PERSONALITY-A PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION. By GORDOS W. ALLPORT. (London : Constable, pp. s iv + 588, price 16s.)

IT is regrettable that the review of this important book has beeR delayed. The reviewer to whom it was sent was prevented by protracted illness from attempting the task, though constantly hoping to begin.

I t may be said at once that the book is rich in original material. I t reveals a wide range of rcatling in pliilosophy and general psychology as well as in experimental work on thr particular topic. Finallj-, it is decisive and readable in style, though even more frequent concrete and precise examples would be a help in making clcarer Professor Allport’s ideas a t many pcints.

The book is divided into five parts. Part I includes a discussion of various definitions of personality and R histor!. of ‘ characterology.’ Part I1 deals with the development of personality, including a very brief surirey of early infancy and an important chapter on “ the transformation of motives.” Part I11 deals with the structure of personality with a critical account of the ‘ Search for Elements ’ and the theory of identical elements, and Allport’s own doctrine of traits. Part 11’ is devoted to methods and results of attempts to analyse personality, where, after the frequent stressing of the essential unity and uniqueness of personality, and the acute criticism of attempts to measure elements, cne is relieved and a little surprised to find that Allport has something to say after all for such devices as the psychograph and the measurement of “ common traits.” Finally, Part V discusses the ability to judge people, the interview, intuition, etc.

The author starts with this definition of personality : “ Personality is the dynamic organisation within the indi\Tidual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment ” (p. 48). I t is important a t once to make clear that this ‘ uniqueness ’ of adjustments is treated as consistent with the existence of “ co~niiion traits ” (Chap. XI’). And even though these are said to be onlv “ common aspects of traits,” a man’s ‘ adjustments ’ are part of his personality even when they resemble those of some other man.

-4 main theme of the book is the complexity of the sources of human hehaviour and the supreme importance of the combination and interaction of ‘ drives ’ or traits,’ rather than of their individual isolated functioning-a warning which is perhaps not so needed by English students as by the audience to whom Professor Allport primarily speaks.

A hurried perusual of the book would give a reader the impression that little or no place is given to the influences of innate elements in human nature, the influence of environment experience and training, and the organisation within the self being so strongly emphasised. I t is all the more important that the relatively secluded passages implying the existence of iirnate tendencies should be emphasised. Thus in the description of per- sonality in the first year (very brief and necessarily incomplete) Allport makes two most important assertions (p. 125) :

(2) “ It appears that vague and variable indications of distinctive traits are evident at a n eaily age, in this case a t four months ” ;

(2) “ These principles which the following pages will further establish, show that innate determinants of personality are indeed important.”

Further, among ‘ processes of development ’ he includes (p. 206) imitation and sug- gestion as ‘ principles of growth ’ along with such unlearned things as maturation and differentiation.

Most important of all is the view as to temperament : this, he says, is “ the’ charac- teristic phenomena of an individual’s emotional nature, including his susceptibility to emotional stimulation, his customary strength and speed of response, the quality of his prevailing mood, and all peculiarities of fluctuation and intensity in mood : these phenomena being regarded as dependent upon constitutional make-up, and therefore largely hereditary in origin.”

Hence the editor finally undertook it.

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C. W. VALENTINE 49

This surely approaches much nearer than some supporters of Allport seem to recognise to McDougall’s view as to innate propensities to feel emotion in certain situa- tions. “ Susceptibility to emotional stimulation ” and “ Strength of response ” surely grant the two essentials of the doctrine of innate impulse and innate tendency to feel emotion under certain circumstances that form the main elements of Mcnougall’s doctrine of human instincts.

The main force of Allport’s argument one feels is directed against those Rehaviourists who make personality the sum of conditioned reflexes-never a popular view in this country, or against the wider view that treats the instinctive elements in men as little more than the narrow instincts in animals.

I t was largely to avoid this latter confusion and misunderstanding that McDougall gave up the use of the term instinct. Yet Allport himself occasionally uses the term: thus ‘ The true motive underlying an attitude is sometimes of so primitive and unorganised a nature that it may be called instinctive.”

Allport devotes little space to criticising the doctrine of instincts directly. His main objection is that stated on page 112 :

“ Are there not many individuals who live their entire lives lacking some of these instincts, failing, for example, to become acquisitive, constructive, pugnacious, or parental in their behaviour ? Is it not simpler to account for these types of interest if and when they are present, than to assume that “ instincts ’ are common to a species and then be forced to explain away the many exceptions where the ‘ instincts ’ fail to put in an appearance ? ” Here, it seems, that Allport is really objecting to a view of human instinctive

tendencies implying a greater resemblance to fixed and universal animal instincts than can be demonstrated ; but it is not necessary to assume that an innate tendency widespread among men, and of supreme importance in the make-up of most men, is necessarily universal. Nature permits individual differences in all sorts of fundamental things in man-even in bodily organs essential to life, and in intelligence, from genius to imbecility. One would expect a priori from analogies in physiological and intellectual endowment an even greater variation in innate tendencies not essential to life, and that many persons will be lacking or very weak in some innate impulse which are main elements in the motive forces of most of their fellow-men.

