Chapter 13 - Allport

Question 0

What are the characteristics of a healthy person, according to Allport?

Answer 0

• proactive behaviour (aimed at both reducing tensions & creating new ones)
• motivated by conscious processes
• More specifically:
  • extension of sense of self
  • warm relation to others
  • emotional security/self-acceptance
  • realistic perception of environment
  • insight & humor
  • unifying philosophy of life

Question 1

How did Allport define personality?

Answer 1

The dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine their unique adjustments to their environment

• both physical & psychological
• both overt behaviours & covert thoughts
• both being & doing, substance & change, product & process, structure & growth

Question 2

What are common traits, according to Allport?

Answer 2

General characteristics held in common by many people

Question 3

What are personal dispositions, according to Allport?

Answer 3

Relatively permanent neuropsychic structure peculiar to the individual which has capacity to render different stimuli functionally equivalent and to initiate & guide personalized forms of behaviour

Question 4

What are the levels of personal dispositions?

Answer 4

• cardinal dispositions
• central dispositions
• secondary dispositions

Question 5

What are motivational and stylistic dispositions?

Answer 5

• motivational: initiate action

- stylistic: guide action

Question 6

What is the proprium?

Answer 6

Those behaviours and characteristics people regard as warm, central, and important in their lives

Question 7

What is functional autonomy?

Answer 7

Some, but not all, human motives are functionally independent from the original motive responsible for the behaviour

Question 8

What are the requirements for an adequate theory of motivation, according to Allport?

Answer 8

• acknowledges contemporaneity of motives
• pluralistic (allowing for many types of motives)
• ascribes dynamic force to cognitive processes
• allows for concrete uniqueness of motives

Question 9

What is perseverative functional autonomy?

Answer 9

Functionally independent motives that are not part of the proprium

• addictions
• tendency to finish uncompleted tasks
• other acquired motives

Question 10

What is propriate functional autonomy?

Answer 10

A master system of motivation that confers unity on personality by relating self-sustaining motives to the proprium

Question 11

What processes are not functionally autonomous?

Answer 11

• biological drives
• motives linked directly to reduction of basic drives
• reflexive actions
• constitution (physique, temperament, intelligence)
• habits in process of being formed
• patterns of behaviour requiring primary reinforcement
• sublimations that cannot be tied to childhood sexual desires
• some neurotic & pathological symptoms

Question 12

What are morphogenic procedures?

Answer 12

Those methods of study which examine the individual patterns of properties of a person