Chapter 12 Allport Flashcards
More than any other personality theorist, Gordon Allport emphasized the ___________ of the individual.
Uniqueness
What is the difference between Morphogenic and nomothetic research methods? (Allport)
Morphogenic methods are those that gather data on a single individual, whereas nomothetic methods gather data on groups of people.
Answers to three interrelated questions reveal Allport’s approach to personality theory. What are those questions?
(1) What is personality? (2) What is the role of conscious motivation in personality theory? (3) What are the characteristics of the psychologically healthy person?
What is personality for Allport? What is new about his idea?
Allport’s comprehensive definition of personality suggests that human beings are both product and process; people have some organized structure while, at the same time, they possess the capability of change. Pattern coexists with growth, order with diversification.
He’s trying to account for the paradox of both a changing individual and a static individual?
What is the role of conscious motivation for Allport and how does it differ from Freud?
Healthy adults are generally aware of what they are doing and their reasons for doing it.
Freud assumes that all action would have an unconscious value but Allport leans harder on the value of self report data.
What are the two main characteristics that make up a healthy person according to Allport?
A healthy person can be characterized by both conscious action and proactive behaviour
What are personal dispositions to Allport and why are they important?
To Allport, the most important structures are those that permit the description of the person in terms of individual characteristics, and he called these individual characteristics personal dispositions.
Allport really seemed to emphasize the importance of individuality. The existence of these dispositions would work to support that inclination.
What are the three levels of personal dispositions?
Cardinal (theatrically strong-unrealistic often)
Central (a persons 5-10 most important dispositions)
Secondary (everything else)
What is the ifference between a motivational and stylistic disposition?
motivational initiates the action where stylistic is the manner in which someone engages. Ie, we dress to stay warm but how we dress is up to us.
What are proprium behaviours to Allport?
Allport used the term proprium to refer to those behaviors and characteristics that people regard as warm, central, and important in their lives. The proprium is not the whole personality, because many characteristics and behaviors of a person are not warm and central; rather, they exist on the periphery of personality.
Allport contended that theories of motivation must consider the differences between peripheral motives and propriate strivings. Define both terms and provide a description of what this idea was reacting towards.
Peripheral motives are those that reduce a need, whereas propriate strivings seek to maintain tension and disequilibrium.
Adult behavior is both reactive and proactive, and an adequate theory of motivation must be able to explain both. [he felt that modern theories were too reactive]
What is functional autonomy?
The tendency for some motives to become independent from the original motive responsible for the behavior.
What is functional autonomy a reaction to?
Functional autonomy is a reaction to what Allport called theories of unchanging motives, namely, Freud’s pleasure principle and the drive-reduction hypothesis of stimulus-response psychology. Allport held that both theories are concerned with historical facts rather than functional facts. He believed that adult motives are built primarily on conscious, self-sustaining, contemporary systems
What’s the difference between common and individual traits?
common are traits shared by many while individual traits are unique to the individual
What topic surrounded the extend research around Allport?
Religion, in and out groups, howtolerance is built.
Define perseverative functional autonomy (Allport)
Functionally independent motives that are not part of the proprium; includes addictions, the tendency to finish uncompleted tasks, and other acquired motives.
propriate functional autonomy (Allport)
Allport’s concept of a master system of motivation that confers unity on personality by relating self-sustaining motives to the proprium.
