Subject: EM – 509 (THEORIES OF PERSONALITY)

Term: 2ndSem, 2017-2018

Reporter: Ms. Razell B. Panilan
Topic: Gordon Allport’s Personality Trait Theory
Professor: Ms. Maria Luna C. de La Cerna
References: https://psychologenie.com/understanding-gordon-allports-trait-theory-of-personality
https://study.com/academy/lesson/gordon-allports-
personalitytheory.htmlhttps://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-
psychology/chapter/trait-perspectives-on-personality/
https://www.verywell.com/gordon-allport-biography-2795508
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gordon-W-Allport
http://www.actforlibraries.org/biography-gordon-allport/

Gordon Willard Allport's Early Life

Gordon Allport was born in Montezuma, Indiana in 1897. He was the youngest of his four
brothers and was often described as shy, but also hard-working and studious. His mother was a
school teacher and his father was a doctor who instilled in Allport a strong work ethic. During
his childhood, his father used the family home to house and treat patient or they converted it
into a private hospital. Gordon was exposed early on to patient care and claimed later that his
experience came in observing the wide variety of patients that passed through the family
hospital.

Allport’s family valued the Protestant Work Ethic. His industriousness was demonstrated in the
founding of his own printing business. He operated his own printing business during his teen
years and served as the editor of his high school newspaper.

In 1915, Allport graduated second in his class and earned a scholarship to Harvard College,
where one of his older brothers, Floyd Henry Allport, was working on a PhD in Psychology.

After earning his A.B. degree in Philosophy and Economics from Harvard in 1919, Allport
traveled to Istanbul, Turkey to teach philosophy and economics.
After a year of teaching, he returned to Harvard to finish his studies. Allport earned his PhD in
Psychology in 1922 under the guidance of Hugo Munsterberg.

Meeting Sigmund Freud

In an essay entitled Pattern and Growth in Personality, Gordon Allport recounted his experience
of meeting psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. In 1922, Allport traveled to Vienna, Austria to meet the
famous psychoanalyst. After entering Freud's office, he sat down nervously and told a story
about a young boy he had seen on the train during his travels to Vienna. The boy, Allport
explained, was afraid of getting dirty and refused to sit where a dirty-looking man had
previously sat. Allport theorized that the child had acquired the behavior from his mother, who
appeared to be very domineering.

Freud studied Allport for a moment and then asked, "And was that little boy you?"
Allport viewed the experience as an attempt by Freud to turn a simple observation into an
analysis of Allport's supposed unconscious memory of his own childhood. The experience would
later serve as a reminder that psychoanalysis tended to dig too deeply. Behaviorism on the
other hand, Allport suggested, did not dig deeply enough. Instead, Allport chose to reject both
psychoanalysis and behaviorism and embraced his own unique approach to personality.
Allport's approach to human psychology combined the empirical influence of the behaviorists
with the acknowledgement that unconscious influences could also play a role in human
behavior.

Gordon Allport's Career and Theory

Appointed a social science instructor at Harvard University in 1924, he became professor of
psychology six years later and, in the last year of his life, professor of social ethics. He
consistently related his approach to the study of personality to his social interests and was one
of a growing number of psychologists who sought to introduce the leavening influence of
humanism into psychology. His important introductory work on the theory of personality was
Personality: A Psychological Interpretation (1937).

Allport is best known for the concept that, although adult motives develop from infantile
drives, they become independent of them. Allport called this concept functional autonomy. His
approach favored emphasis on the problems of the adult personality rather than on those of
infantile emotions and experiences. In Becoming (1955) he stressed the importance of self and
the uniqueness of adult personality. The self, he contended, is an identifiable organization
within each individual and accounts for the unity of personality, higher motives, and continuity
of personal memories. He also made important contributions to the analysis of prejudice in The
Nature of Prejudice (1954). His last important work was Pattern and Growth in Personality
(1961).

After marrying Ada Gould, Gordon taught at Dartmouth College for four years before returning
to Harvard for the remainder of his career and until his death in 1967.

Personality Traits Defined

Do you know Jane? Jane rarely has a bad word to say about anyone. When visitors come to her
home, a fresh cup of coffee is offered to them as soon as they walk in the door. In
conversations, Jane loves to play the devil's advocate and really enjoys debating hot topics. She
loves to travel and often does so alone. She's known to find great airline tickets to places in the
world she has never been, pack a suitcase, and jump on a plane on short notice. However, if
you cross her, she'll give you a look to make you feel sufficiently scolded without saying a word.
Despite the fact that you have never personally met Jane, the above description allows you to
get to know Jane's personality based on the characteristics she possesses; it gives you
information about her personality traits.

According to trait theorists, like Gordon Allport, your personality is made up of the traits you
possess. A trait is a personal characteristic we have which stays generally the same overtime
and is resistant to changing. Jane has several identifiable traits that relate directly to her
personality. She could be described as kind, welcoming, feisty, independent, and adventurous.
These traits shape her thoughts, feelings, and the way she behaves on any given day.
Allport concluded that the traits do not exist independently of one another. Furthermore, with
the presence of two opposite traits in a person, he/she often experiences ambiguous feelings
and based on the situation, the trait can manifest itself.

An example of a trait is extraversion–introversion. Extraversion tends to be manifested in

outgoing, talkative, energetic behavior, whereas introversion is manifested in more reserved
and solitary behavior. An individual may fall along any point in the continuum, and the location
where the individual falls will determine how he or she responds to various situations.