Gordon W. Allport (1897-1967) defined personality as “the dynamic organisation within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behavior and thought.” According to Allport, the basic units of personality are personal dispositions and the proprium. A.
Personal Dispositions: Allport recognized common traits allowing inter-individual comparisons and individual attitudes. He perceived three covering levels of individual miens, the broadest of which are cardinal dispositions that are so clear and dominating that they can’t be avoided other individuals. Not every person has a cardinal disposition, but rather all individuals have 5 to 10 focal demeanors, or qualities around which their lives rotate. Also, everybody has a great number of secondary dispositions, which are less dependable and less obvious than focal characteristics.
Allport additionally isolated individual miens into (1) motivational dispositions, which are sufficiently solid to initiate action and (2) stylistic dispositions, which allude to the way in which an individual acts and which direct instead of start activity. B. Proprium: The proprium alludes to each one of those practices and qualities that individuals see as warm and focal in their lives. Allport favored the term proprium over self or inner self on the grounds that the last terms could infer a protest inside an individual that controls conduct, though proprium proposes the center of one’s personhood.
