HENRY MURRAYâ€™S PERSONOLOGY:Need, Levels of Analysis, Thema

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Personality Psychology PSY 405

Lesson 30

HENRY MURRAY'S PERSONOLOGY

The term Personology was used by Murray which refers to understanding of an individual in its full

complexity.

1- Personality is an abstraction formulated by a theorist.

2- It refers to series of events that ideally span over life time.

3-It reflects novel, unique, recurrent and enduring patterns of behaviors.

4- Personality is located in brain.

5-Personality functions are reduce conflicts, satisfy individual needs and to make plans for attainment of

future goals.

Example: (A producer)

1-His or her personality is an abstraction.

2- It refers to series of events that ideally span over life time from childhood to adulthood.

3-It reflects novel, unique , recurrent and enduring patterns of behaviors.-his education and training.

4- Personality is located in brain -imagination, perception.

5-Personality functions are reduce conflicts, satisfy individual needs and to make plans for attainment of

future goals to be incharge of entire productions of VU-TV.

Core Concepts

1-Definition of Personality

2-Proceedings and Serials

3-Serial Programs and Schedules

4-Ability and Achievement

5-The Dynamics of Personality

Need

Press

Tension Reduction

Thema

Need Integrate

Unity-Thema

1-Need:

2- Types of Needs

Primary and Secondary

ii)

Overt needs and Covert needs

iii)

Focal needs and Diffuse needs

iv)

Proactive needs and Reactive needs.

Process activity, Modal needs, and Effect needs

3- Interrelation of Needs

4- Levels of Analysis

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5-Tension Reduction

6-Thema

7-Need Integrate

8-Vector-Value Scheme

9- Genetic-Maturational Determinants

10-Learning

11-Uniqueness

12-Unconscious Processes

13-The Socialization Process

14- Characteristic Research And Research Methods

1-Intensive Study of Small Numbers of Normal Subjects

ii)

2-The Diagnostic Council

iii)

3-Instruments of Personality Measurement

iv)

4-Representative Studies

5-Current Research

vi)

6-McClelland and Social Motives

Summary

Evaluation

Biographical Sketch

He was born in New York in 1893. He graduated from Havard and enrolled in embryological research,

Then he conducted biochemical research in at Cambridge which secured his place in Ph.D in Biochemistry.

Then he turned to Psychology because he by sheer chance had an opportunity to read Jung's book

Psychological Types. He requested Jung to allow him to visit him and he had an opportunity to spend three

weeks with him. Then he met Christiana Morgan and married her and then it was a total commitment and

love relationship with Psychology. He died in 1988 at the 95.

Definition of Personality

He gave a number of definitions of personality at different times but in all the definitions he seems to give

adequate weight to history of the person, to abstract nature of personality and the physiological processes

underlying the psychological.

Proceedings and Serials

Proceedings refer to subject object or subject subject interactions of sufficient duration to include the

significant elements of any given behavioral sequence.

The serial refer to a single unit or formulation of behavior taking place over a longer period of time such as

marriage, friendship or a career in business.

Serial Programs and Schedules

These are orderly arrangements of sub-goals that are stretch into future say for months or years

Example

An individual say Ambreen wants to become a doctor ( its her goal) now her goal requires years of study

and special training so she develops a set of sub-goals each of which will play a part in bringing her closer

to getting a medical degree.

The Schedules refer to devices for reducing conflict among competing needs and if one is efficient in

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constructing Schedules one can reduce the number and intensity of one's conflicts.

Ability and Achievement

These are of central importance for the individual. In almost all of his research he has appraised subjects in

terms of ability, achievements and leadership.

Murray focuses on unconscious forces and childhood events as determinants of behavior. This acceptance

formed the base on which he erected his own system of personality.

In a later revision of his theory, Murray (1959) stressed the more positive establishments of the personality.

A person needs to be creative and imaginative, to compose and construct if he or she is to remain

psychologically healthy. Creative imagination may be the strongest feature of a personality and the one that

is often given the least opportunity to express itself.

5- The Dynamics of Personality

It is in the representation of human striving, seeking, desiring, wishing, and willing that Murray's

contributions to psychological theory have been most distinctive. One might fairly say that his position is

primarily a motivational psychology. This focusing upon the motivational process is perfectly congruent

with Murray's conviction that the study of a person's directional tendencies holds the key to understanding

human behavior: "the most important thing to discover about an individual. . . is the superordinate

directionality (or directionalities) of his activities, whether mental, verbal, or physical" (Murray 1951 b, p.

276).

In considering Murray's theory of motivation a discussion of such related concepts as press, tension

reduction, thema, need integrate, unity-thema.

1-Need

A need is a construct (a convenient fiction or hypothetical concept) which stands for a force. . . in the brain

region, a force which organizes perception, apperception, interjection, conation and action in such a way as

to transform in a certain direction an existing, unsatisfying situation. A need is sometimes provoked

directly by internal processes of a certain kind. . . but, more frequently (when in a state of readiness) by the

occurrence of one of a few commonly effective presses [environmental forces]. . . . Thus, it manifests itself

by leading the organism to search for or to avoid encountering or, when encountered, to attend and respond

to certain kinds of press. . . . Each need is characteristically accompanied by a particular feeling or emotion

and tends to use certain modes . . . to further its trend. It may be weak or intense, momentary or enduring.

