Republic of the Philippines

Laguna State Polytechnic University

SAN PABLO CITY CAMPUS
Del Remedio, San Pablo City

CG 601: PERSONALITY CONCEPTS AND THEORIES

HENRY MURRAY ‘S
PERSONOLOGY
MELANIE P. HERNANDEZ
 BIOGRAPHY
 MURRAY’S LIFE WORK :PERSONOLOGY
 PRINCIPLES OF PERSONOLOGY
 DIVISIONS OF PERSONOLOGY
 HUMAN NEEDS
 ASSESSMENT OF MURRAY’S THEORY
 THE THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST
(TAT)
 THE OSS ASSESSMENT PROGRAM
 REFLECTION
 SUMMARY
BIOGRAPHY
 BIOGRAPHY
• He developed a theory of human personality
based on an individual’s inborn needs and his
relationship with the physical and social
environment.

• He received the Scientific Contribution Award

from Psychological Association and the Gold
Medal Award for lifetime achievement from the
American Psychological Foundation.

• Murray died from pneumonia at the age of 95

on June 23, 1988.
PERSONOLOGY  Personality is a jungle without
boundaries.
 Murray used the term “personology”
to describe his study of human and
individual differences in personality.
 Personology is a trend
within personality psychology
created by Henry A. Murray in the
1930s. It is an idiographic approach
to personality, focusing on the
interaction between psychological
needs and presses coming from the
individual's environment
 MURRAY’S LIFE WORK
PERSONOLOGY
• Shortened from “Personality
Psychology”
• Personology is simple in structure but
complex in detail.
• Murray used the term “personology to
describe his study of human lives and
individual differences in personality.
• No brain, No personality.
 MURRAY’S LIFE WORK
PRINCIPLES OF PERSONOLOGY
• 1ST PRINCIPLE: Our personality is rooted in
the brain. (No brain, No Personality.)
• 2nd PRINCIPLE: People act to reduce the
physiological and physiological tension: but
does not mean that they strive for tension
free state.
• 3rd PRINCIPLE: 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.
 MURRAY’S LIFE WORK
PRINCIPLES PERSONOLOGY

4th PRINCIPLE: Personality changes and

progresses; it is not fixed and static.
5th PRINCIPLE: Each person is unique
but there are similarities among all
people. An individual human being is
like no other person, like some other
people, and like every other person.
DIVISIONS OF PERSONOLOGY
Murray divided personality in three parts.
For this, he used Freud terms but these
differ in interpretation.

ID
SUPEREGO
EGO
 DIVISIONS OF PERSONOLOGY
• ID
• Murray was influenced by Jung’s Shadow Archetype which has good impulses as well as bad ones.
• The strength of ID impulse varies among individuals .
• FREUD : ID contains primitive, amoral and lustful impulses.
• MURRAY: ID contains socially acceptable impulses like empathy and love.

The strength or intensity of the id varies among individuals. For example, one person may possess more
intense appetites and emotions than another. Therefore, the problem of controlling and directing the
id forces is not the same for all people because some of us have greater id energy with which we
must cope.
 DIVISIONS OF PERSONOLOGY
• SUPEREGO
• FREUD : Superego stems out after the child identifies with his/her
parents. Superego acts as the parental voice.
• MURRAY: Defined superego as the internalization of the culture’s
values and norms by which we come to evaluate and judge our
behavior and that of others.

The superego is not in constant conflict with the id, as Freud proposed, because
the id contains good forces as well as bad ones. Good forces do not have to be
suppressed. The superego must try to thwart the socially unacceptable impulses,
but it also functions to determine when, where, and how an acceptable need can
be expressed and satisfied. While the superego is developing, so is the ego-
ideal, which provides us with long-range goals for which to strive. The ego-ideal
represents what we could become at our best and is the sum of our ambitions
and aspirations.
 DIVISIONS OF PERSONOLOGY
• EGO
• Ego is the rational governor of personality.
• A strong ego can mediate effectively between the
two but a weak ego leads the personality a
battleground.
• Ego recognizes our behaviors coming from the id
impulse whether good and bad.
• Ego is the central of all behaviors. It plans courses
of action. It suppresses unaccepted id impulses
and promotes accepted id impulses pleasure.
 DIVISIONS OF PERSONOLOGY
• EGO
• Example:
• Ego supports id. This support leads the personality towards a life crime.
• Sometimes ego may favors both, the id and the superego.
• Ego supports both. This thing leads to the harmony between what a person wants to do and what
the society expects from person.

