{"id":169,"date":"2012-10-09T14:18:03","date_gmt":"2012-10-09T19:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/psych\/?page_id=169"},"modified":"2026-02-05T08:30:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T14:30:56","slug":"allport-award","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/psych\/allport-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Allport Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Psychology is inviting self-nominations from junior psychology students at St. Olaf College for the annual Gordon Allport Psychology Award. It was established in 1983 by Professor Olaf Millert, one of Dr. Allport’s students, to honor Dr. Allport’s memory and continuing impact on the psychological profession and on the lives of persons of good will, regardless of race or national background.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Background on Gordon Allport<\/h3>\n

Gordon Allport was born in Montezuma, Indiana on November 11th, 1897. He attended Harvard University as an undergraduate, taught sociology in Turkey, and then returned to Harvard to study Psychology. After receiving his Ph.D., he traveled to Berlin, Hamburg, and Cambridge for additional study, spent 4 years teaching at Dartmouth, and returned to Harvard for the rest of his career. He published widely, including Personality: A Psychological Interpretation (1937); Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality (1955); Pattern and Growth in Personality (1961); and, Letters from Jenny (1965).<\/p>\n

Allport presented a positive and hopeful picture of people in conscious control of their own lives. For Allport, a fundamental motivation of humans is to seek unity and meaning. This search means that the basic human urge is to become, to grow, to move towards integrity and fulfillment. Allport maintained that normal, mature human beings were not irreversibly driven by the events of childhood. He opposed radical and narrow approaches to psychology. Instead, his ideal psychology was an open, inclusive and systematic eclecticism. Allport was a devout Episcopalian and a defender of religious faith in human life. While he was critical of shallow, immature religious expressions, he stressed the importance of a mature religious sentiment as a unifying feature in personality.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Qualifications of the award winner<\/h3>\n

The Gordon Allport Award is to be presented annually to one or more individuals with the following qualifications:<\/p>\n

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  1. They must be junior psychology majors with an excellent record in their studies.<\/li>\n
  2. Their personal and career aspirations must be in basic sympathy with Gordon Allport’s views on human growth and potential. In particular, they should:\n