Gordon W. Allport

Toward a General Theory of Action.

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The functional autonomy of motives.

For fifty years this JOURNAL has served both as a rich repository for research and as a remarkably sensitive record of the psychological temper of the times. These two services are of great historical value. Since there is no reason to doubt that The American Journal will continue to hold its position of leadership in the future, one wonders what new currents of psychological interest its pages will reflect in the coming half-century. With what problems will psychologists be chiefly concerned? What discoveries will they make? What types of scientific formulation will they prefer?

Fifty years of personality psychology

Introduction: The 1937 Allport and Stagner Textbooks in Personality Psychology K.H. Craik. Historical and and Personal Background of the 1937 Texts: Allports Personality and Allports Personality A.C. Elms. Current State of Personality Psychology and its Textbooks: Pattern and Organizaiton L.A. Pervin. Presentday Perspectives on Basic Issues: The Individual and the Single Case: Describing Lives B.J. Cohler. Motives and the Self: Current Status of the Motive Concept R.A. Emmons. Judging Persons: Judgements of Personality and Personality Itself D.C. Funder. Personality Assessment and Prediction: The Scientific Credibility of Commonsense Psychology G.J.O. Fletcher. Epilogue: An Optimistic Forecast R.T. Hogan. 12 additional articles. Index.

The Composition of Political Attitudes

This study is offered in support of the contention that attitudes can be measured, and that under suitable conditions the questionnaire affords a relatively satisfactory method of procedure. The political preferences, information, prejudices, and convictions of 375 undergraduates were studied. By methods of correlation and of comparing extreme groups in respect to scholarship, prejudice, and radicalism, the existence of types is discovered. The most prominent types are those showing radicalism with high scholarship and low prejudice, and conservatism with low scholarship and high prejudice. Those who feel strongly on political matters, the Catholics, the Jews, and those who differ in vote from their fathers also show distinctive political and personal qualities. The study discovers the hierarchy of prejudice for the group as a whole; the leading bias is antisocialistic. Several practical conclusions for politics are offered. The principal theoretical conclusion is that political behavior is not specific, but is related to inclusive sets or attitudes in personality. The political character of men is, on the whole, bound up with many generic traits in their personalities.

THE RELIGIOUS CONTEXT OF PREJUDICE

ConclusionIt is clear that these investigations, still in progress, tend to confirm demographic and sociological studies that we have also reviewed. Further, I believe they are compatible with our theological analysis, since it is clear that communal and extrinsic religion can draw strong support from the doctrines of revelation, election, and theocracy, which, as we have seen, provide the theological context of prejudice, so far as such exists.We can hope that this convergence of theological, sociological, and psychological analyses will lead to a further cooperation between behavioral and religious disciplines. We can also hope that our findings, when understood by clergy and laity, may lead to a decrease in bigotry and to an enhancement of charity in modern religious life.If I were asked what practical applications ensue from this analysis I would, of course, say that to reduce prejudice we need to enlarge the population of intrinsically religious people. There is no simple formula, for each personality is unique, and is stubbornly resistant to change. Yet precisely here lies the pastors task, his opportunity, and his challenge.

Normative Compatibility In the Light of Social Science

*Conference on “New Knowledge in Human Values” was held under the auspices of the Research Society for Creative Altruism at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oct. 4–5, 1957. This address by Professor Allport was given at this Conference and is printed here by special permission.

Liabilities and Assets in Civilian Morale

an over-soul or group mind is to risk not only vagueness but futility as well, for in the last analysis it is with the emotional health of 130,000,000 separate citizens that we have to deal. A sturdy democratic morale requires that each citizen become a wholehearted participant in the common cause in his own way. The fact that the cause is common must not blind us to the fact that every person is unique and therefore bound

Some Guiding Principles in Understanding Personality

T H E advent of the scientific spirit in social case work has prepared a specially tempting soil for the application of the analytical tools of scientific characterology. After we have learned to analyze a bad family situation into specific maladjustments that can be separately treated, it seems entirely reasonable next to analyze each personality within the family into constituent traits and to work for the upbuilding or modification of each trait that seems defective. If Alices tonsils, clothes, and lack of toys can be isolated from the total situation and remedied, why not Alices inferiority complex, stubbornness, and habit of pilfering? The dismemberment of Alice is not difficult to accomplish; the ingenious invention of schedules,. tests, and scales is providing daily more dependable tools for the dissection. No one who is scientifically minded would wish to have this current research remain unapplied; but everyone who is at the same time humanely minded must sense the limitations and the danger in the overdevelopment of such techniques. The danger is simply this: only certain aspects of personality are capable of isolation; and when by a skillful bit of analysis such an aspect is safely secured, it tends to usurp the field of attention of the investigator, and in his mind a part of the person comes to supplant the personality as a whole. Or, if with a thorough battery of measurements several aspects are isolated, the tendency is to regard the sum-total of the independent measurements as equivalent in every way to the personality. This fallacy derives directly from our overemphasis upon the phenomenon of normal distribution of the attributes of personality. Attention is fixed upon the magnitude of one trait in comparison with the magnitude of the same trait in other personalities; in this way the significance of the trait for the personality in question is lost to view. Now if we visualize several distribution curves for several traits, and plot on the base line of each the position attained by Alice, we find that the significant thing for our understanding of Alice is not her position in each curve or the average of her positions in all the curves, but rather the profile which would result from connecting her positions in the different curves. This qualitative pattern is more significant than measurements on anyone or on all of the isolated traits. In short, the natural point of reference in understanding Alice is Alice herself, and not the population at large. It is a misfortune that research in personality, especially that done by psychologists, is almost exclusively quantitative, the interest being limited to the distribution of an attribute within a group. Research has not yet developed techniques which materially aid in securing a better knowledge of the single personality. Expressed bluntly, psychology has not been interested in Alice, although it is into concrete personalities, the Alices, Marys, Johns, and Toms, that human nature is naturally divided, not into intelligence, reaction time, and introversion spread along abscissas. It is the less known problem of unity and congruence in personality which most urgently needs attention. So little as yet has been accomplished that our present efforts can be regarded only as pioneering. Still, by gathering a few results here and there, and by thinking rather naively to fill in the gaps, it is possible to take some steps toward a formulation of principles which may help eventually to establish a practicable science of personality. Each of the principles that I shall suggest is debatable and to a certain extent a priori; but although there may be blunders in respect to detail, it seems worth while on the whole to venture.

Perception and Public Health

This is the second Dorothy B. Nyswander Lecture delivered in Berkeley on May 23, 1958. The lectureship was established in honor of Dr. Nyswander upon her retirement as Professor of Health Education at the University of California.

1. PREJUDICE: IS IT SOCIETAL OR PERSONAL?∗

∗A lecture given at the 10th Anniversary of the Albert M. Greenfield Center for Human Relations, Philadelphia, April 14, 1961. Reprinted from The Journal of Social Issues, Vol. XVIII, No. 2, pp. 120‐134, by permission.