992"/> Biographers describe Allport as a shy and studious boy who lived a fairly isolated childhood; the young Allport was the subject of high school mockery due to a birth defect that left him with only eight toes. As a teenager, Allport developed and ran his own printing business while serving as editor of his high school newspaper. In 1915, he graduated second in his class at [[Glenville High School]] at the age of eighteen. He earned a scholarship that allowed him to attend Harvard University, where one of his older brothers, [[Floyd Henry Allport]], was working on his Ph.D. in Psychology.<ref>V.W. Hevern (1996-2003). ''Narrative Psychology: Internet and Resource Guide''.</ref> Moving to Harvard was a difficult transition for Allport because the moral values and climate were so different from those of his home. However he earned his A.B. degree in 1919 in Philosophy and Economics (not psychology). His interest in the convergence of [[social psychology]] and [[personality psychology]] was evident in his use of his spare time at Harvard in social service: conducting a boy's club in Boston, visiting for the Family Society, serving as a volunteer probation officer, registering homes for war workers, and aiding foreign students.<ref name="Pettigrew, T.F. 1999">Pettigrew, T.F. (1999). ''Journal of Social Issues'', Fall, 1999</ref> Next he traveled to [[Robert College]] in Istanbul, Turkey, where he taught economics and philosophy for a year, before returning to Harvard to pursue his Ph.D. in psychology on fellowship in 1920 (in addition to German, Allport remained partially fluent in modern Greek throughout his life). His first publication, ''Personality Traits: Their Classification and Measurement'' in 1921, was co-authored with his older brother, [[Floyd Henry Allport]], who became an important social psychologist. Allport earned his Master's degree in 1921, studying under [[Herbert S. Langfeld]], and then his Ph.D. in 1922, along the way taking a class with [[Hugo Münsterberg]] before his death in 1916.<ref>Bowman, John S. ''The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography''. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) p. 13</ref> Harvard then awarded Allport a coveted Sheldon Traveling Fellowship--"a second intellectual dawn," as he later described it. He spent the first Sheldon year studying with the new [[Gestalt psychology|Gestalt]] School—which fascinated him—in [[Berlin]] and Hamburg, Germany; and then the second year at [[Cambridge University]].<ref name="Pettigrew, T.F. 1999"/> Then Allport returned to Harvard as an instructor in psychology from 1924 to 1926. He began teaching his course "Personality: Its Psychological and Social Aspects" in 1924; it was probably the first course in personality psychology ever taught in the U.S. During this time, Allport married Ada Lufkin Gould, who was a clinical psychologist, and they had one child, a boy, who later became a pediatrician.<ref name="Pettigrew, T.F. 1999"/> After going to teach introductory courses on social psychology and personality at Dartmouth College for four years, Allport returned to Harvard and remained there for the rest of his career. Gordon W. Allport was a longtime and influential member of the faculty at [[Harvard University]] from 1930 to 1967. In 1931, he served on the faculty committee that established Harvard's Sociology Department. In the late 1940s, he fashioned an introductory course for the new Social Relations Department into a rigorous and popular undergraduate class. At that time, he was also editor of the ''Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology''. Allport was also a Director of the Commission for the United Nations Educational Scientific, and Cultural Organization. He was elected a Fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1933.<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterA.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|accessdate=15 April 2011}}</ref> Allport was elected President of the American Psychological Association in 1939. In 1943, he was elected President of the Eastern Psychological Association. In 1944, he served as President of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. In 1950, Allport published his third book titled ''The Individual and His Religion''. His fourth book, ''The Nature of Prejudice'', was published in 1954, and benefited from his insights from working with refugees during World War II. His fifth book, published in 1955, was titled ''Becoming: Basic Considerations for Psychology of Personality''. This book became one of his most widely known publications. In 1963, Allport was awarded the Gold Medal Award from the American Psychological Foundation. In the following year, he received the APA's Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. Gordon Allport died on October 9, 1967 in Cambridge, Massachusetts of lung cancer. He was seventy years old.