Gordon Allport: Motivation and Personality PDF

chapter 7 Gordon Allport:...

chapter 7 Gordon Allport: Fair Use Motivation and As the individual matures, Personality the bond with the past is broken. —Gordon Allport Allport Brings Personality into the The Importance of the Infant–Mother Classroom and the Psychology Lab Bond Allport Challenges Freud The Healthy Adult Personality Allport Makes Each Person Unique Questions about Human Nature The Life of Allport (1897–1967) Restrictions, Morality, and No Bright Colors Assessment in Allport’s Theory Isolation and Rejection The Personal-Document Technique Inferiority The Study of Values College Years Research on Allport’s Theory Allport Meets Freud Expressive Behavior Becoming a Success Cultural Differences in Facial The Nature of Personality Expressions The Roles of Heredity and Environment Computer Recognition of Facial Two Distinct Personalities for Two Stages Expressions of Life Reflections on Allport’s Theory Personality Traits Questions and Criticisms Personal Dispositions Recognition and Influence Motivation: What We Strive for Chapter Summary Functional Autonomy Review Questions Personality Development in Childhood: Suggested Readings The Unique Self Stages of Development Allport Brings Personality into the Classroom and the Psychology Lab During a career that spanned more than four decades, Gordon Allport made personality an academically respectable topic. Psychoanalysis and the personality theories that derived from it that we have discussed so far were not considered part of mainstream scientific psychology. The formal and systematic study of personality was not recognized by the psychol- ogy establishment until Allport published Personality: A Psychological Interpretation in 1937. The book was an immediate success and became a classic in the study of person- ality. Thus, Allport served two purposes: He helped bring personality into the main- stream, and he formulated a theory of personality development in which traits play a prominent role. 193 Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 194 The Genetics Approach Allport Challenges Freud Allport challenged Freud’s psychoanalysis on several points. First, Allport did not accept the notion that unconscious forces dominate the personality of normal mature adults. He argued that emotionally healthy people function rationally and consciously, aware and in control of many of the forces that motivate them. According to Allport, the unconscious is important only in the behavior of neurotic or disturbed people. Second, with regard to historical determinism—the importance of the past in deter- mining the present—Allport said that we are not prisoners of childhood conflicts and past experiences, as Freud believed. Instead, we are guided more by the present and by our view of the future. Allport wrote that people are “busy leading their lives into the future, whereas psychology, for the most part, is busy tracing them into the past” (Allport, 1955, p. 51). Third, Allport opposed collecting data from abnormal personalities. Whereas Freud saw a continuum between the normal and abnormal, Allport saw a clear distinction. To Allport, the abnormal personality functioned at an infantile level. The only proper way to study personality, he believed, was to collect data from emotion- ally healthy adults. Other populations, such as neurotics, children, and animals, should not be compared with normal adults. No functional similarity in personality existed between child and adult, abnormal and normal, or animal and human, as far as he was concerned. Allport Makes Each Person Unique Another distinguishing feature of Allport’s theory is his emphasis on the uniqueness of per- sonality as defined by each person’s traits. He opposed the traditional scientific emphasis on forming general constructs or laws to be applied universally. He argued that personality is not general or universal but is particular and specific to the individual. The Life of Allport (1897–1967) Restrictions, Morality, and No Bright Colors Born in Montezuma, Indiana, Allport was the youngest of four sons. His mother was a teacher, and his father was a salesman who decided to become a doctor. They were in such dire financial circumstances while the elder Allport attended medical school in Baltimore that he smuggled drugs from Canada into the United States and sold them to support the family. When the law came knocking on the front door, he skipped out the back and escaped over a fence. He took the family to Indiana and opened a private practice in which Allport believed his own birth was his father’s first case. The devout religious beliefs and practices of Allport’s mother dominated the house- hold. No smoking, drinking, dancing, or card playing were allowed, nor could a family member wear bright colors, distinctive clothing, or jewelry of any kind. Allport wrote that his mother was “on the severe side with a strong sense of right and wrong and quite strict in her moral ideals” (quoted in Nicholson, 2003, p. 17). Isolation and Rejection Too young to be a playmate to his older brothers, Allport was isolated from children outside the family as well. “I fashioned my own circle of activities,” he wrote later. “It was a select circle, for I never fitted the general boy assembly” (Allport, 1967, p. 4). “I suffered agonies on the playground. I never really got on with my brothers. They didn’t like me and they weren’t kind and I couldn’t possibly compete with them. They were all a little more masculine in type than I was” (quoted in Nicholson, 2003, p. 25). Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  Chapter 7: Gordon Allport: Motivation and Personality 195 He described himself as skillful with words but not good at sports or games and as some- one who worked hard to be the center of attention of the few friends he did have. In Allport’s personality theory, one of the major propositions is that psychologically healthy adults are unaffected by childhood events. Perhaps reflecting this belief, Allport revealed very little about his childhood years. What he did tell, however, demonstrates a parallel between his own early experiences and the theory he later developed. Inferiority Arising from his childhood conditions of isolation and rejection, Allport developed inferi- ority feelings for which he attempted to compensate by striving to excel. He wrote about the identity quest that resulted from his inferiority feelings with regard to his brothers and other children. As Allport grew older, he began to identify with his oldest brother, Floyd, envious of his brother’s accomplishments. Well into adulthood, Gordon Allport continued to feel inferior compared to Floyd, whose achievements he tried to emulate. He followed Floyd to Harvard and earned a Ph.D. in psychology, just as Floyd had done. Floyd became a noted social psychologist, and even when Gordon was becoming well known himself in the field, the feelings of being in his brother’s shadow persisted. At the age of 31, Gor- don wrote that he had “published several articles of no great importance and [was] not to be confused with my more eminent brother” (quoted in Nicholson, 2003, pp. 168–169). The attempt to emulate Floyd may have threatened Gordon’s sense of identity. To assert his individuality, Gordon Allport may have been motivated to refute his identifica- tion with Floyd by declaring in his personality theory that his adult motives and interests were independent of his childhood feelings. He later formalized this idea as the concept of functional autonomy. College Years Although Allport ranked second in his high school graduating class of 100, he admitted to being uninspired about what to do next. At the end of the summer of 1915, he applied to Harvard and was accepted. He wrote, “Overnight my world was remade.” Allport’s college years were a great adventure for him as he discovered new frontiers of intellect and culture. But shocked by low grades on his first exams, he doubled his efforts and finished the year with straight A’s. Allport’s interest in social ethics and social service, acquired from his parents, was reinforced at Harvard. He did volunteer work for a boy’s club, a group of factory work- ers, and a contingent of foreign students. He also worked as a probation officer. He found these activities satisfying because he genuinely liked to help people. “It gave me a feeling of competence, to offset a generalized inferiority feeling.” He believed this kind of service reflected his search for an identity (Allport, 1967, pp. 5–7). He took several undergraduate courses in psychology but at that time did not intend to pursue a career in the field. He graduated in 1919 with a bachelor’s degree, on the same day Floyd received his Ph.D. After graduation, Gordon spent a year on the faculty of Robert College in Istanbul, Turkey, and later accepted the fellowship Harvard offered for graduate study in psychology. His biographer noted, “The thought of becoming a psychologist and perhaps becoming more like his successful brother appealed to Allport” (Nicholson, 2003, p. 67). Allport Meets Freud On his return trip to the United States, Allport stopped in Vienna to see one of his brothers. While there, he sent a note to Sigmund Freud and received an invitation to Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 196 The Genetics Approach visit the great man. When Allport entered Freud’s office, he found Freud waiting patiently, expecting the young American to explain the purpose of his visit. The awkward period of silence lengthened until an uncomfortable Allport, looking desperately for something to say, blurted out an account of an incident he had seen on the streetcar ride to Freud’s office. He told of watching a small boy who had an obvious fear of dirt. Everything seemed dirty to the child. He even changed his seat, telling his mother not to let a dirty man sit beside him. Freud studied the prim, proper, carefully groomed young man and asked, “Was that little boy you?” By asking this question, Freud was expressing his belief that the story Allport told betrayed his own unconscious fears and conflicts. Allport appeared to Freud to be “neat, meticulous, orderly and punctual—possessing many of the characteristics [he] associated … with the compulsive personality” (Pervin, 1984, p. 267). Another psychologist commented that “Freud just hit [Allport] right on the head, right on the nose” (quoted in Anderson, 1990, p. 326). Allport was shaken by Freud’s question. For the rest of his life, Allport denied that he was the super-clean, proper little boy in the story but the incident clearly left a deep impression on him. Years later he wrote, “My single encounter with Freud was traumatic” (Allport, 1967, p. 22). He suspected that psychoanalysis probed the unconscious too deeply, as Freud tried to do with him. Psychology, Allport decided, should pay more attention to conscious or visi- ble motivations. This was the path he chose for his study of personality. Many years later, two American psychologists used this Freud story in a study, which found that the use of this kind of anecdote made classroom lectures, and presumably textbooks as well, more enjoyable to students. As a result, they found that students learn and remember information better when it is presented in this kind of social and personal context (Kaufman & Bristol, 2001). Becoming a Success Allport completed his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1922, after two years of graduate study. His disser- tation, “An Experimental Study of the Traits of Personality,” foreshadowed his lifelong work and was the first research ever to be conducted on personality traits in the United States. Awarded a traveling fellowship, Allport spent two years studying with noted psychologists in Germany and England. He returned to Harvard as an instructor, offering a course on the psy- chological and social aspects of personality, which was apparently the first formal American college course on the subject. He spent nearly four decades at Harvard, conducting research on personality and social psychology and instructing several generations of students. Considered an elder statesman in the field, Allport received many awards, including the American Psychological Foundation’s Gold Medal, the American Psychological Associa- tion’s Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, and the presidencies of the American Psychological Association and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. LOG ON Gordon Allport Various sites provide biographical information, discussions of his theory, research on rel- evant concepts, and links to other resources. The Nature of Personality In his book Pattern and Growth in Personality, Allport reviewed some 50 definitions of personality before offering his own. “Personality is the dynamic organization within the Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  