The ego is also the arbiter between the id and the superego and may favor one over the other.
For example, if the ego favors the id, it may direct the personality toward a life of crime. The
ego may also integrate these two aspects of the personality so that what we want to do (id)
is in harmony with what society believes we should do (superego)
HUMAN NEEDS
In Explorations in Personality (Murray,
1938), Murray describes people as
“today’s great problem”. What can we
know about someone, and how can we
describe it in a way that has clear
meaning? Nothing is more important in
the field of psychology:

The point of view adopted in this book is

that personalities constitute the subject
matter of psychology, the life history of a
single man being a unit with which this
discipline has to deal… Our guiding
thought was that personality is a
temporal whole and to understand a part
of it one must have sense, though vague,
of the totality. (pgs. 3-4; Murray, 1938)
 HUMAN NEEDS
A need, according to Murray, is a hypothetical process that is
imagined to occur in order to account for certain objective and
subjective facts. In other words, when an organism reliably acts in a
certain way to obtain some goal, we can determine that the organism
had a need to achieve that goal. Needs are often recognized only
after the fact, the behavior that satisfies the need may be a blind
impulse, but it still leads toward satisfying the needed goal.

Like Maslow, Murray separated needs into biological and psychology

factors based on how essential they were to one’s survival. The
primary, or viscerogenic needs, include air, water, food, sex, harm-
avoidance, etc. The secondary or psychogenic needs, which are
presumed to derive from the primary needs, are common reaction
systems and wishes. Although Murray organizes the psychogenic
needs into groups, they are not rank-ordered as was Maslow’s
hierarchy, so we will not consider the groups any further. Individually,
there are a total of twenty-eight human needs (Murray, 1938). A
partial list, with definitions, includes the following:
 HUMAN NEEDS
•Acquisition: the need to gain possessions and property
•Retention: the need to retain possession of things, to refuse to give or
lend
•Order: the need to arrange, organize, put away objects, to be tidy and
clean
•Construction: the need to build things
•Achievement: the need to overcome obstacles, to exercise power, to
strive to do something difficult as well and as quickly as possible
•Recognition: the need to excite praise and commendation, to demand
respect
•Exhibition: the need to attract attention to oneself
•Defendance: the need to defend oneself against blame or belittlement
•Counteraction: the need to proudly overcome defeat by restriving and
retaliating, to defend one’s honor
•Dominance: the need to influence or control others
•Deference: the need to admire and willingly follow a superior
•Aggression: the need to assault or injure another, to harm, blame,
accuse, or ridicule a person
 HUMAN NEEDS
Abasement: the need to surrender, to comply and accept punishment
Affiliation: the need to form friendships and associations, to greet, join, and live
with others, to love
Rejection: the need to snub, ignore, or exclude others
Play: the need to relax, amuse oneself, seek diversion and entertainment
Cognizance: the need to explore, to ask questions, to satisfy curiosity

According to Murray, in the course of daily life these needs are often interrelated.
When a single action can satisfy more than one need, we can say that the needs
are fused. However, needs can also come into conflict. For example, an
individual’s need for dominance may make it difficult to satisfy their need for
affiliation, unless they can find someone with a powerful need for abasement. Such
a situation is one of the ways in which psychologists have tried to understand
abusive relationships. In other words, when someone with a strong need for
affiliation and debasement becomes involved with someone with a strong need for
affiliation and dominance (particularly in a pathological sense), the results can be
very unfortunate.
 Assessment in Murray’s Theory
• Murray’s techniques for assessing personality differ from those
of Freud and the other neopsychoanalytic theorists. Because
Murray was not working with emotionally disturbed persons, he
did not use such standard psychoanalytic techniques as free
association and dream analysis.