[http://shrike.depaul.edu/~kmerz/later_life.htm] ==Visit with Freud== Allport told the story in his autobiographical essay in ''Pattern and Growth in Personality''<ref>Allport, Gordon: ''Pattern and Growth in Personality''; Harcourt College Pub., ISBN 0-03-010810-1</ref> of his visit as a young, recent college graduate to the already famous Dr. [[Sigmund Freud]] in [[Vienna]]. To break the ice upon meeting Freud, Allport recounted how he had met a boy on the train on the way to Vienna who was afraid of getting dirty. He refused to sit down near anyone dirty, despite his mother's reassurances. Allport suggested that perhaps the boy had learned this dirt phobia from his mother, a very neat and apparently rather domineering type. After studying Allport for a minute, Freud asked, "And was that little boy you?" Allport experienced Freud's attempt to reduce this small bit of observed interaction to some unconscious episode from his own remote childhood as dismissive of his current motivations, intentions, and experience. It served as a reminder that [[psychoanalysis]] tends to dig too deeply into both the past and the unconscious, overlooking in the process the reputedly more important conscious and immediate aspects of experience. While Allport never denied that unconscious and historical variables have a role to play in human psychology (particularly in the immature and disordered) his own work would always emphasize conscious motivations and current context. Allport believed that situation is not dependent on its history. ==Allport's trait theory== {{main|Trait theory}} Allport is known as a "trait" psychologist. One of his early projects was to go through the dictionary and locate every term that he thought could describe a person. From this, he developed a list of 4500 trait like words. He organized these into three levels of traits. This is similar to Goldberg's [[Lexical hypothesis|fundamental lexical hypothesis]], or the hypothesis that over time, humans develop widely used, generic terms for individual differences in their daily interactions. Allport's three trait levels are: 1. '''Cardinal trait''' - This is the trait that dominates and shapes a person's behavior. These are the ruling passions/obsessions, such as a need for money, fame etc. 2. '''Central trait''' - This is a general characteristic found in some degree in every person. These are the basic building blocks that shape most of our behavior although they are not as overwhelming as cardinal traits. An example of a central trait would be honesty. 3. '''Secondary trait''' - These are characteristics seen only in certain circumstances (such as particular likes or dislikes that a very close friend may know). They must be included to provide a complete picture of human complexity. ==Genotypes and phenotypes== Allport hypothesized the idea of internal and external forces that influence an individual’s behavior. He called these forces Genotypes and Phenotypes. '''Genotypes''' are internal forces relates to how a person retains information and uses it to interact with the external world. '''Phenotypes''' are external forces, these relate to the way an individual accepts his surroundings and how others influence their behavior. These forces generate the ways in which we behave and are the groundwork for the creation of individual traits. ==Functional autonomy of motives== Allport was one of the first researchers to draw a distinction between [[Motivation|Motive]] and Drive. He suggested that a drive formed as a reaction to a motive may outgrow the motive as a reason. The drive then is autonomous and distinct from the motive, whether it is instinct or any other. Allport gives the example of a man who seeks to perfect his task or craft. His reasons may be a sense of inferiority engrained in his childhood but his diligence in his work and the motive it acquires later on is a need to excel in his chosen profession. In the words of Allport, the theory "avoids the absurdity of regarding the energy of life now, in the present, as somehow consisting of early archaic forms (instincts, prepotent reflexes, or the never-changing Id). Learning brings new systems of interests into existence just as it does new abilities and skills. At each stage of development these interests are always contemporary; whatever drives, drives now."