STUDIES IN EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENT BY GORDON W. ALLPORT, Pn. D.
ASSISTANT PROFBSSOK OF PSYCHOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND PHILIP E.
VERNON, M. A., Pn. D, FELLOW OF ST. JOHNS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY With a chapter on Matching Sketches of Personality with
Script, by EDWIN POWERS, A. M. DARTMOUTH COLLEGE Nfttt THE
MACMILLAN COMPANY 1933 INTRODUCTION Investigations of personality
may be focuspd upon any one of three different levels of phenomena.
The first is the level of traits, interests, attitudes, or
sentiments con sidered as composing an inner personality the second
is the level of behavior and expression the third is the level of
impression, the perception and interpretation of behavior by
another. Since a discovery on one of these levels establishes a
presumption that the phenomenon in question has some counterpart on
the other levels, T problem which is elusive on one plane may often
be more expediently attacked on another. This is the motive and,
the plan behind the present study. Instead of approach ing the
difficult problem of consistency or organization in personality
through a study of inner dispositions which, of course, can only be
known indirectly through tests and scales, we have chosen to refer
the problem to the level of expressive movement and there to
examine it in a more direct fashion. Besides being expedient, this
policy of referring knotty problems of personality to the field of
expression has con siderable theoretical justification. Unless we
accept the epistemology of intuitionism, we are forced to regard
our judgments of personality as inferential constructs based upon
our sensory perception of expression and to as sume that it is only
through our perceptionsof the physical bodies, speech, or gesture
of our associates that we derive any knowledge of their natures
From this point of view the direct study of expression is the most
natural possible approach to the study of personality. ri
INTKODUCTION This statement is not intended to imply that the prob
lem of expressive movement is coextensive with the prob lem of
personality. There are innumerable questions con cerning the
dispositions that lie behind movement and the effect of this
movement upon observers. It would be misleading, for example, to
claim that whatever con sistency we may find in expression must
have an exact counterpart in the latent dispositions of personality
or in the perceptions or impressions of others. Kohler 89 pp. 261
ff, and Ichheiser 76, 77 have shown that the problem qf the
interrelation of these three levels is very intricate although each
in itself shows a certain struc tured quality, the central, the
motor, and the phenomenal organizations may not strictly
correspond. Ichheiser be lieves, for example, that there is much
greater unity in the impressions gained from a persons acts than
there is among the acts themselves, and he gives reasons why the
ethical dispositional self and the aesthetic expressed self may
likewise be at variance. Hence, in approaching consistency from the
side of ex pression, we cannot claim to cover in full the problem
of organization of personality. Consistency may be, and actually
has been, studied on both the other levels. Re search on the
internal consistency of attitude scales and tests for traits attack
the problem from the point of view of inner JJ dispositions. The
experiments of Wolff and Arnheim cf. pp. 11-15 study unity from
theside of impression. A synthesis of all these approaches would
contribute much to an understanding of the nature of organization
in personality, but in the present preliminary state of research,
investigators may be excused for pre ferring to confine themselves
to one level. Jhe failure of experimenters and writers, however, to
recognize other levels than the one on which they work, often leads
to INTRODUCTION vii restricted and inadequate definitions of
personality...
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