Allport himself indeed at times falls back on innate tendencies to explain individual variation. Thus: “Shyness in one person for example, may be due to hereditary influences that no amount of contrary pressure from the environment has been able to offset.” That in another person shyness may arise from ‘ an abnormally exacting environ- ment ’ one need not question.

Again Allport’s discussions of the unconscious-including such topics as self- justification ’ and ‘ rationalisation ’ seem to imply the existence of a strong underlving innate impulse of self-assertion.

-4 central idea of the book is that of Functional Aictonomy, by which is meant, as the author remarks, pretty much what Woodworth meant by his idea of ‘mechanisms’ becoming ‘ drives.’ Some comments must be made on this important chapter. First, one can assure Professor Allport that the idea of the development of new interests through the transference of interest from an ‘end’ to the ‘means’ is a perfectly familiar one to British educational psychologists. I imagine we have all been teaching this for a long time. The transference of fundamental motive forces through sublimation, and even to fetishes, is also familiar in psycho-analytic literature.

It would also be generally agreed even by psychologists who still believe in instinctive tendencies that the accumulations of associated interests, and the results of experience, profoundly modify the crude behaviour based upon innate impulses. McDougall himself would surely have accepted the statement that “ no instinct can retain its motivational force ztnimpaired after it has been absorbed and re-cast under the transforming influence of learning.”

Article on “ Attitudes ” in Handbook of Socaal Psychologv, p. 819.

50 Personality-A Psychological Interpretation

But Allport supplies perhaps the best example one could wish for, when he discusses the maternal sentiment (p. 197). First, I think he greatly over-estimates the extent to which mothers are indifferent to their infants during the first few days or weeks after birth. One of the most striking and incredible things to a mere man is the doting of a fond mother (or even of an elder sister) on an ugly, wrinkly, dirty, and noisy babe that kccps her from all other entertainments ! No doubt the love does normally increase with time, though with some mothers the love gradually lessens as the appral of the need of the helpless babe disappears, and that in spite of the growth of common interests.

Still more striking is Allport’s later commrnt, viz., “ some women become so absorbtld in being good mothers that they neglect being the good wives they were earlier.” Precisely ! And this be it noted even when the husband has brought her on the whole far more happiness than the baby and even when she has had little but troublr with a child, say, delicate or even defective. No stronger example is needed to exemplify the extent to which the maternal sentiment, to use Allport’s phrase, is really an example of a powerful instinctive impulse.

The doctrine of “ functional autonomy,” Allport claims, “ accounts for the force of delusions, shell shock, phobias, and all manner of compulsive and maladaptive bchavioiir. One would expect such unrealistic modes of adjustmcnt to be given up as soon as they are shown to be poor ways of confionting the environment. Insight and the law of effect should both remove them. Rut too often they have acquired a stranglehold in their o w right ” (p. 206).

These phenomena are surely equally explicable on the assumption of an innate impulse whose direction can be distorted and yet the fundamental source of energy remain active. Indeed, the tendency for irratio?zal behaviour to be prompted by instincts seems to be one of the strongest arguments in favour of their existence in men.

In conclusion, may I , with all deference, suggest that Professor Allport might modify his position somewhat as a result of a more complete study of infants in the first few years of life. Personally, I should maintain that here we have the strongest evidence for innate impulses of an instinctive type. It is surprising to find him saying (p. 206\, “ Starting life as a completely selfish being, the child would indeed remain entirely wolfish and piggish throughout his days unless genuine transformations of motives took place.” As a matter of fact mere babes in arms show pleasure and delight in the presence of other infants who have never caused them any pleasure. Without any instruction or training they reveal, sometimes wth delightful abandon, unseltisliness and sympathetic tendencies. The child, in short, does not start life as a completely selfish being. Though I should agree if it is contended that the training of the vast majority of children must consist in checking the selfish traits and in encouraging the others, nevertheless, on the basis of mj’ own observa- tions I do not think that even this is true for every child.

I feel that I may seem to have dwelt quite disproportionately upon the objections to Allport’s views. I hope he will take it as revealing niy view that the book itself is so powerful an exposition of his point of view. Even for advanced students of psychology it could not fail to throw considerable light on all problems of personality. To the adherent of the Behaviourist School, or of a superficial psychology which glibly attributes all human actions simply to some crude instincts, it would be a most valuable corrective.

There are many other points in this book with which British psychologists generally would heartily agree. For example, none, I think, have ever held the view that character training can only proceed by training in specific habits; and in the matter of mental training they have always kept a place for ‘ transference ’ where a method or ideal can he apprehended and applied.

Later parts of the book are als6 full of shrewd comments and observations upon common traits and on the methods of studying and analysing personality. In short, it is a most valuable book, and it is partly because I am anxious to enlist Allport more on the side of the views to which he seems opposed that I have stressed many of the points selected.

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