Chapter 7: Gordon Allport: Motivation and Personality 197 individual of those psychophysical systems that determine … characteristic behavior and thought” (Allport, 1961, p. 28). By dynamic organization, Allport means that although personality is constantly changing and growing, the growth is organized, not random. Psychophysical means that personality is composed of both mind and body functioning together as a unit. It is nei- ther all mental nor all biological. By determine, Allport means that all facets of personality activate or direct specific beha- viors and thoughts. The phrase characteristic behavior and thought means that everything we think and do is characteristic, or typical, of us. Thus, each person is unique. The Roles of Heredity and Environment To support his emphasis on the uniqueness of the individual personality, Allport stated that we reflect both our heredity and our environment. Heredity provides the personality with raw materials, such as physique, intelligence, and temperament, that may then be shaped, expanded, or limited by the conditions of our environment. In this way, Allport invokes both personal and situational variables to indicate the importance of both genet- ics and learning. However, our genetic background is responsible for the major portion of our unique- ness. An infinite number of possible genetic combinations exist, and, except for identical twins, the chance that someone else’s genetic endowment will be duplicated in any one of us is too small to consider. Allport believed that our genetic endowment interacts with our social environment, and no two people, not even siblings brought up in the same house, have precisely the same environment. The inevitable result is a unique personality. Therefore, Allport con- cluded that to study personality, psychology must deal with the individual case and not with average findings among groups. Two Distinct Personalities for Two Stages of Life Allport considered personality to be discrete, or discontinuous. Not only is each person distinct from all others, but each adult is also divorced from his or her past. He found no continuum of personality between childhood and adulthood. Primitive biological urges and reflexes drive infant behavior, whereas adult functioning is more psychological in nature. In a sense there are two personalities: one for childhood and one for adulthood. The adult personality is not constrained by childhood experiences. This unique view of Allport’s emphasizes the conscious rather than the unconscious, and the present and future rather than the past. He recognized the uniqueness of person- ality rather than proposing generalities or similarities for large groups of people. And he chose to study the normal rather than the abnormal personality. Personality Traits traits To Allport, Allport considered personality traits to be predispositions to respond, in the same or a distinguishing charac- similar manner, to different kinds of stimuli. In other words, traits are consistent and teristics that guide enduring ways of reacting to our environment. He summarized the characteristics of behavior. Traits are traits as follows (Allport, 1937): measured on a contin- uum and are subject to 1. Personality traits are real and exist within each of us. They are not theoretical con- social, environmental, structs or labels made up to account for behavior. and cultural influences. 2. Traits determine or cause behavior. They do not arise only in response to certain stimuli. They motivate us to seek appropriate stimuli, and they interact with the environment to produce behavior. Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 198 The Genetics Approach 3. Traits can be demonstrated empirically. By observing behavior over time, we can infer the existence of traits in the consistency of a person’s responses to the same or similar stimuli. 4. Traits are interrelated; they may overlap, even though they represent different char- acteristics. For example, aggressiveness and hostility are distinct but related traits and are frequently observed to occur together in a person’s behavior. 5. Traits vary with the situation. For example, a person may display the trait of neat- ness in one situation and the trait of disorderliness in another situation. Initially, Allport proposed two types of traits: individual and common. Individual traits are unique to a person and define his or her character. Common traits are shared by a number of people, such as the members of a culture. It follows that people in different cultures will have different common traits. Common traits are also likely to change over time as social standards and values change. This demonstrates that common traits are subject to social, environmental, and cultural influences. Personal Dispositions Allport later realized that some confusion could result from calling both of these phe- nomena traits, and so he revised his terminology. He relabeled common traits as traits personal dispositions and individual traits as personal dispositions. Our personal dispositions do not all have Traits that are peculiar the same intensity or significance. They may be cardinal traits, central traits, or second- to an individual, as ary traits. opposed to traits A cardinal trait is so pervasive and influential that it touches almost every aspect of a shared by a number of person’s life. Allport described it as a ruling passion, a powerful force that dominates people. behavior. He offered the examples of sadism and chauvinism. Not everyone has a ruling cardinal traits The passion, and those who do may not display it in every situation. most pervasive and Everyone has a few central traits, some 5 to 10 themes that best describe our behav- powerful human traits. ior. Allport’s examples are aggressiveness, self-pity, and cynicism. These are the kinds of central traits The characteristics we would mention when discussing a friend’s personality or writing a let- handful of outstanding ter of recommendation. traits that describe a The least influential individual traits are the secondary traits, which appear much less person’s behavior. consistently than cardinal and central traits. Secondary traits may be so inconspicuous or weak that only a close friend would notice evidence of them. They may include, for secondary traits The example, a minor preference for a particular type of music or for a certain food. least important traits, which a person