Lecture
American psychologist Henry Alexander Murray (1893-1988) developed a theory of personality that included motives and needs. By need, Murray meant "a potentiality or readiness to respond in a certain way under certain given conditions" (1938).
Personality theories based on needs and motives suggest that our personality is a reflection of behavior controlled by needs.
While some needs are superficial, temporary, and changeable in nature, others are deeply rooted in our nature. According to Murray, these needs — psychogenic needs — function mainly at the unconscious level, but play an important role in shaping our personality.
H. Murray's registry of human needs
Murray provides a fairly systematic registry that classifies an individual's needs according to four aspects: primary and secondary needs (whether they have a physiological origin or not); positive and negative needs (whether the object attracts or repels); overt and covert needs (whether the need is triggered by actual or imagined behavior); conscious and unconscious needs (whether they are connected with a person's introspective processes). Based on these categories, Murray derives 37 needs.
Murray divided needs into two groups:
Of course, the second group is not fundamental in nature and plays no role in survival, but these needs are of great importance for a person's psychological comfort and well-being.
Below is an incomplete list of needs identified by Murray and his colleagues. According to Murray, these needs are present in everyone, but each of us strives to satisfy them only up to a certain level.
1. Ambition needs:
2. Material needs:
3. Power needs:
4. Affection needs:
5. Information needs:
Each need is important in its own right, but Murray also believed that needs can be interrelated, can support one another, and can come into conflict with one another. For example, the need for dominance may conflict with the need for affiliation, when excessive control by a person drives away friends, family, and potential romantic partners. Murray also believed that environmental factors play a huge role in how these psychogenic needs are reflected in behavior. Murray called these external forces environmental press.
Other psychologists have subjected Murray's concept of psychogenic needs to close scrutiny. For example, research findings on the need for achievement have shown that people with a high level of this need tend to choose more challenging tasks. Studies on the need for affiliation have found that people with a high level of this need tend to belong to large social groups, spend more time on social interaction, and are most likely to suffer from loneliness when forced to abstain from social contact.
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