IDIOGRAPHIC VIS-A-VIS IDIODYNAMIC IN THE HISTORICAL-PERSPECTIVE OF PERSONALITY THEORY - REMEMBERING ALLPORT,GORDON, 1897-1997

The centenary of Gordon W. Allport provides an occasion for reappraisi ng his special position regarding uniqueness in personality. Allport's theory of personality, as first presented in his 1937 textbook, highl ighted the idiographic in conjunction with the nomothetic approach, an d 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 whi ch over a lifespan constitute an idioverse - a population of phenomeno logical 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 h is conception of the person. That conception, which derived from an ea rly religious indoctrination, asserted itself with renewed vigor in hi s later years. His scientific conception of personality thus remained unconsummated, subordinated by him to the unsolvable mysteries of onto logy which properly belong, he believed, in the domain of faith. (C) 1 997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.