The 15 best phrases of Gordon Allport

Gordon allport (United States, 1897 - 1967) was a prominent American psychologist who dedicated his life to researching the human personality.

Despite his enormous influence in the realm of human psychology, Gordon Allport is an often overlooked figure when the leading psychologists of the 20th century are listed. Professor at the prestigious Harvard University, among those who were his disciples we can find such famous names as Jerome bruner, Stanley milgram or Thomas Pettigrew.

• Related article: "The 10 best famous phrases of George H. Mead "

Famous Phrases and Quotes by Gordon Allport

However, Allport's contributions are priceless and he is one of the most studied theorists in the faculties of Psychology. Several studies place him as the 11th most cited psychologist in the 20th century.

In today's article we will learn more about the figure of the psychologist Gordon Allport through the most memorable famous quotes and phrases from him.

1. People who are aware of or who are ashamed of their biases are also the ones on the path to eliminating them.

In contrast, those who are proud of them are rarely able to see beyond.

2. Personality "is" and "does." Personality is what is hidden behind specific acts and within the individual.

The engine of our behavior and our way of being.

3. If a person is able to rectify his erroneous judgments in the light of new evidence, then he is not prejudiced. Prejudices only become prejudices if they are reversible when exposed to new knowledge. A prejudice, unlike a simple misconception, is actively resistant to all the tests that would destabilize it. We tend to grow emotionally when a prejudice is threatened by contradiction. Thus, the difference between common misjudgments and biases is that an error in judgment can be discussed and rectified without emotional resistance.

In this famous phrase, Gordon Allport clearly explains the difference between prejudice and errors in judgment.

4. Love, incomparably the best psychotherapeutic agent, is something that professional psychiatry alone cannot create, concentrate, or release.

On the ability of love to repair emotional wounds.

5. As supporters of our own lifestyle, we cannot stop thinking partisan.

Another phrase by Gordon Allport that focuses on the cognitive biases.

6. The theist is convinced that while nothing that contradicts science is likely to be true, nonetheless nothing that stops with science can be the whole truth.

On how beliefs determine our attitudes.

7. The specific goals we set for ourselves are almost always ancillary to our long-term intentions. A good father, a good neighbor, a good citizen, is not good because his specific objectives are acceptable, but because their successive objectives are ordered to a set of values ​​that are reliable and socially desirable.

In this famous quote, Gordon Allport explains how day-to-day actions and goals are consistent over the long term for each individual and their selfconcept.

8. The scientist, by the very nature of his commitment, creates more and more questions, never less. In fact, the measure of our intellectual maturity, one philosopher suggests, is our ability to feel less and less satisfied with our responses to better problems.

This is how philosophy advances and, with it, the knowledge we have about reality.

9. Reason adapts impulses and beliefs to the real world. Rationalization, on the other hand, adapts the concept of reality to the individual's impulses and beliefs. Reasoning discovers the true cause of our actions, rationalization finds good reasons to justify our actions.

Another phrase about the role of our beliefs and our rational apparatus when thinking about our own actions.

10. Frustrated lives have the most character-driven hatred.

Do you know the difference between character, personality and temperament? Allport points to a characteristic that he observed in many real cases.

11. Open-mindedness is considered a virtue. But, strictly speaking, it cannot happen. A new experience must be lived and assumed in old categories that already exist in our mind. We cannot handle every event by itself. If so, would past experience be helpful?

One of the Personality traits, openness to experience, and a reflection by Allport on how our cognition experiences these new realities.

12. There is an anecdote about an Oxford student who once commented: "I despise all Americans, but I have never met one that I do not like."

Another famous phrase from Gordon Allport on prejudice.

13. Mature religious sentiment is ordinarily formed in the workshop of doubt.

How would Carl Gustav Jung, religiosity could be the overcompensation of doubt.

14. Each person is a language to himself, an apparent violation of the syntax of the species.

Language and communication were also interesting fields of study for Gordon Allport.

15. Love received and love offered are the best form of therapy.

Can love be a therapeutic tool? Few psychologists question it.