Henry Murray

Henry Murray ( 1893 – 1988 )

Personology

                Henry Murray’s theory was strongly influenced by Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. However, for Murray, the id includes impulses that are acceptable to the self and society. The super-ego is an internalized subsystem that acts within the idealized picture of the self. It is a set of personal ambitions that the individual aspires for.

                The first principle in Murray’s personology, which is the study of personality, is that personality is rooted in the brain. The individual’s cerebral physiology guides and governs every aspect of the personality. Everything on which personality depends exists in the brain, including feeling states, conscious and unconscious memories, beliefs, attitudes, fears and values.

                The second principle involves the idea of tension reduction. Murray agreed with Freud and other theorists that people act to reduce physiological personology and psychological tension, but this does not mean we strive for a tension-free state. It is the process of acting to reduce tension that is satisfying, according to Murray, rather than the attainment of a condition free of all tension. Murray believed  that a tension-free existence is itself a source of distress. We need excitement, activity and movement, of all which involve increasing, not decreasing, tension. We generate tension in order to have the satisfaction of reducing it. Murray believed the ideal state of human nature involves always having a certain level of tension to reduce.

                A third principle is that an individual’s personality continues to develop over time and is constructed of all the events that occur during the course of that person’s life. Therefore, the study of a person’s past is of great importance. Murray emphasized the uniqueness of each person while recognizing similarities among all people. As he saw it, an individual human being is like no other person, like some other people, and like every other person.

                He also theorized different stages of personality. These are 1.) childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, 2) middle years, 3) senescence (final era). During the first stage, new structural compositions emerge and multiply.  The middle years are marked by conservative recompositions of the already emerged structures and functions. During the final stage, senescence, the capacity to form new compositions and recompositions decreases while the atrophy of existing forms and functions increases. Within each period, there are numerous smaller programs of behavioral and experiential events that run under the guidance of genetically controlled maturational processes.

                When the effects of infantile experiences upon later behavior are clear and extensive, the individual is said to have a complex. Murray mentioned five complexes: Claustral complexes which represent residuals of the uterine or prenatal experience of the individual; oral complexes represent derivatives of early feeding experiences; anal complexes are derived from events associated with the act of defecating and bowel training; urethral complexes are associated with excessive ambition and distorted sense of self-esteem; lastly, genital or castration complex that is when fear grows out of masturbation and parental punishment.

                He also categorized different types of needs: Primary and secondary needs; Overt and convert needs; Focal and diffused needs; Proactive and reactive needs; and lastly Modal and effect needs. These are the characteristics of the following:

1.       Primary needs – physical satisfaction

Secondary needs – characterized by a lack of focal connection with physical satisfaction.

2.       Overt needs – manifest needs

Covert needs – latent needs

3.       Focal needs – linked to specific classes of environmental objects

Diffused needs – so generalized that they apply to almost every environmental setting.

4.       Proactive needs – are those from within as a result of something in the person

Reactive needs – are activated as a result of some environmental event

5.       Modal need – involve doing something with a certain degree of excellence or quality.

Effect needs – are those that lead to a desired state or end.

                Murray also used the word “press”. The press is an environmental force that interacts with needs to determine behavior. Press is linked to persons or objects that have direct implications on an individuals effort to satisfy his or her striving. There are two kinds: alpha press wherein environmental objects are seen as they exist in reality while beta press are environmental objects that are perceived and interpreted by an individual.

                He also talked about “thema”and “needs”. Thema is an interactive behavioral unit. It involves the interaction between the press and the need that is operating. The needs explain the motivation and direction of behavior. He created 20 needs of people. He also made the Thematic Apperception Test.

                Murray believed that human behavior may be understood through the processes of satisfying motives and needs. Personality can be described generally in terms of these needs and the ways they interact with environmental forces.