Inventing personality : Gordon Allport and the science of selfhood / Ian A.M. Nicholson.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Nicholson, Ian A. M., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Allport, Gordon W. (Gordon Willard), 1897-1967.
• Psychologists--United States--Biography.
• Psychologists.
• United States.
• Personality.
• Psychology.

Medical Subjects:

• Psychology.
• United States.
• Personality.

Genre:

• Biographies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

APA PsycBOOKS.

Place of Publication:

Washington, DC : American Psychological Association, [2003]

System Details:

• Mode of access: World Wide Web.
• text file

Summary:

What I emphasize in this book, is the rich interplay between the scientific language Gordon Allport deployed and the American culture in which he was embedded. Weaving together the personal and the professional, I argue against what historian Roger Smith described as the "still dominant natural-scientific view that scientific language shuts out normative meaning." Using Allport's own experience, I draw attention to some of the ways in which the science of personality was implicated in a broad cultural transformation in the language of American selfhood. In this book, I aim to go beyond the antiquated "great man" historiography of the textbooks and toward a more dynamic and socially embedded model of scientific development. Instead of celebrating Allport's individual genius, my intention is to describe the network of circumstances that lent amplitude to his voice and made his scholarly program plausible. I examine the cultural, political, and spiritual issues at stake in the ostensibly neutral scientific language of selfhood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved)

Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-282) and index.
• Electronic reproduction. Washington, D.C. : American Psychological Association, 2004. Available via the World Wide Web. Access limited by licensing agreement. s2004 dcunns.

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.