Advanced Theories of Personality in Contemporary Society:

 Rollo May
 Gordon Allport
Reference: Feist, J., Feist, G., & Roberts, T.-A. (2017). Theories of
personality (9th ed.). NY: McGraw Hill.
 2

ROLLO REESE MAY (1909-1994)

• Born in 1909 in Ada, Ohio
• Attributed his interest in psychology to his troubled family life and
the discordant relationship of his parents.
Professional Life
• Psychoanalyst, existential psychotherapist, humanistic psychologist
• 20th century psychologist who played central roles both in developing and popularizing
existential psychology. He was a founder of humanistic psychology,
Professional Life 3
o American existential psychoanalyst who popularized a
humanistic, spiritually based psychology.
o As an undergraduate, studied English at Michigan State and
earned his bachelor‘s degree from Oberlin College in Ohio.

o Taught English in Salonika, Greece, and while there, he

traveled to attend seminars presented by Alfred Adler.

o Back in the states, May earned a bachelor‘s degree in divinity

in 1938, and served briefly as a minister before enrolling at
Columbia College to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology.
o May served as a counselor, faculty member, and fellow,
respectively, at the William Alanson White Institute in New York
City beginning in 1943 and he started his own practice in 1946.
o He is well known for many of his books
o May is often associated with existentialist philosophy as well as 4
humanistic psychology. Though, in many of his interviews he held
a strong stance against the objective labeling of humanity,
which he says is a cognitive by product of the industrial revolution
and capitalism. This rejection of labeling played a huge role in his
approach to therapy.
o May focused heavily on the phenomena of both anxiety and
guilt, these of which he held as two of the most important forces
in human evolution and cognitive advancement.

o May helped to introduce existential psychology in 1958, when he

collaborated with Ernest Angel and Henri Ellenberger to edit the
book Existence. May was heavily influenced by other philosophical
theories, such as humanism. His primary aim was to understand
the underlying mechanisms and reality behind human
suffering and crises; he did this by combining elements of
humanism with existentialism in his approach to therapy
 View of human Nature
5

Rollo May®
• May saw people as complex beings, capable of both tremendous good and immense evil.
• .May believed that people, within the confines of their destiny, have the ability to make
free choices.
• People generally have much more potential for freedom than they realize. However, free
choice does not come without anxiety. Choice demands the courage to confront one‘s
destiny, to look within and to recognize the evil as well as the good.
• Each of us has a particular goal or destiny that we must discover and challenge or else
risk alienation and neurosis
• By their nature, people have enormous capacity for self-awareness, but often that
capacity remains fallow. People sometimes lack the courage to face their destiny or to
recognize the evil that exists within their culture as well as within themselves.
 Rollo May: Humanistic/Existential Theory 6
Background of Existentialism
• Modern existential psychology has roots in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard
(1813– 1855)was concerned with the increasing trend in postindustrial societies
toward the dehumanization of people.

• He opposed any attempt to see people merely as objects, but at the same time, he
opposed the view that subjective perceptions are one‘s only reality.

• Kierkegaard was concerned with both the experiencing person and the person‘s
experience. He wished to understand people as they exist in the world as
thinking, active, and willing beings. Kierkegaard, like later existentialists,
emphasized a balance between freedom and responsibility
 Existence vs. Essence 7
• existence takes precedence over essence.
• Existence means to emerge or to become; essence implies
a static immutable substance. Existence suggests process;
essence refers to a product. Existence is associated with
growth and change; essence signifies stagnation and finality.

What is Existentialism?

o Existentialists affirm that people’s essence is their power to

continually redefine themselves through the choices they
make.
o According to Kierkegaard, people are both subjective and
objective and must search for truth by living active and
authentic lives.
An Existentialist’s perspective: 8

o People search for some meaning to their lives. They ask

(though not always consciously) the important questions
concerning their being: Who am I? Is life worth living? Does it
have a meaning? How can I realize my humanity?

o Existentialists hold that ultimately each of us is

responsible for who we are and what we become.
We cannot blame parents, teachers, employers, God,
or circumstances.

o Existentialists are basically antitheoretical. To them,

theories further dehumanize people and render
them as objects.