But usually it persists and gives rise to a certain course of overt behavior (or fantasy), which. . . changes the

initiating circumstance in such a way as to bring about an end situation which stills (appeases or satisfies)

the organism. (Murray, 1938, pp. 123-124)

Murray used the intensive study of 11 small number of subjects to arrive at a tentative list of twenty needs.

Although this list has been subjected to considerable modification and elaboration, the original twenty

needs remain highly representative. These variables were presented in Explorations in personality (1938)

with an outline of pertinent facts concerning each need, including questionnaire items for measuring the

need, accompanying emotions, and illustrations of the need.

Types of Needs

Different Types of Needs

1-Primary and Secondary

First of all, there is the distinction between primary and secondary needs. The primary, or viscerogenic,

needs are linked to characteristic organic events and typically refer to physical satisfactions. Illustrative of

these are the needs for air, water, food, sex, lactation, urination, and defecation. The secondary, or

psychogenic, needs are presumably derived from the primary needs and are characterized by a lack of

focal connection with any specific organic processes or physical satisfactions. Illustrative of these are the

needs for acquisition, construction, achievement, recognition, exhibition, dominance, autonomy, and

deference.

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2-Overt needs and Covert Needs

Second, we have the distinction between overt needs and covert needs, that is, manifest needs and latent

needs. Here Murray was differentiating between those needs that are permitted more or less direct and

immediate expression and those that are generally restrained, inhibited, or repressed. One might say that

overt needs typically express themselves in motor behavior while covert needs usually belong to the world

of fantasy or dreams. The existence of covert needs is in large part the outcome of the development of

internalized, structures (superego) that define proper or acceptable conduct. Certain needs cannot be given

free expression without violating the conventions or standards that have been taken over from society by

means of the parents, and these needs often operate at a covert level.

3-Focal needs and Diffuse needs

Third, there are focal needs and diffuse needs. Some needs are closely Iinked to limited classes of

environmental objects whereas others are so generalized as to be applicable in almost any environmental

setting. Murray pointed out that unless there is some unusual fixation a need is always subject to change in

the objects toward which it is directed and the manner in which these are approached. That is, the sphere of

environmental events to which the need is relevant may be broadened or narrowed, and the instrumental

acts linked to the need may be increased or decreased. If the need is firmly attached to an unsuitable object,

this is called a fixation and is customarily considered pathological. However, as Murray indicated, the

inability of the need to show any enduring object preference, jumping from object to object, may be just as

pathological as a fixation.

4-Proactive needs and Reactive Needs

Fourth, there are proactive needs and reactive needs. The proactive need is one that is largely determined

from within, one that becomes "spontaneously kinetic" as the result of something in the person rather than

something in the environment. Reactive needs, on the other hand, are activated as a result of, or in response

to, some environmental event. The distinction here is largely that between a response elicited by

appropriate stimulation and a response produced in the absence of any important stimulus variation. Murray

used these concepts also to describe interaction between two or more persons where usually one individual

can be identified as the proactor (initiates the interaction, asks the questions, in general provides the

stimulus to which the other must respond) and another individual can be identified as the reactor (reacts to

the stimuli provided by the proactor).

5-Process activity, Modal needs, and Effect needs

Fifth, there is the distinction between process activity, modal needs, and effect needs. American

psychologists with their conventional emphasis upon function and utility have consistently emphasized

effect needs-needs that lead to some desired state or end result. Murray, however, has insisted upon the

equal importance of process activity and modal needs-tendencies to perform certain acts for the sake of the

performance itself. The random uncoordinated, nonfunctional operation of various processes (vision,

hearing, thought, speech, and so forth) that occurs from birth on is called process activity. This is "sheer

function pleasure," doing for the sake of doing. Modal needs, on the other hand, involve doing something

with a certain degree of excellence or Quality. It is still the activity that is sought and enjoyed, but it is now

rewarding only when it is performed with a certain degree of perfection.

3- Interrelation of Needs

It is evident that needs do not operate in complete isolation from each other, and in situations where two or

more needs are aroused simultaneously and motivate incompatible responses, it is the prepotent need (such

as pain, hunger, thirst) that ordinarily will be translated into action as prepotent needs cannot be postponed.

A minimal satisfaction of such needs is necessary before other needs can operate. In his investigation of

personality Murray habitually employed a set of concepts to represent conflict involving important needs.

Thus, it is customary in his research to secure estimates for each subject of the intensity of conflict in

certain key areas, for example, autonomy versus compliance, achievement versus pleasure.

Under certain circumstances multiple needs may be gratified by a single course of action. In instances

where the outcome of different needs is behaviorally the same, Murray spoke of fusion of needs. Another

important kind of relation among needs is referred to by the concept of subsidiation. A subsidiary need is

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one that operates in the service of another; for instance, the individual may show aggressive needs, but

these may be serving only to facilitate acquisitive needs. In any instance where the operation of one need is

merely instrumental to the gratification of another, we speak of the first need as subsidiary to the second.

Tracing chains of subsidiation can be of great value in revealing the dominant or root motives of the

individual.

4- Levels of Analysis

It is important to recognize that Murray's need represents a generalized construct. He drew a distinction

between need and aim where aim represents the specific goal adopted by the person as an expression of the

need. Murray (1951b) used the example of a general need for dominance and a specific aim of being

elected the mayor of a city.

Murray also employed Freud's concept of cathexis to refer to the power of an object to evoke a positive or

negative need in a person. He claimed that "a personality is largely revealed in the objects that it cathects. .

. . In this fashion a reasonably adequate portrait of the social personality may be composed" (1938, p. 106).

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