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“Idiographic” vis‐à‐vis “idiodynamic” in the historical perspective of personality theory: Remembering Gordon Allport, 1897–1997
Author(s) -
Rosenzweig Saul,
Fisher Sherri L.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of the history of the behavioral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.216
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1520-6696
pISSN - 0022-5061
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1520-6696(199723)33:4<405::aid-jhbs4>3.0.co;2-n
Subject(s) - nomothetic and idiographic , trait theory , psychology , personality , indoctrination , interpretation (philosophy) , nomothetic , personality psychology , epistemology , perspective (graphical) , psychoanalysis , big five personality traits , social psychology , philosophy , ideology , mathematics , linguistics , politics , political science , law , geometry
The centenary of Gordon W. Allport provides an occasion for reappraising his special position regarding uniqueness in personality. Allport's theory of personality, as first presented in his 1937 textbook, highlighted the idiographic in conjunction with the nomothetic approach, and the fundamental unit in his formulation was the trait. He described common and unique traits as well as the unique organization of traits. In contradistinction, the idiodynamic orientation, introduced by Saul Rosenzweig in 1951 and, in more detail in 1958, focused on events which over a lifespan constitute an idioverse—a population of phenomenological events. Allport's original emphasis on the idiographic and his later confusion concerning idiodynamics, can, in considerable measure, be understood by recognizing the role of religious spirituality in his conception of the person. That conception, which derived from an early religious indoctrination, asserted itself with renewed vigor in his later years. His scientific conception of personality thus remained unconsummated, subordinated by him to the unsolvable mysteries of ontology which properly belong, he believed, in the domain of faith. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.