Abstract
This paper is dedicated to biography of an outstanding person in the history of psychological thought – Gordon Allport. He lived in the previous century and made a great contribution into the study of expressive psychology, working the majority of years of his professional career in the Harvard University. He studies a lot in his life, travelling around different countries and gaining versatile experience that helped him to make a considerable contribution into the science that is very valuable today. His biography, as well as the main contributions are described in the paper. The major experiments that he conducted in his career are also briefly described to better explain the field of his study and the scope of the work. This background information shows why Gordon Allport became a prominent figure in the history of psychology.
Key words: Gordon Allport, Harvard, social psychology, expressive psychology,
Gordon Allport was born in 1897 in a large family of physician in Indiana. In Cleveland, he finished public school and entered Harvard University, where his older brother Floyd was studying at the Faculty of Psychology. Gordon also studied philosophy and economics. In 1919, he received a bachelor's degree in these sciences, and began work as a teacher of sociology and English in college.
However, a year later, Gordon Allport returned to Harvard and prepared to receive a doctorate in psychology. In 1922, he receives it, but continues his education in other cities: Berlin, Hamburg and Cambridge (Hood, 2014). Such a rich academic experience in different countries left a deep impression on him. Perhaps that is why Allport was so interested in future in the international relations. This interest is clearly evident in his works.
Two years later, after returning from Europe, Allport gets a teaching position at the Department of Social Ethics at Harvard University. He is concerned with social and ethical issues of the international community. He pays a lot of attention to the study of personality development of an individual in society. In his works, Allport examines the complexity and uniqueness of human behavior. Two years later, Gordon Allport served as an assistant in psychology at Dartmouth College, but in 1930 again returned to Harvard, where he remained till the end of life.
In the 1930ies, Allport and his staff were conducting a series of studies on expressive behavior. He identified two components inherent in any human response - adaptive and expressive (Hewstone, 2012). The first point is determined and depends on the volitional effort or skill of the person. The second is deeper, manifested unconsciously and effortlessly; it determines the manner and style of action. Expressive part of the reaction in human behavior is free and unlimited, rather than adaptive, so it is more interesting to explore, to which Allport encourages other psychologists. In collaboration with E. Vernon, he conducts research, studying the problem of consistency of expressive movement. As a result, they conclude that the expressive movements are not dissociated or not related to each other, and vice versa - well organized and fairly consistent.
Allport also conducted studies to evaluate the accuracy of judgment based only on the voice. In the experiment took part about 600 judges, assessing 16 speakers. As a result, researchers have come to certain results:
1) the ratio of voice and personality characteristics exceeds the level of randomness;
2) a more accurate assessment of organized traits and interests, rather than any physical qualities.
Allport makes a generalization of the data and studies of other psychologists in the field of expressive movement in the behavior of the individual. He writes that expressive acts are not independent, but their consistency is not absolute, expressive motifs never repeat each other. Their consistency is in the framework of the agreement, which has the identity of the person as a whole. Structuring expressive movements is a very complex process, research in this area is also complex. The study of complex phenomena must be approached on a comprehensive level.
In 1937, Allport published his work "Personality: A physiological interpretation," which explores personal development in close relationship with the mental and physical processes of the body (Brewer, 2013). By definition of Allport, personality is something in between the mental and nervous, which ties together physical and mental in human, organizing concerted action on the organism at a conscious and subconscious level. Allport made a distinction between general and individual features. The last he called personal dispositions of the common features of their different accessories of specific individual. Allport divides personal disposition into the cardinal, central and secondary.
Further, he conducted a study of influence of personal dispositions and similarities to human behavior: whether they are involved only in the management of human behavior or appear in its initiation and motivation. Allport reveals differences in the degree of influence of the individual on the individual characteristics and dispositions, and comes to the conclusion that their external display is always preceded by some stimulus (Saucier & Srivastava, 2015). He came to the conclusion that the various features are subtly intertwined and it is impossible to carry out a clear boundary between them. They affect human behavior in complex, so it is very difficult to develop a method of classifying them. Allport says that his theory does not involve full harmonization. On the contrary, the simultaneous activation of several different traits in behavior suggests the apparent mismatch, which, however, may be difficult in actually reflecting the internal organization.
It is difficult to track and detect by the usual methods of psychological research, but nonetheless, there is deep internal consistency there. Intentions regarding the future actions of the individual in his work Allport called intentions and suggested that they significantly determine human behavior in the present. This theory caused much debate among modern psychologists. To determine this, many contemporary theorists turn to the past, not the future, as opposed to Allport. In the 1940s, Allport uses in his teaching letters written by middle-aged woman Jenny Masterson for 12 years, to the young couple. They helped to stimulate debate on the psychology of personality (Maslow, 2013). Allport, together with the students, applied to them several kinds of analysis to determine the main features of Jenny. 36 people upon reading her letters, tried to characterize this woman. 198 items were offered as her personality traits, grouped by 8 criteria. Of all the judgments showed a significant agreement that the most characteristic features were: suspicion, centering on herself and autonomy. Next Allport instructed to distinguish any one unifying theme, which makes her verbal behavior stand out. Responses were very diverse. According to Allport, the results of this analysis help to make fairly reliable conclusions about the primary structure of personality of Jenny.
In 1955, he published his work "Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality." They highlighted the problem of the ego of human and the concept of self. Both of these concepts is Allport defined as eigenfunctions of the individual, we can say - its real part and not separate entities. All own (proprium) is not innate, but acquired and developed over time.
In 1961, Allport published work "Pattern and Growth in Personality," which explores the development of the human personality. First, it introduces the concept of functional autonomy, for which there is a controversial theory of human motivation. The essence of this theory is that human behavior is initially caused by certain motives, then develops and operates independently of them. This follows from the tendency of our psyche to maintain a certain reaction, even when the reason it was called, had already ceased to exist.
Allport first formulated this principle as early as in 1937, for which he was severely criticized by other researchers (Haddock & Maio, 2012). Some of the important questions raised by critics, urged Allport to a wider investigation of the theory put forward by them. He identified two levels of functional autonomy: perseverative and propriative. The first involves habits, repetitive actions, stereotypes; second - acquired interests, values, feelings, intentions, the main motives, personal dispositions, self-image and lifestyle. The uniqueness of the principle of functional autonomy is that it allows a relative break with the past of the body. This allows the researcher to focus more on the present and future of the individual.
Achievements and outstanding contributions to psychological science of Allport are generally recognized. In 1963, he was distinguished by the Gold Medal of the American Psychological Foundation; in 1964 – by the Award of the American Psychological Association, of which he was president. He was also president of the Society of the psychological study of social problems and co-authored in two widely used tests. Gordon Allport died on October 9, 1967, in the US city of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
References
Brewer, M. B. (2013). The Social Psychology of Desegregation: An Introduction. Groups in Contact: The Psychology of Desegregation, 1.
Haddock, G., & Maio, G. R. (2012). The Psychology of Attitudes (4 volume set).
Hewstone, M. (2012). Biographies of Contributors. Social Psychology: Revisiting the Classic Studies.
Hood, R. (2014). Allport, Gordon. In Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion (pp. 38-42). Springer US.
Maslow, A. H. (2013). Toward a psychology of being. Start Publishing LLC.
Saucier, G., & Srivastava, S. (2015). What makes a good structural model of personality? Evaluating the big five and alternatives.
