Chapter 12- Allport

Question 1

What is Allport’s definition of personality?

Answer 1

The dynamic organization of psychophysical systems that create the person’s characteristic patterns of behavior, thoughts, and feelings.

Question 2

Allport believed that healthy individuals what?

Answer 2

Are generally aware of what they are doing and their reasons for doing it

Question 3

What does his emphasis on conscious motivation stem from?

Answer 3

Freud asked him if Allport was actually talking about himself when telling a story of a boy on the tram car. Freud assumed there was underlaying unconscious meaning to Allport’s story.

Question 4

What are the characteristics of a healthy person?

Answer 4

• Proactive behavior
• Motivated by conscious processes
• Trauma-free childhood

Question 5

What is proactive behavior?

Answer 5

concept that proposes people are capable of consciously acting upon their environment in new ways

Question 6

What are the 6 criteria for the Mature Personality?

Answer 6

1. Extension of the sense of self
2. Warm relating of self to others
3. Emotional security and self acceptance
4. Realistic perception if their environment
5. Insight and humor
6. Unifying philosophy of life

Question 7

What criteria does this describe? “Mature people seek to identify with events outside themselves. They develop unselfish interests and are not self-centered

Answer 7

Extension of the sense of self

Question 8

What criteria does this describe? “Healthy people use non-hostile humor and can laugh at themselves”

Answer 8

Insight and humor

Question 9

What criteria does this describe? “Healthy people have a clear view of the purpose of life, Allport felt that religious orientation is crucial in the lives of most mature individuals.”

Answer 9

Unifying Philosophy of Life

Question 10

What are common traits?

Answer 10

General characteristics held in common by many people. Used to compare people within a given culture. For example, the Big 5 trait theory

Question 11

What are personal dispositions?

Answer 11

Traits that are unique to an individual

Question 12

What are the 3 levels of Personal Dispositions?

Answer 12

1. Cardinal dispositions (1 trait that defines them)
2. Central dispositions (5-10 traits that define a person)
3. Secondary dispositions- aren’t central to personality but responsible for much of one’s behavior

Question 13

What are motivational dispositions?

Answer 13

Strongly felt dispositions that recurve their motivation from basic needs

ex. dressing yourself because of the basic need to stay warm

Question 14

What are stylisic dispositions?

Answer 14

Dispositions that are less intensely experience but still possess motivational power

ex. the way you dress yourself to be warm (if you dress cute or not)

Question 15

How do stylistic and motivational dispositions relate to each other?

Answer 15

Stylistic dispositions guide actions, whereas motivational dispositions initiate action

Question 16

What is the proprium?

Answer 16

Those behaviors and characteristics people regard as central and important in their lives

Question 17

Why is the proprium not the whole personality?

Answer 17

Many characteristics and behaviors of a person aren’t central, rather they are on the periphery of personality.

Question 18

What are the nonpropriate behaviors? (characteristics that aren’t central to one’s self)

Answer 18

1) Basic drives and needs that are normally met without difficulty
2) Tribal customs
3) Habitual behaviors

Question 19

Allport was “eclectic” in his ideas, what does this mean?

Answer 19

He got his ideas from a bunch of different theorists

Question 20

Allport believed people are motivated by what?

Answer 20

Present drives rather than by past events

Question 21

What are propriate strivings?

Answer 21

motivation toward goals that are consistent with and establish proprium and that are uniquely one’s own

Question 22

Describe Allport’s view of motivation

Answer 22

Allport believed that people aren’t just motivated by needs to reduce tension, he believed they are motivated by proactive behavior/growth as well. A good personality theory must explain both peripheral motives and propriate strivings

Question 23

Describe functional autonomy

Answer 23

Some human motives are functionally independent from the original motive responsible for the behavior

Question 24

What are the two levels of functional autonomy?

Answer 24

Perseverative functional autonomy and Propriate functional autonomy

Question 25

Give an example of perseverative functional autonomy

Answer 25

A rat that learned to run a maze to be fed continues to run it even after being fed. Why? out of habit

Question 26

Give an example of propriate functional autonomy

Answer 26

A woman may originally take a job cus she needs money, but eventually develops a passion for it and even develops a hobby closely related to her occupation

Question 27

What 8 processes aren’t functionally autonomous?

Answer 27

1. Biological drives
2. Motives directly linked to the reduction of basic drives
3. Reflex actions such as an eye blink
4. Constitutional equipment, namely physique, intelligence, and temperament
5. Habits in the process of being formed
6. Patterns of behavior that require primary reinforcement
7. Sublimations that can’t be tied to childhood or sexual desires
8. Some neurotic or pathological symptoms

Question 28

What are morphogenic procedures and how did Allport use them?

Answer 28

Morphogenic procedures study the whole person and intraperson comparisons. Some techniques include diaries, letters, recordings, etc.

Question 29

What are the two types of traits Allport recognized?

Answer 29

Common and individual