may display inconspicu- Motivation: What We Strive for ously and inconsistently. Allport believed that the central problem for any personality theory is how it treats the concept of motivation. Allport emphasized the influence of a person’s present situation not only in his personality theory but also in his view of motivation. It is the individual’s current state that is important, not what happened in the past during toilet training, school, or some other childhood crisis. Whatever happened in the past is exactly that: past. It is no longer active and does not explain adult behavior unless it exists as a cur- rent motivating force. Cognitive processes, that is, our conscious plans and intentions, are a vital aspect of our personality. Allport criticized approaches such as Freud’s that focused on uncon- scious, irrational forces at the expense of the conscious and rational. Deliberate inten- tions are an essential part of our personality. What we want and what we strive for are the keys to understanding our behavior. Thus, Allport attempted to explain the present in terms of the future rather than in terms of the past. Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  Chapter 7: Gordon Allport: Motivation and Personality 199 Functional Autonomy functional autonomy of Allport’s concept of functional autonomy proposes that the motives of mature, emo- motives The idea that tionally healthy adults are not functionally connected to the prior experiences in which motives in the normal, they initially appeared. Forces that motivated us early in life become autonomous, or mature adult are inde- independent, of their original circumstances. pendent of the child- Allport offered the example of a tree. It is obvious that the tree’s development can be hood experiences in traced back to its seed. Yet when the tree is fully grown, the seed is no longer required as which they originally a source of nourishment. The tree is now self-determining, no longer functionally related appeared. to its seed. Similarly, when we grow up, we become independent of our parents. Although we remain related to them, we are no longer functionally dependent on them and they (should) no longer control or guide our lives. Consider the example of new college graduates embarking on a career in business. They may be motivated to work hard in order to achieve financial success and security. Eventually their investment of time and energy may pay off, and they amass enough money to be able to retire. Yet, some continue to work just as hard as they did when they started out. The retired 55-year-old is no longer striving for the same goals that the 25-year-old did. The goal of financial security has been reached and surpassed. The motivation to work hard, once a means to a specific end (money, for example), has now become an end in itself. The motive has become independent of its original source, transformed into something autonomous. Therefore, adult motives cannot be understood by explor- ing the person’s childhood, as Freud believed. The only way to understand adult motives, Allport stressed, is to investigate why people behave as they do today. Allport proposed two levels of functional autonomy: perseverative functional auton- omy and propriate functional autonomy. perseverative Perseverative Functional Autonomy Perseverative functional autonomy, the functional autonomy more elementary level, is concerned with such behaviors as addictions and repetitive The level of functional physical actions such as habitual ways of performing some routine, everyday task. The autonomy that relates behaviors continue or persevere on their own without any external reward. The actions to low-level and routine once served a purpose but they no longer do and are at too basic and low a level to be behaviors. considered an integral part of personality. Allport cited both animal and human examples as evidence for perseverative functional autonomy. When a rat that has been trained to run a maze for food is given more than enough food, it may still run the maze, but obviously for some pur- pose other than the food. At the human level, he noted our preference for routine, familiar behaviors that we continue to perform even in the absence of external reinforcement. propriate functional Propriate Functional Autonomy Propriate functional autonomy is more impor- autonomy The level of tant than perseverative functional autonomy and is essential to understanding adult functional autonomy motivation. The word propriate derives from proprium, Allport’s term for the ego or that relates to our self. values, self-image, and Propriate motives are unique to each individual. The ego determines which motives lifestyle. will be maintained and which will be discarded. We retain motives that enhance our proprium Allport’s term self-esteem or self-image. Thus, a direct relationship exists between our interests and for the ego or self. our abilities: We enjoy doing what we do well. The original motivation for learning a skill such as playing the piano may have noth- ing to do with our interests. For example, in childhood we may be coerced by our Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 200 The Genetics Approach parents into taking piano lessons and to practice. As we become proficient, however, we may become more committed to playing the piano. The original motive (fear of parental displeasure) has disappeared, and the continued behavior of playing the piano becomes necessary to our self-image. The Organizing of Our Propriate Functioning Our propriate functioning is an organizing process that maintains our sense of self. It determines how we perceive the world, what we remember from our experiences, and how our thoughts are directed. These perceptual and cognitive processes are selective. They choose from the mass of sti- muli in our environment only those that are relevant to our interests and values. This organizing process is governed by the following three principles: organizing the energy level, mastery and competence, and propriate patterning. The first principle, organizing the energy level, explains how we acquire new motives. These motives arise from necessity, to help consume excess energy that we might otherwise express in destructive and harmful ways. For example, when people retire from their jobs, they have extra time and energy that, ideally, they should direct toward new interests and activities. Mastery and competence, the