Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIV. Dispositional Theories 13. Allport: Psychology of
the Individual© The McGraw−Hill^387
Companies, 2009level, seemed to have felt that a mature religious orientation is a crucial ingredient
in the lives of most mature individuals. Although many churchgoing people have an
immature religious philosophy and narrow racial and ethnic prejudices, deeply reli-
gious people are relatively free of these prejudices. The person with a mature reli-
gious attitude and a unifying philosophy of life has a well-developed conscience and,
quite likely, a strong desire to serve others.
Structure of Personality
The structure of personality refers to its basic units or building blocks. To Freud, the
basic units were instincts; to Eysenck, they were mathematically determined factors.
To Allport, the most important structures are those that permit the description of the
person in terms of individual characteristics, and he called these individual charac-
teristics personal dispositions.
Personal Dispositions
Throughout most of his career, Allport was careful to distinguish between common
traitsand individual traits. Common traitsare general characteristics held in com-
mon by many people. They can be inferred from factor analytic studies such as those
conducted by Eysenck and the authors of the Five-Factor Theory (see Chapter 14),
or they can be revealed by various personality inventories. Common traits provide
the means by which people within a given culture can be compared to one another.
Whereas common traits are important for studies that make comparisons
among people, personal dispositionsare of even greater importance because they
permit researchers to study a single individual. Allport (1961) defined a personal
disposition as “a generalized neuropsychic structure (peculiar to the individual),
with the capacity to render many stimuli functionally equivalent, and to initiate and
guide consistent (equivalent) forms of adaptive and stylistic behavior” (p. 373). The
most important distinction between a personal disposition and a common trait is in-
dicated by the parenthetical phrase “peculiar to the individual.” Personal dispositions
are individual; common traits are shared by several people.
To identify personal dispositions, Allport and Henry Odbert (1936) counted
nearly 18,000 (17,953, to be exact) personally descriptive words in the 1925 edition
of Webster’s New International Dictionary,about a fourth of which described per-
sonality characteristics. Some of these terms, usually referred to as traits,describe
relatively stable characteristics such as “sociable” or “introverted”; others, usually
referred to as states,describe temporary characteristics such as “happy” or “angry”;
others described evaluative characteristics such as “unpleasant” or “wonderful”; and
still others referred to physical characteristics such as “tall” or “obese.”
How many personal dispositions does one individual have? This question can-
not be answered without reference to the degree of dominance that each personal
disposition has in the individual’s life. If we count those personal dispositions
that are central to a person, then each person probably has 10 or fewer. However,
if all tendencies are included, then each person may have hundreds of personal
dispositions.
Chapter 13 Allport: Psychology of the Individual 381