31 Facts About Gordon Allport

Gordon William Allport was an American psychologist.

Gordon Allport contributed to the formation of values scales and rejected both a psychoanalytic approach to personality, which he thought often was too deeply interpretive, and a behavioral approach, which he thought did not provide deep enough interpretations from their data.

Gordon Allport emphasized the uniqueness of each individual, and the importance of the present context, as opposed to history, for understanding the personality.

Gordon Allport had a profound and lasting influence on the field of psychology, even though his work is cited much less often than that of other well-known figures.

Gordon Allport grew up in a religious family of Christian missionaries.

Gordon Allport was born in Montezuma, Indiana, and was the youngest of four sons of John Edward and Nellie Edith Allport.

When Gordon Allport was six years old, the family had already moved many times and finally settled in Ohio.

John Gordon Allport was a country doctor and had his clinic and hospital in the family home.

Gordon Allport's father turned their home into a makeshift hospital, with patients as well as nurses residing there.

Gordon Allport's mother was a former school teacher, who forcefully promoted her values of intellectual development and religion.

Notably, one of his older brothers, Floyd Henry Gordon Allport, was working on his Ph.

Gordon Allport earned his master's degree in 1921, studying under Herbert Langfeld, and then his Ph.

Gordon Allport spent the first Sheldon year studying with the new Gestalt School in Berlin and Hamburg, Germany; and then the second year at Cambridge University.

In 1921 through 1937, Gordon Allport helped establish personality as a psychological research type within American psychology.

Gordon Allport returned to Harvard as an instructor in psychology from 1924 to 1926 where he began teaching his course "Personality: Its Psychological and Social Aspects" in 1924.

Gordon Allport was a member of the faculty at Harvard University from 1930 to 1967.

Gordon Allport was a Director of the Commission for the United Nations Educational Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

Gordon Allport was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1933.

Gordon Allport appeared on radio talk shows, wrote literature reviews, articles, and a textbook.

Gordon Allport was elected President of the American Psychological Association in 1939, being the second youngest person to hold that office.

In 1950, Gordon Allport published his third book titled The Individual and His Religion.

In 1963, Gordon Allport was awarded the Gold Medal Award from the American Psychological Foundation.

Gordon Allport died on October 9,1967, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of lung cancer, just one month shy of his 70th birthday.

Gordon Allport contributed to the trait theory of personality, and is known as a "trait" psychologist.

Gordon Allport opposed the idea that people can be classified according to a small number of trait dimensions, arguing that each person is unique and distinguished by particular traits.

Gordon Allport emphasized that an individual's personality is the single most unique thing about a person.

Gordon Allport organized these words into three levels of traits.

Gordon Allport viewed a healthy person to create problems by making future goals that can be seen as unattainable in many cases.

Gordon Allport hypothesized the idea of internal and external forces that influence an individual's behavior.

Gordon Allport was one of the first researchers to draw a distinction between Motive and Drive.

Gordon Allport gives the example of a man who seeks to perfect his task or craft.