second principle, refers to the level at which we choose to satisfy motives. It is not enough for us to achieve at an adequate level. Healthy, mature adults are motivated to perform better and more efficiently, to master new skills, and to increase their degree of competence. The third principle, propriate patterning, describes a striving for consistency and inte- gration of the personality. We organize our perceptual and cognitive processes around the self, keeping what enhances our self-image and rejecting the rest. Thus, our propriate motives are dependent on the structure or pattern of the self. Allport noted that not all behaviors and motives could be explained by these princi- ples of functional autonomy. Some behaviors, such as reflexes, fixations, neuroses, and behaviors arising from biological drives, are not under the control of functionally auton- omous motives. Personality Development in Childhood: The Unique Self As we noted, Allport chose the term proprium for the self or ego. He rejected the words self and ego because of the diversity of meanings ascribed to them by other theorists. We can best understand the word proprium by considering it in the sense of the adjective appropriate. The proprium includes those aspects of personality that are distinctive and thus appropriate to our individual emotional life. These aspects are unique to each of us and unite our attitudes, perceptions, and intentions. Stages of Development Allport described the nature and development of the proprium over seven stages from infancy through adolescence (see Table 7.1). Before the proprium begins to emerge, the infant experiences no self-consciousness, no awareness of self. There is not yet a separation of “me” from everything else. Infants receive sensory impressions from the external environment and react to them automati- cally and reflexively, with no ego to mediate between stimulus and response. Allport described infants as pleasure seeking, destructive, selfish, impatient, and dependent. He called them “unsocialized horrors.” They possess little of what could be called a Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  Chapter 7: Gordon Allport: Motivation and Personality 201 TABLE 7.1 The development of the proprium STAGE DEVELOPMENT 1. Bodily self Stages 1–3 emerge during the first three years. In this stage, infants become aware of their own existence and distinguish their own bodies from objects in the environment. 2. Self-identity Children realize that their identity remains intact despite the many changes that are taking place. 3. Self-esteem Children learn to take pride in their accomplishments. 4. Extension of self Stages 4 and 5 emerge during the fourth through sixth year. In this stage, children come to recognize the objects and people that are part of their own world. 5. Self-image Children develop actual and idealized images of themselves and their behavior and become aware of satisfying (or failing to satisfy) parental expectations. 6. Self as a rational coper Stage 6 develops during ages 6–12. Children begin to apply rea- son and logic to the solution of everyday problems. 7. Propriate striving Stage 7 develops during adolescence. Young people begin to formulate long-range goals and plans. Adulthood Normal, mature adults are functionally autonomous, independent of childhood motives. They function rationally in the present and consciously create their own lifestyles. “personality.” The infant simply is driven by reflexes to reduce tension and maximize pleasure. The first three stages in the development of the proprium span the years from birth to about age 4. The bodily self develops when infants begin to be aware of what Allport referred to as a “bodily me.” For example, infants begin to distinguish between their own fingers and the object they are grasping. The self-identity stage is marked by a sense of continuity of one’s identity. Children realize that they remain the same people despite changes in their bodies and their abilities. Self-identity is enhanced when children learn their names and see themselves as distinct from others. Self-esteem develops when they discover that they can accomplish things on their own. They are motivated to build, explore, and manipulate objects, behaviors that sometimes can be destructive. If parents frustrate their child’s need to explore at this stage, then the emerg- ing sense of self-esteem can be thwarted, replaced by humiliation and anger. The extension-of-self stage involves the growing awareness of objects and people in the environment and the identification of them as belonging to the child. Children speak of “my house,” “my parents,” and “my school.” A self-image develops next, incorporating how children see and would like to see themselves. These actual and ideal self-images develop from interaction with the parents, who make the child aware of their expectations and of the extent to which the child is satisfying or failing to satisfy those expectations. The self-extension and self-image stages typically occur between the ages of 4 and 6. The self-as-a-rational-coper stage occurs between ages 6 and 12, when children realize that reason and logic can be applied to solving everyday problems. The propriate striving stage follows, when adolescents begin to formulate plans and goals for the future. Until they do so, their sense of self (their proprium) will remain incomplete. Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 202 The Genetics Approach Children develop actual and idealized self-images, reflect- ing how they actually see and would like to see themselves. Radius Images/Jupiter Images The Importance of the Infant–Mother Bond Our social interaction with our parents is vitally important throughout all the stages of development of the proprium. Most important of all, however, is the infant–mother bond as a source of affection and security. If the mother or primary caregiver provides sufficient affection and security, the pro- prium will develop gradually and steadily, and the child will achieve positive psychologi- cal growth. Childhood motives will be free to be transformed into the autonomous propriate strivings of adulthood. A pattern of personal dispositions will form and the result will be a mature, emotionally healthy adult. If childhood needs are frustrated, however, the self will not mature properly. The child becomes insecure, aggressive, demanding, jealous, and self-centered. Psychological