reasons for his behavior. But Freud ’s limited orientation wouldn ’t allow him to
see the obvious. “Psychologists would do well, ”Allport concluded from the
visit, “to give full recognition to manifest motives before probing the uncon-
scious ”(1968, p. 384).
Unlike Freud, whom he accused of blindly adhering to psychoanalytic
theory, Allport acknowledged the limitations of the trait concept from the be-
ginning. He accepted that behavior is influenced by a variety of environmen-
tal factors and recognized that traits cannot predict what a single individualwill do. Allport also believed that our traits have physical components in our
nervous systems and predicted that scientists would one day develop technol-
ogy advanced enough to identify personality traits by examining neurologicalstructures.
Allport identified two general strategies researchers might use when investi-
gating personality. So far, we have described traits and trait research along thelines of what Allport called the nomothetic approach . Researchers using this
approach assume that all people can be described along a single dimension ac-
cording to their level of, for example, assertiveness or anxiety. Each person in astudy using the nomothetic approach is tested to see how his or her score for
the given trait compares with the scores of other participants. Allport referred
to these traits that presumably apply to everyone as common traits .
Allport called nomothetic research “indispensable ”for understanding hu-
man personality. But he also championed another way to research personalitythat is often ignored. Rather than forcing all people into categories selected
beforehand, researchers using the idiographic approach identify the unique
combination of traits that best accounts for the personality of a single individ-
ual. To illustrate Allport ’s point, take a few minutes to list 5 to 10 traits you
believe are the most important in describing your behavior. Have a friend do
the same for her- or himself, and then compare your answers. You will most
likely discover that the two of you have compiled two very different lists. Youmay have used independent orgenuine to describe yourself, but it may not
have occurred to your friend to think in terms of independence or genuine-ness. Similarly, the traits your friend came up with might never have crossedyour mind when you wrote your self-description.
Allport referred to these 5 to 10 traits that best describe an individual ’s
personality as central traits . If you want to understand one particular person,
Allport recommended that you first determine the central traits for this indi-
vidual and then decide where he or she falls on each of these dimensions.
Although the number of central traits varies from person to person, Allportproposed that occasionally a single trait will dominate a personality. These
rare individuals can be described with a cardinal trait . Allport pointed to his-
torical figures whose behavior was so dominated by a single trait that the
behavior became synonymous with the individual. Thus we speak of people
who are Machiavellian, Homeric ,o rDon Juan s.
The advantage of using the idiographic approach is that the person, not
the researcher, determines what traits to examine. With the nomotheticapproach, the traits selected by the investigator might be central for some
people, but only what Allport called secondary traits for others. A test score“Dispositions are
never wholly consis-
tent. What a bore
it would be if they
were—and what
chaos if they were
not at all consistent. ”
Gordon AllportImportant Trait Theorists 153