The article below may contain offensive and/or incorrect content.
Published by the interdisciplinary Social Science Research Council (SSRC), Allport's 1942 monograph on The Use of Personal Documents in Psychological Science (Allport, 1942) arose from the intersection of 2 sets of concerns: an extended effort by the SSRC during the 1920s and 1930s to chart the boundaries of valid research methodologies in the social sciences, and Allport's insistence that psychology must account scientifically for individual persons in course of their actual lives. This historical review details a crisis that emerged in the late 1930s within SSRC-sponsored research concerning whether investigators could even use nonquantitative sources such as personal documents as scientific data. Allport's own early scholarly agenda embraced German-influenced case study methods and the emerging field of personality psychology. This report outlines how, as Allport's influence grew in the 1930s, he became a central, insistent, but relatively lonely voice rejecting psychological research methods that were exclusively experimental and quantitative. In this context, the Committee on Appraisal of Research of the SSRC accepted Allport's self-nomination in early 1941 to assess how such data had been and could be used in psychology to achieve reliable and valid scientific results. This review traces how he went about the assignment and the uncertain evaluation he gave of his own work as it reached publication. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)





Previous Site

Departments
Authors
Libraries
Current Articles
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: Scientific Meeting » Workshop: Gene-based Therapeutics for Rare Genetic Neurodevelopmental Psychiatric Disorders
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: Guiding gender-atypical kids through puberty
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: Pandemic worsens child mental health crisis
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: Being heard is more important to some people than following COVID-19 regulations
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: Workaholics at a greater risk of depression
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: Can kids have seasonal affective disorder?
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: Video » NIMH Expert Dr. Krystal Lewis Discusses Managing Stress & Anxiety
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: Scientific Meeting » NIMH Livestream Event: Managing Stress and Anxiety
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: A third of Americans don't see systemic racism as a barrier to good health
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: The challenge of pandemic fatigue is hitting people hard
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: How and why to take a break from the news
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: What brain imaging tells us about decluttering our minds
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: Blog Post » Showing Support for Basic Researchers
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: How to reduce news-related stress for better mental health
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: Five myths about loneliness
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: How to help someone struggling with suicidal ideation
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: Better sleep hygiene is crucial when you're anxious
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: How to remotivate kids for more distance learning
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: How to set goals you’ll actually achieve
- Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: To 'keep sharp' this year, keep learning