Basic Concepts of Existentialism
• being-in-the-world
• The basic unity of person and
environment is expressed in
the German word Dasein,
meaning to exist there. Hence,
Dasein literally means to exist
in the world and is generally
written as being-in-the-world
• The hyphens in this term imply
a oneness of subject and
object, of person and world.
9
• Nonbeing
• Being-in-the-world
necessitates an awareness of
self as a living, emerging
being. This awareness, in
turn, leads to the dread of not
being: that is, nonbeing or
nothingness. May (1958a)
 10

• Three modes of being-in-the-world

• Umwelt, one‘s relationship with
the world of things;
• Mitwelt, one‘s relationship with the
world of people; and
• Eigenwelt, one‘s relationship with
oneself.

• Healthy People Live

Simultaneously in Umwelt,
Mitwelt, and Eigenwelt

Alienation
• (1) separation from nature,
• (2) lack of meaningful
interpersonal relations,
• (3) alienation from one‘s
authentic self.
11
Healthy people live in Umwelt,
Mitwelt, and Eigenwelt
simultaneously. They adapt to the
natural world, relate to others as
humans, and have a keen
awareness of what all these
experiences mean to them (May,
1958a)
 12

Nonbeing
• ..the dread of not being: that is,
nonbeing or nothingness. May
(1958a) wrote that to grasp what it
means to exist, one needs to grasp
the fact that he might not exist, that
he treads at every moment on the
sharp edge of possible annihilation
and can never escape the fact that
death will arrive at some unknown
moment in the future. (pp. 47–48)

Anxiety
• ―.. the apprehension cued off by a
threat to some value that an
individual holds essential to his
existence as a personality. The
threat may be to physical or
psychological life (death, or loss of
freedom) or may be some other
value which the individual identifies
with his existence (patriotism, the
love of another person, success,
etc.‖ (May, 1950).
13
• May (1958a) defined anxiety
as ―the subjective state of the
individual‘s becoming aware
that his [or her] existence can
be destroyed, that he can
become ‗nothing‘‖ (p. 50)
• It exists when one confronts
the issue of fulfilling one‘s
potentialities.
 Anxiety
• Rollo May: ―Yes, I‘m saying that
exactly. Anxiety is inescapable,
anxiety is a part of all our lives.
Anxiety is the source of all
creativity.
• . Without anxiety we would not
be able to have the civilization
we now have.‖ (May, 1978).
• Normal Anxiety 14
No one can escape the effects of
anxiety. To grow and to change
one’s values means to
experience constructive or
normal anxiety.
―Well, normal anxiety is the anxiety
we all have. The anxiety of our day
to day existence, the anxiety that
goes with our love for other people
and this is appropriate to the
situation. We are anxious about the
atom bomb, about war, losing love,
pollution and these sort of problems.
 Normal Anxiety 15

• ―..And secondly it doesn‘t

require repression, we don‘t
have to block it off into our
unconscious, and thirdly
normal anxiety can be used
creatively, it can be directed
towards new discoveries in life,
and new creative possibilities
and also normal anxiety does
not lead to symptoms.‖ (May,
1978).
 16

Neurotic Anxiety
May (1967) defined
neurotic anxiety as “a
reaction which is
disproportionate to the • Neurotic anxiety is experienced
threat, involves whenever values become transformed
repression and other into dogma. To be absolutely right in
forms of intrapsychic
one‘s beliefs provides temporary
conflict, and is managed
by various kinds of
security, but it is security ―bought at
blocking-off of activity and the price of surrendering [one‘s]
awareness” (p. 80). opportunity for fresh learning and new
growth‖ (May, 1967, p. 80).

