Gordon Allport essays

Gordon Allport essays Born in Montezuma, Indiana, in 1897, Gordon Allport, was the youngest of four brothers. He had a shy and serious personality, and was teased due to which he lived rather an isolated childhood. His father, who was a country doctor, wanted Gordon to grow up with his father's patients and nurses and all the belongings of a miniature hospital. However, his early life was quite pleasant and ordinary (Valerie, 2000). When writing about Allport, one of his stories is always mentioned: At the age of 22, he went to Vienna and met with Sigmund Freud. When he arrived in Freud's office, Freud just waited for Gordon to begin. After a while, as Gordon was not able to hold on to the silence, he exclaimed an observation he had made while on his way to meet him. He revealed that he saw a little boy on the bus who was extremely upset at having to sit where previously a dirty old man was sitting (Valerie, 2000). According to Gordon's observation, he has learned this attribute from his mother, whom must be a very neat and seemed to be rather dominant kind. Freud didn't take this observation as merely an observation, but instead he took it as an expression of some profound, inborn process in Gordon's mind, and stated "And was that little boy you'" Through this experience he realized that in-depth psychology sometimes digs too deeply, just the way he realized earlier that behaviorism usually doesn't dig to that much extent (Valerie, 2000). In 1922, Allport received his Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard, following footsteps of his brother Floyd. Much of his career was spent in developing theories and exploring social issues like prejudice, and later develop personality tests (Valerie, 2000). In 1967, he died in Cambridge Massachusetts. The center of his work was in the theory of Personality. His books on personality include Personality: A Psychological Inter ...