Definition
Functional autonomy is part of a dynamic approach to personality psychology which allows for the uniqueness of personal motives (Allport 1937, 1961). The concept of functional autonomy is a clear departure from psychoanalysis, wherein all motivations stem from either infantile biological drives or sexual drives (Allport 1937). Instead, adult motives are considerably varied and self-sustaining, with new motives growing out from, and replacing precursor systems and motives, thus becoming functionally independent of those precursor systems (Allport 1937). Essentially, functional autonomy refers to “any acquired system of motivation in which the tensions involved are not of the same kind as the antecedent tensions from which the acquired system developed” (Allport 1961, p. 229). Furthermore, Allport (1961) argues that there were two...
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References
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Tarabay, C., Teunisse, A.K. (2018). Functional Autonomy. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1381-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1381-1
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