indicating a person’ s level of sociability is of great value when sociability is a
central trait for that person, but of limited value when it is not. Allport
employed the idiographic approach in his study of an elderly woman whoused the pseudonym Jenny Masterson. In his book Letters from Jenny ,
Allport (1965) examined more than 300 letters written by Jenny over a12-year period. Allport identified eight of the woman ’s central traits with
this method. Although time consuming, this procedure allowed for a much
Gordon Allport
1897 –1967
Gordon Allport was born in
Montezuma, Indiana, to afamily with three olderbrothers, including 7-year-old Floyd. Even as a
child, Gordon did not fit in.“I was quick with words,
poor at games, ”he wrote.
“When I was ten a schoolmate said of me, ‘Aw, that
guy swallowed a dictionary ’”(1967, p. 4). Allport was
persuaded by his brother Floyd to attend Harvard. Thiswas the beginning of an academic and professionalshadow in which the younger Allport was to spendmany of his early adult years. Not only did Gordon
follow his brother to both undergraduate and graduatedegrees at Harvard, but he also chose Floyd’ s field of
study, psychology. Floyd was the teaching assistant forGordon ’s first psychology class. Later, Gordon took a
course in experimental psychology from his brother,served as a participant in some of his research, andhelped him with the editing of the Journal of Abnormal
and Social Psychology .
But Gordon soon developed a very different view
of psychology. Floyd was a social psychologist andwent on to achieve substantial recognition in that field.However, Gordon had different ideas about the bestway to understand human behavior. In graduate schoolAllport once again felt different from the other psy-chology students. “Unlike most of my student collea-
gues,”he wrote, “I had no giftedness in natural science,
mathematics, mechanics (laboratory manipulations),nor in biological or medical specialties ”(1967, p. 8).
After confessing these feelings to one of his professors,he was told, “But you know, there are many branches
of psychology. ”
“I think this casual remark saved me, ”Allport later
reflected. “In effect he was encouraging me to find my
own way in the …pastures of psychology ”(1967, p. 8).
This he did, despite much early resistance to his notion of
personality traits. Perhaps the earliest of these confron-tations came in graduate school when Allport was given 3minutes to present his research ideas at a seminar at ClarkUniversity in front of the famous psychologist EdwardTitchener. His presentation about personality traits wasfollowed by total silence. Later, Titchener asked Allport ’s
adviser: “Why did you let him work on that problem? ”
But Allport was not discouraged. He went on to a
distinguished career, most of it at Harvard. His 1937book, Personality: A Psychological Interpretation ,
outlined his theory of personality traits and was well
received by many psychologists. Two years later,Allport was elected president of the AmericanPsychological Association. In 1964 he received theprestigious Distinguished Scientific ContributionAward from that same organization.
Allport ’s decision to wander off into different pas-
tures of psychology was appropriate for the man whopromoted the idea of individual differences. This deci-sion also took him out of his brother ’s shadow, perhaps
best symbolized when Gordon later became editor oftheJournal of Abnormal and Social Psychology himself.
He identified his confrontation with Titchener as aturning point in his career. “Never since that time have
I been troubled by rebukes or professional slightsdirected at my maverick interests, ”he said. “Later, of
course, the field of personality became not only accep-
table, but highly fashionable ”(1967, p. 9).Bettmann/CORBIS154 CHAPTER 7 The Trait Approach