Gordon Allport

Gordon Willard Allport (November 11 1897 - October 9 1967) was an American psychologist. He was born in Montezuma, Indiana, the youngest of four brothers. One of his older brothers, Floyd Henry Allport, was an important and influential psychologist as well. Gordon W. Allport was a long time and influential member of the faculty at Harvard University from 1930-1967. His works include Becoming, Pattern and Growth in Personality, The Individual and his Religion, and perhaps his most influential book The Nature of Prejudice.

Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the fathers of personality psychology. He 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 other well known figures. 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: Anthony Greenwald, Stanley Milgram, Leo Postman, Thomas Pettigrew, and M. Brewster Smith.

Visit with Freud

Allport told the story in his autobiographical essay in Pattern and Growth in Personality 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 often more important conscious and immediate aspects of experience. While Allport never denied that unconscious and historical variables might 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's 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 3000 trait like words. He organized these into three levels of traits.

1. Cardinal trait - This is the trait that dominates and shapes a person's behavior. These are rare as most people lack a single theme that shapes their lives.

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. They must be included to provide a complete picture of human complexity.

Functional Autonomy

Allport was one of the first researchers to draw a distinction between Motive and Drive. He formulated that a drive formed as a reaction to a motive may out-grow 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 dilligence 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 "It 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."

Psychology of Religion

In his book The Individual and His Religion (1950), Gordon Allport (1897-1967) illustrates how people may use religion in different ways. He makes a distinction between Mature religion and Immature religion. Mature religious sentiment is how Allport characterised the person whose approach to religion is dynamic, open-minded, and able to maintain links between inconsistencies. In contrast, immature religion is self-serving and generally represents the negative stereotypes that people have about religion. More recently, this distinction has been encapsulated in the terms "intrinsic religion", referring to a genuine, heartfelt devout faith, and "extrinsic religion", referring to a more utilitarian use of religion as a means to an end, such as church attendance to gain social status. These dimensions of religion were measured on the Religious Orientation Scale of Allport and Ross (1967)

Prejudice

Allport’s Scale is a measure of prejudice in a society. It is also referred to as Allports Scale of Prejudice and Discrimination or Allports Scale of Prejudice. It was devised by psychologist Gordon Allport in The Nature of Prejudice (1954).

Allport’s Scale of Prejudice goes from 1 – 5.

Scale 1, Antilocution Antilocution means a majority group freely make jokes about a minority group. Speech is in terms of negative stereotypes and negative images. This is also called hate speech. It is commonly seen as harmless by the majority. Antilocution itself may not be harmful, but it sets the stage for more severe outlets for prejudice. Examples are jokes about the Irish, French, blacks, gays etc.

Scale 2 Avoidance People in a minority group are actively avoided by members of the majority group. No direct harm may be intended, but harm is done through isolation.

Scale 3 Discrimination Minority group is discriminated against by denying them opportunities and services and so putting prejudice into action. Behaviours have the specific goal of harming the minority group by preventing them from achieving goals, getting education or jobs, etc. The majority group is actively trying to harm the minority.

Scale 4 Physical Attack The majority group, vandalise minority group things, they burn property and carry out violent attacks on individuals or groups. Physical harm is done to members of the minority group Examples are lynchings of blacks, pogroms against Jews in Europe, tarring and feathering Mormons in 1800s.

Scale 5 Extermination The majority group seeks extermination of the minority group. They attempt to liquidate the entire group of people (e.g., Native American population, Final Solution of Jewish Problem, Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia, etc.).

Publications

• Allport, Gordon: Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality; Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-00002-2
• Allport, Gordon: The Nature of Prejudice; Perseus Books, ISBN 0-201-00179-9 or Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-00178-0
• Allport, Gordon: The Nature of Personality: Selected Papers; Greenwood Pub Group, ISBN 0-8371-7432-5
• Allport, Gordon: Pattern and Growth in Personality; Harcourt College Pub., ISBN 0-03-010810-1
• Allport, Gordon: Psychology of Rumor; Russell & Russell Pub., ISBN 0-8462-0564-5

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Matlin, MW., (1995) Psychology. Texas: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

• Allport G. The Nature of Prejudice, Addison-Wesley; 1954.
• Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
• Milgram, Stanley. (1977) The individual in a social world : essays and experiments. ISBN 0201043823.

External link

• Allports classic paper on autonomy of motives at Classics in the History of Psychology page.

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