PSYC 338 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Heredity, Nomothetic
Document Summary
Believed strongly that the principle governing the behavior of nonhuman animals or neurotic humans are different from those governing the behavior of healthy adult humans: little can be learned about one by studying the other. There is a distinction between normal and abnormal behavior: freud viewed it as a continuum. Told him story of little boy not wanting to sit next to dirty man on train and freud asked if that little boy was him. Allport was baffled because he was just trying to find a conversation starter. Thought that psychologists looked too deep and missed manifest motives; would do better to look at manifest before probing the subconscious. Drew many of his ideas from literature and philosophy over science. Personality: the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behavior and thought. Dynamic organization- always organized and there"s a continuity, but it"s constantly changing or becoming something different.