Guilt
• Anxiety arises when people •
are faced with the problem of
fulfilling their potentialities.
• Guilt arises when people deny
their potentialities, fail to
accurately perceive the needs
of fellow humans, or remain
oblivious to their dependence
on the natural world (May,
1958a).
17
Intentionality
The structure that gives meaning to
experience and allows people to
make decisions about the future is
called intentionality (May, 1969b).
Without intentionality, people could
neither choose nor act on their
choice. Action implies intentionality,
just as intentionality implies action;
the two are inseparable.
 18

Care, Love, WILL

• Care is an active process, the
opposite of apathy. ―Care is a
state in which something does
matter‖ (May, 1969b, p. 289)
May (1969b) called will ―the
• May (1953) defined love as a
capacity to organize one‘s
―delight in the presence of the self so that movement in a
other person and an affirming certain direction or toward a
of [that person‘s] value and certain goal may take place‖
development as much as (p. 218).
one‘s own‖ (p. 206).
 19

Union of Love and Will

• Our task, said May (1969b, 1990b), is
to unite love and will. This task is not
easy, but it is possible. Neither
blissful love nor self-serving will have
a role in the uniting of love and will.
For the mature person, both love
and will mean a reaching out
toward another person. Both
involve care, both necessitate
choice, both imply action, and both
require responsibility
 20

Forms of Love

Freedom and Destiny
• ―Freedom consists of how you
confront your limits, how you
engage your destiny in day-to-
day living.‖
21
• May (1967) said that ―freedom
is the individual’s capacity
to know that he is the
determined one‖ (p. 175).
The word ―determined‖ in this
definition is synonymous with
what May (1981) would later
call destiny.
Forms of Freedom
• Existential freedom is
freedom of action, • ‗For May, destiny was still a factor in our choices and the
freedom to move
about, to pursue
tangible goals.
• Essential freedom is
freedom of being,
freedom to think, to plan,
to hope.
Destiny- 22
Death- ultimate destiny
outcomes of our lives. In Freedom and Destiny May wrote
that to be truly free an individual must also accept the
sometimes absurd limitations imposed by destiny. This
expresses a difference between what we might want to do
and what we can really do. We are destined to die…
which sets some specific limits on existence. However,
when and how we are to die is not predetermined,
according to May‘s philosophy.
 23

Power of Myth
• Myths are not falsehoods; rather,
they are conscious and
unconscious belief systems that
provide explanations for personal
and social problems. Myth of Oedipus complex

From earliest times and in diverse civilizations, people have found

meaning in their lives by the myths they share with others in their
culture. Myths are the stories that unify a society; ―they are essential
to the process of keeping our souls alive and bringing us new
meaning in a difficult and often meaningless world‖ (May, 1991, p. 20)

Psychopathology
• According to May, apathy and
emptiness—not anxiety and
guilt—are the malaise of
modern times.
• People feel alienated
• May saw psychopathology as
lack of communication
24
Goal of Psychotherapy
• May believed that the purpose
of psychotherapy is to set
people free.
• Enables patients to become
more aware of themselves
and to live more fully in their
own world (Eigenwelt).
Evaluation of Rollo May’ s Theory 25

( Existential- Humanistic)
• Emphasizes Freedom and will; not deterministic
• May was not pessimistic. He saw the present age as
merely a plateau in humanity‘s quest for new
symbols and new myths that will engender the
species with renewed spirit
• favored teleology over causality
• May assumed a moderate stance on the issue of
conscious versus unconscious forces in personality
development
 Critic of May 26
• Existentialism in general and May‘s psychology in particular have been criticized as being anti-
intellectual and antitheoretical.
• 1st : Generated scientific research? Low.

• 2nd: The theory is too amorphous to suggest specific hypotheses that could either confirm or disconfirm
its major concepts.

• 3rd: does May‘s philosophically oriented psychology help organize what is currently known about human
nature? On this criterion, May would receive an average rating, he decided to neglect several important
topics in human personality: for example, development, cognition, learning, and motivation.

• 4th As a practical guide to action, May‘s theory is quite weak. May gathered his views more from
philosophical than from scientific sources.