growth is stunted. The result is a neurotic adult who functions at the level of childhood drives. Adult motives do not become functionally autonomous but remain tied to their origi- nal conditions. Traits and personal dispositions do not develop and the personality remains undifferentiated, as it was in infancy. The Healthy Adult Personality In Allport’s view, the healthy personality changes and grows from being a biologically dominated organism in infancy to a mature psychological organism in adulthood. Our motivations become separated from childhood and are oriented toward the future. As Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  Chapter 7: Gordon Allport: Motivation and Personality 203 Normal, mature adults are functionally autonomous, inde- pendent of childhood motives. They func- tion rationally in the present and con- sciously create their own lifestyles. Onoky - Fabrice Lerouge/Brand X Pictures/Jupiter Images we noted, if our childhood needs for affection and security have been met, the proprium will develop satisfactorily. The adult personality grows out of childhood and is no longer dominated or determined by childhood drives. Allport described six criteria for normal, mature, emotionally healthy adult personalities: 1. Mature adults extend their sense of self to people and activities beyond the self. 2. Mature adults relate warmly to other people, exhibiting intimacy, compassion, and tolerance. 3. Mature adult’s high degree of self-acceptance helps them to achieve emotional security. 4. Mature adults hold a realistic perception of life, develop personal skills, and make a commitment to some type of work. 5. Mature adults have a sense of humor and self-objectification (an understanding of or insight into the self). 6. Mature adults subscribe to a unifying philosophy of life, which is responsible for directing the personality toward future goals. By meeting these six criteria, adults can be described as emotionally healthy and func- tionally autonomous, independent of childhood motives. As a result, they cope with the present and plan for the future without being victimized by what happened to them in their early years. Questions about Human Nature Allport’s view of functional autonomy and personality development holds that emotion- ally healthy adults are not tied to or driven by childhood conflicts. Thus, his theory pre- sents an optimistic view of adults in conscious control of their lives, rationally attending to current situations, planning for the future, and actively fashioning an identity. Always Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 204 The Genetics Approach in the process of becoming, we creatively design and implement an appropriate style of life, influenced more by events of the present and plans for the future than by our past. Allport took a moderate stance on the question of free will versus determinism. He granted free choice in our deliberations about our future, but he also recognized that some behaviors are determined by traits and personal dispositions. Once these behaviors are formed, they are difficult to change. On the nature–nurture issue, he believed that both heredity and environment influ- ence personality. Our genetic background supplies our basic physique, temperament, and level of intelligence. These raw materials are then shaped by learning and experience. Allport believed in each person’s uniqueness. Although common traits show some uni- versality in behavior, individual traits or personal dispositions describe our nature more precisely. To Allport, the ultimate and necessary goal of life is not to reduce tension, as Freud proposed, but rather to increase tension, impelling us to continually seek new sensations and challenges. When we have met one challenge, we are motivated to seek another. The reward is the process of achieving rather than the specific achievement, striving for the goal rather than reaching it. In essence, he meant that “getting there is more fun than being there.” We constantly need new goals to motivate us and to maintain an optimal level of tension in the personality. Allport’s optimistic image of human nature was reflected in his personal liberal stance and his interest in social reform. The humanistic attitude expressed in his work was mir- rored in his own personality. His colleagues and students described him as someone who genuinely cared about people and that these feelings were reciprocated. Assessment in Allport’s Theory Allport wrote more about personality assessment techniques than most other theorists did. In his popular book Pattern and Growth in Personality (1961), he noted that, despite the existence of many approaches to assessment, there was no single best technique. Personality is so complex that to evaluate it we must employ many techniques. He listed 11 major methods: Constitutional and physiological diagnosis Cultural setting, membership, role Personal documents and case studies Self-appraisal Conduct analysis Ratings Tests and scales Projective techniques Depth analysis Expressive behavior Synoptic procedures (combining information from several sources in a synopsis) Allport relied heavily on the personal-document technique and the Study of Values. personal-document He also observed expressive behavior, which we will discuss in the section on research. technique The personal-document The Personal-Document Technique technique involves the study of a person’s The personal-document technique involves examining diaries, autobiographies, letters, written or spoken literary compositions, and other samples of a person’s written or spoken records to records. determine the number and kinds of personality traits. Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  Chapter 7: Gordon Allport: Motivation and Personality 205 Allport’s most famous case is an analysis of a collection of more than 300 letters writ- ten over a 12-year period by a middle-aged woman identified as Jenny (Allport, 1965, 1966). It was later revealed that Jenny was the mother of Allport’s college roommate and had written the letters to Allport and his wife (Winter, 1993a). In the personal-document approach, a group of judges read the autobiographical or biographical material on the subject and record the traits they find in it. Given a reason- able degree of agreement among the judges, the assessments can be grouped into a rela- tively small number of categories. In the research with Jenny’s letters, 36 judges listed nearly 200 traits. Because many terms were synonymous, Allport was able to reduce them to eight categories. One of Allport’s students performed a computer analysis on the letters to find catego- ries of words that might indicate the existence of a particular trait (Paige, 1966). For example, words expressing anger, rage, hostility, and aggression were coded as constitut- ing the trait of aggression. This approach is more sophisticated and quantitative than Allport’s original analysis of the letters because it involves fewer subjective judgments. The computer analysis yielded eight prominent traits in Jenny’s personality that were similar to the categories Allport had identified. Because of that consistency, he concluded that his subjective approach to personality assessment provided information on traits that was valid and comparable to the more objective computer analysis. The Study of Values Allport and two colleagues developed an objective self-report assessment test called the Study of Values (Allport, Vernon, & Lindzey, 1960). They proposed that our personal values are the basis of our unifying philosophy of life, which is one of the six criteria for a mature, healthy personality. Our values are personality traits and represent strongly held interests and motiva- tions. Allport believed that everyone possesses some degree of each type of value, but one or two of these will be more dominant in the personality. The categories of values are as follows. 1. Theoretical values are concerned with the discovery of truth and are characterized by an empirical, intellectual, and rational approach to life. 2. Economic values are concerned with the useful and practical. 3. Aesthetic values relate to artistic experiences and to form, harmony, and grace. 4. Social values reflect human relationships, altruism, and philanthropy. 5. Political values deal with personal power, influence, and prestige in all endeavors, not just in political activities. 6. Religious values are concerned with the mystical and with understanding the universe as a whole. Research on Allport’s Theory Allport criticized psychologists who insisted that experimental and correlational methods were the only legitimate ways to study personality. He argued that not every aspect of personality could be tested in those ways, and that psychologists should be more open and eclectic in their research methodology. He also opposed applying methods used with the emotionally disturbed, such as case studies and projective techniques, to the study of emotionally healthy people. Because case studies focus on the past, Allport considered them to be of no value for understand- ing normal adults because their personality is divorced from childhood influences. Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 206 The Genetics Approach He also argued that projective techniques, such as the Thematic Apperception Test and the Rorschach inkblot test, may present a distorted picture of the normal personality because they deal with unconscious forces that have little effect on the normal adult per- sonality. Allport suggested that more reliable information could be obtained by simply asking people to describe themselves, a method that reveals their dominant traits. Allport favored the idiographic approach, that is, the study of the individual case, as indicated by his use of personal documents. However, he did also use some nomothetic methods involving the statistical analysis of differences among large samples of subjects when he believed them to be appropriate. Psychological tests, such as the Study of Values, use the nomothetic approach. Expressive Behavior expressive behavior Allport conducted considerable research on what he called expressive behavior, Spontaneous and described as behavior that expresses our personality traits. He also identified coping seemingly purposeless behavior, which is oriented toward a specific purpose and is consciously planned and behavior, usually dis- carried out. Coping behavior is determined by needs inspired by the situation and is played without our ordinarily directed toward bringing about some change in our environment. conscious awareness. coping behavior Con- The Nature of Expressive Behavior Expressive behavior is spontaneous and reflects sciously planned basic aspects of the personality. In contrast to coping behavior, expressive behavior is behavior determined difficult to change, has no specific purpose, and is usually displayed without our aware- by the needs of a given ness. Allport offered the example of public speaking. The speaker communicates with the situation and designed audience on two levels. for a specific purpose, The formal, planned level (coping behavior) includes the lecture’s content. The infor- usually to bring about a change in one’s mal, unplanned level (expressive behavior) consists of the speaker’s movements, gestures, environment. and vocal inflections. The speaker may be nervous, or may talk rapidly, pace back and forth, or fidget with an earring. These spontaneous behaviors can express elements of the speaker’s personality. In his landmark study of expressive behavior, Allport gave subjects a variety of tasks to perform and then judged the consistency of their expressive movements over the dif- ferent situations (Allport & Vernon, 1933). He found a high level of consistency in voice, handwriting, posture, and gestures. From these behaviors, he deduced the existence of such traits as introversion and extraversion. There has been considerable theoretical and experimental work describing both facial and vocal expressive behavior (see Russell, Bachorowski, & Fernandez-Dols, 2003). This research has shown that personality can be assessed from voice recordings, films, and videotapes. Facial expressions, vocal inflections, and idiosyncratic gestures and manner- isms can reveal personality traits to a trained observer. The expressive behaviors linked to specific traits have even been assessed from still photographs (Allport & Cantril, 1934; Berry, 1990; DePaulo, 1993; Riggio & Friedman, 1986; Riggio, Lippa, & Salinas, 1990). Researchers have accumulated an impressive body of evidence to show that some peo- ple can form reliable impressions of a stranger’s personality based solely on facial appearance and expression (Berry & Wero, 1993). For example, observers have accu- rately assessed personality factors such as anxiety from watching a film of the person for no