<ref>Allport, G. W. (1937). ''The American Journal of Psychology, 50'', pp. 141-156.</ref> We also can see functional autonomy (the notion that motives can become independent of their origins) in the drive associated with making money to buy goods and services when it becomes an end in itself. Many obsessive and compulsive acts and thoughts might be manifestations of functional autonomy. ==Bibliography== *''Studies in expressive movement'' (with Vernon, P. E.) (1933) New York: Macmillan. *''Attitudes,'' in ''A Handbook of Social Psychology'', ed. C. Murchison, (1935). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press, 789–844. *''Personality: A psychological interpretation.'' (1937) New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. *''The Individual and His Religion: A Psychological Interpretation.'' Oxford, England: Macmillan, 1950. *''Letters from Jenny.'' (1965) New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. *''Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality.'' (1955). New Haven : Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-00264-5 * ''The Nature of Prejudice.'' (1954; 1979). Reading, MA : Addison-Wesley Pub. Co. ISBN 0-201-00178-0 * ''The Nature of Personality: Selected Papers.'' (1950; 1975). Westport, CN : Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-8371-7432-5 * ''The Person in Psychology'' (1968). Boston: Beacon Press * ''Pattern and Growth in Personality.'' (1961). Harcourt College Pub. ISBN 0-03-010810-1 * ''Personality & social encounter.'' (1960). Boston: Beacon Press * ''Psychology of Rumor.'' [with Leo Postman] (1948). Henry Holt and Co. ASIN B000J52DQU ==Secondary literature== *Ian Nicholson, ''Inventing Personality: Gordon Allport and the Science of Selfhood'', American Psychological Association, 2003, ISBN 1-55798-929-X *Hocutt, Max (2004). Review - Inventing Personality. http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=2058 *Nicholson, I. (2000). “'A coherent datum of perception': Gordon Allport, Floyd Allport and the politics of personality.” ''Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 3''6: 463-470. *Nicholson, I. (1998). Gordon Allport, character, and the ‘culture of personality’, 1897-1937. ''History of Psychology, 1,'' 52-68. *Nicholson, I. (1997). Humanistic psychology and intellectual identity: The 'open' system of Gordon Allport.'' Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 37,'' 60-78. *Nicholson, I. (1997). To "correlate psychology and social ethics": Gordon Allport and the first course in American personality psychology. ''Journal of Personality, 65,'' 733-742. *''On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years After Allport'', hrg. von Peter Glick, John Dovidio, Laurie A. Rudman, Blackwell Publishing, 2005, ISBN 1-4051-2750-3 == See also == *[[Allport's scale]] *[[List of science and religion scholars]] ==Notes== {{Reflist}} ==References== * Matlin, MW., (1995) Psychology. Texas: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. ==External links== * [http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Allport/autonomy.htm Allports classic paper on autonomy of motives] at Classics in the History of Psychology page. {{Psychology}} {{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. --> | NAME = Allport, Gordon | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION = | DATE OF BIRTH = November 11, 1897 | PLACE OF BIRTH = [[Montezuma, Indiana|Montezuma]], [[Indiana]] | DATE OF DEATH = October 9, 1967 | PLACE OF DEATH = [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] }} {{DEFAULTSORT:Allport, Gordon}} [[Category:American psychologists]] [[Category:Psychologists of religion]] [[Category:1897 births]] [[Category:1967 deaths]] [[Category:People from Parke County, Indiana]] [[Category:Personality trait theorists|*]] [[Category:Harvard University alumni]] [[Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] [[bg:Гордън Олпорт]] [[ca:Gordon Allport]] [[de:Gordon Allport]] [[et:Gordon Allport]] [[es:Gordon Allport]] [[fa:گوردن آلپورت]] [[fr:Gordon Willard Allport]] [[ko:고던 올포트]] [[id:Gordon Allport]] [[it:Gordon Allport]] [[he:גורדון אולפורט]] [[mk:Гордон Олпорт]] [[nl:Gordon Allport]] [[ja:ゴードン・オールポート]] [[pl:Gordon Allport]] [[pt:Gordon Allport]] [[ru:Олпорт, Гордон]] [[sk:Gordon Willard Allport]] [[sl:Gordon Allport]] [[sr:Гордон Олпорт]] [[tr:Gordon Allport]] [[zh:高尔顿·威拉德·奥尔波特]]'