• 5th internal consistency– did not provide operational definitions

• Parsimony- moderate rating- awkward and cumbersome but he dealt with complex issues and did not
attempt to oversimplify human personality
 The Trait Approach: The Genetic
Allport’s Approach to Personality Theory 27

Gordon Allport
Personality

(1897-1967)
• Gordon Allport was a 20th century psychologist who
studied personality and personality traits.

• More than any other personality theorist, Gordon Allport

emphasized the uniqueness of the individual
• Allport also advocated an eclectic approach to theory
building.
Allport argued against particularism, or theories that emphasize a
single aspect of personality. (Allport, 1968, p. 23)
Allport’s Approach to Personality Theory 28

Answers to these three interrelated questions reveal

Allport’s approach to personality theory:
(1) What is personality?
(2) What is the role of conscious motivation in personality
theory?
(3) What are the characteristics of the psychologically healthy
person?
 29

What Is Personality?
“the dynamic organization within the individual of those
psychophysical systems that determine his unique
adjustments to his environment” (Allport, 1937, p. 48). In 1961,
he had changed the last phrase to read “that determine his
characteristic behavior and thought” (Allport, 1961, p. 28).
View of human Nature 30

• He believed that our fates and our traits are not

determined by unconscious motives originating in
early childhood but by conscious choices we make in the
present.

• Because people have the potential to learn a variety

of responses in many situations, psychological growth
can take place at any age.

• Heredity, environment, and the nature of the organism

are important; but people are essentially proactive
and free to follow the prevailing dictates of society or to
chart their own life course.
What Is the Role of Conscious Motivation? 31

 Healthy adults are generally aware of what they are

doing and their reasons for doing it.

 “This experience taught me that

depth psychology, for all its
merits, may plunge too deep,
and that psychologists would
do well to give full recognition
to manifest motives before
probing the unconscious”
(Allport, 1967, p. 8).
Allport’s Train story
32
 Structure of Personality 33
- Individual characteristics

 Common Traits -general characteristics held in common

people

-Provide means within a given culture can

be compared to one another

 Personal Dispositions -Peculiar to the individual

- individual; common traits are shared
by several people.
Motivation 34
Levels of Personal Dispositions
35

Source: Kendra, C. (2019). The Trait Theory of Personality.Verywelllmind.com

https://www.verywellmind.com/trait-theory-of-personality-2795955
36
37
 38

Self –sustaining
needs

Criterion for Functional

autonomy

• A present motive is
functionally
autonomous to the
extent that seeks new
goals.
 39

• Allport used morphogenic procedures, such as

diaries and letters, which stress patterns of behavior
within a single individual.
40
 41

Thanks!

The End.
Feel free to ask, add more info and
share insights. (=
Prepared by: Keziah A. Lagarto
Other References/Sources: 42

• Feist, J., Feist, G., & Roberts, T.-A. (2008). Theories of personality (7th ed.). NY: McGraw Hill.
• Schultz D., & Schultz, S.E. (2005). Theories of personality (8th ed.). Wadsworth. Cengage
learning.
• Goodtherapy.org. (2015). Rollo May. Goodtherapy.org. https://www.goodtherapy.org/famous-
psychologists/rollo-may.html

• Alic, M. (2021). Rollo May. Psychology.jrank.org. https://psychology.jrank.org/pages/399/Rollo-

May.html?fbclid=IwAR1PtITlzMld-S4Sv40WFierZPbCm9tokB5ezavJ5n2oisox0LxaK1oBnac

• Arts of thought.com. (2018) . Anxiety’s Purpose, and How to Harness It: Rollo May, PhD. Arts of
thought.com. https://artsofthought.com/2018/05/17/rollo-may-anxiety/

• Goodtherapy.org. (2015). Gordon Allport. Goodtherapy.org. https://www.goodtherapy.org/famous-

psychologists/gordon-
allport.html?fbclid=iwar1m6bftzir5wacjlvnsuxplm2ukwwqetivfdwnqi8i0ctveobryesgnrlo

• https://slidetodoc.com/presentation_image/2df59bd6a05ef461e9b6644ae0a48391/image-19.jpg