more than 30 seconds (Ambody & Rosenthal, 1992). Effects of Gender and Age It has been found that women and younger people are better at correctly recognizing emotions in facial expressions than men and older people Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  Chapter 7: Gordon Allport: Motivation and Personality 207 (Sasson, Pinkham, Richard, Hughett, Gur, & Gur, 2010). The ability of children to read facial expressions accurately can occur as early as the age of 5 and improves rapidly thereafter (Gao & Maurer, 2010). An analysis of the yearbook photographs of women college graduates found that those who exhibited positive emotional expressions at age 21 scored higher on self- report inventories of feelings of subjective well-being when tested again later at ages 27, 43, and 52. They also reported better marriages and scored higher in affiliation, compe- tence, and achievement orientation than did those who displayed less positive emotions in their yearbook pictures at age 21 (Harker & Keltner, 2001). Interpreting Facial Expressions Sometimes our personal experiences influence our ability to recognize emotions in the facial expressions of others. For example, a study of 8- to 10-year-old children who had been physically abused showed that they could more readily identify facial displays of anger in pictures of female adults than could a control group of children who had not been abused (Pollak & Sinha, 2002). A study of adults demonstrated that emotional state may influence the ability to read the facial expressions of other people. Those diagnosed with major depression needed to see facial expressions of greater intensity in order to identify correctly happiness on the faces of the pictures they were shown. In contrast, to correctly identify sadness they required less intense facial expressions (Joormann & Gotlib, 2006). Children who scored high on a scale of social anxiety were better at correctly inter- preting facial expressions. Adults high in depression were better in recognizing sad facial expressions than adults who were not depressed (Ale, Chorney, Brice, & Morris, 2010; Gollan, McCloskey, Hoxha, & Coccaro, 2010). A study of Japanese children found that those who spent more time playing video games were better at recognizing facial expressions correctly than those who did not play video games as much (Tamamiya & Jiraki, 2013). It has also been found that close friends are far more accurate in decoding emotions such as sadness, anger, and happiness than are casual acquaintances (Zhang & Parmley, 2011). These and similar studies provide strong support for Allport’s proposition that expressive behavior reflects our personality traits. Coding Facial Expressions A long-term research program conducted by Paul Ekman identified facial expressions of seven emotions that can be objectively and consis- tently distinguished from one another. These emotions are anger, contempt, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise, and happiness (Ekman, Matsumoto, & Friesen, 1997). Ekman, director of the Human Interaction Laboratory at the University of California at San Francisco, and his colleagues, have developed a coding system based on their analysis of 43 facial muscles. The system provides 3,000 different configurations useful in reading the emo- tional expressions in a person’s face. This Facial Action Coding System (FACS) is used in the United States by police departments, as well as the CIA and the FBI, to detect lying by criminal suspects and by terrorists. According to the FACS, tiny movements of their facial muscles will betray them (Kaufman, 2002). In 2009, Ekman was named by Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people (Taylor, 2009). Other research has also shown that some basic aspects of personality are revealed by facial expressions. For example, neuroticism reveals itself in looks of anger, contempt, and fear. Agreeableness shows in laughter and other expressions of friendly social interaction. Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 208 The Genetics Approach Extraversion appears in smiles, laughter, and other expressions of enjoyment and amusement. Conscientiousness is marked by expressions of embarrassment including a tightly controlled smile, an averted gaze, and head movements down and away from the observer (Keltner, 1997). We recognize smiles by unconsciously mimicking them. Using the same muscles as the person we are looking at sends the same message to activate the regions of the brain that are active in the person who is smiling at us (Niedenthal, Mermillod, Maringer, & Hess, 2010; Zimmer, 2011). Emotional States and Facial Expressions Type A behavior, the pattern suggested to be associated with the potential for heart disease, has been distinguished from Type B behavior by expressions of disgust, glaring, grimacing, and scowling (Chesney, Ekman, Friensen, Black, & Hecker, 1997). A study of depressed patients in Switzerland found that facial expressions distinguished those who later attempted suicide from those who did not (Heller & Haynal, 1997). Research on Japanese college students found that those who scored high on a test of anxiety exhibited different facial expressions, particularly around the mouth and the left side of the face, than did those who scored low on anxiety (Nakamura, 2002). These results confirm Allport’s ideas. Cultural Differences in Facial Expressions Are facial expressions the same the world over? Or do they differ from one culture to another? Studies of American and Chinese infants and adults found that some basic emotions were revealed by identical facial expressions in both cultures and in both age groups (Albright et al., 1997; Camras, Oster, Campos, Miyake, & Bradshaw, 1998). However, a study comparing facial expressions of American, Chinese, and Japanese infants reached a different conclusion. Chinese infants showed consistently less variety in facial expressive behavior than American and Japanese infants. American infants dif- fered significantly in facial expressions of emotions from Chinese infants but not so much from Japanese infants (Camras, 1998). A study comparing facial expressions from a remote tribe in Northwestern Namibia in Africa found that their facial expressions of emotions did not match those of American subjects. The researchers noted that these results suggest that per- ceptions of emotions are not universal (Gendron, Roberson, van der Vyver, & Barrett, 2014).