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IAN A. M. NICHOLSON Inventing Personality: Gordon Allport and the Science of Selfhood Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2003, 288 pages (ISBN 1-55798-929-X, US$39.95 Hardcover)
Reviewed by ROBERT GIFFORD
Gordon Allport was not what he appeared. Of course, to me as a graduate student who was required to read his classic handbook chapter on the history of social psychology, he merely appeared as an eminence grise from the past, without body or soul. Ian A. M. Nicholson's masterful new half-biography (the book, unfortunately, covers only the first half of Allport's career, to 1938) certainly fills in the complexity of Allport's soul. Of his body, I am less sure.
For someone who later achieved the justifiable status as the person who was most responsible for legitimizing the scientific study of personality, Allport's early life was filled with unusual self-doubt. As a child, he felt feminine and weak compared to his muscular older brothers, including Floyd, who of course attained stature as a leading psychologist himself. The four Allport brothers were raised by a strong-willed physician and his missionary-oriented wife in small-town Ohio.
From an early age, Gordon rejected "boy culture" in favour of softer pursuits. As a young man, he had such close relationships with other men, including "bare bodies churning the limpid waters" during starlight swims, "lusty" singing, and rowing in "beautiful, secluded spots," that a modern observer would certainly wonder about his sexual orientation. Nicholson concludes that Allport was engaging in "manly love" typical of the time, in which very close relations between men remained asexual.
The tender side of Allport was relevant to his career and accomplishments. It would not be unreasonable to...