• For his intensive evaluation of the normal personality, Murray

used a variety of techniques to collect data from 51 male
undergraduate students at Harvard University. The research
participants were interviewed and given projective tests,
objective tests, and questionnaires covering childhood
memories, family relations, sexual development, sensory-motor
learning, ethical standards, goals, social interactions, and
mechanical and artistic abilities. This assessment program was
so comprehensive that it took Murray’s staff of 28 investigators
6 months to complete. The data was discussed in the section
on research in Murray’s theory
 THE OSS ASSESSMENT PROGRAM

During the World War II years (1941–1945), Murray

directed an assessment program for the Office of
Strategic Services (OSS), a forerunner of the CIA. His
goal was to select people to serve as spies and
saboteurs, operating behind enemy lines in hazardous
situations. Potential candidates for OSS positions were
interviewed and given the Rorschach and the TAT
projective tests and questionnaires covering a variety of
topics. In addition, candidates participated in situational
tests, which were stressful situations that simulated
experiences they could expect to encounter on the job.
Their behavior in these tests was closely observed (OSS
Assessment Staff, 1948).
 The Thematic Apperception Test
The assessment technique most often associated with
Murray is the Thematic Apperception Test. The TAT
consists of a set of ambiguous pictures depicting simple
scenes. The person taking the test is asked to compose
a story that describes the people and objects in the
picture, including what might have led up to the
situation and what the people are thinking and feeling.
Murray derived the TAT, which is a projective
technique, from Freud’s defense mechanism of
projection. In projection, a person attributes or projects
disturbing impulses onto someone else. In the TAT, the
person projects those feelings onto the characters in the
pictures and thereby reveals his or her troubling
thoughts to the researcher or therapist (see Figure 5.1).
Thus, the TAT is a device for assessing unconscious
thoughts, feelings, and fears.
The Thematic Apperception Test
A typical picture contained in the Thematic Apperception
Test (TAT). In describing a TAT picture, people may reveal
their own feelings, needs, and values. Typical Responses
to TAT Card:

1. This is the picture of a woman who all of her life has

been a very suspicious, conniving person. She’s looking in
the mirror and she sees reflected behind her an image of
what she will be as an old woman—still a suspicious,
conniving sort of person. She can’t stand the thought that
that’s what her life will eventually lead her to and she
smashes the mirror and runs out of the house screaming
and goes out of her mind and lives in an institution for the
rest of her life.

2. This woman has always emphasized beauty in her life.

As a little girl she was praised for being pretty and as a
young woman was able to attract lots of men with her
beauty. While secretly feeling anxious and unworthy much
of the time, her outer beauty helped to disguise these
feelings from the world and, sometimes, from herself. Now
that she is getting on in years and her children are leaving
home, she is worried about the future. She looks in the
mirror and imagines herself as an old hag—the worst
possible person she could become, ugly and nasty—and
wonders what the future holds for her. It is a difficult and
depressing time for her.
 The Thematic Apperception Test

TAT can reveal considerable useful

information. Because of its subjectivity,
however, the information obtained should
be used to supplement data from more
objective methods rather than as the sole
means of diagnosis. Yet despite the TAT’s
lack of standardized procedures for
administering, scoring, and interpreting it,
as well as its low criterion-related validity,
the test continues to be used frequently for
research, therapy, and assessment (see
Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 2005).
 Reflections on Murray’s Theory
Murray has exerted an impressive and lasting influence on the study of
personality. Of particular importance is his list of needs, which is of
continuing value for research, clinical diagnosis, and employee selection,
and his techniques for assessing personality.

Overall, these innovations, and the personal impact he made on at least

two generations of personology researchers at Harvard, have had a more
lasting effect than the details of his theory

Murray’s theory is not without its critics. One problem in evaluating his
position is that only some portions of it have been published. His ingenuity
and full range of thought were not widely revealed. Those who worked with
him and had access to his broad speculations, which he offered in almost
casual conversation, felt Murray’s influence most keenly.

Although students and colleagues have pursued some of these ideas, others
have been lost to view. Research has been conducted on some of Murray’s
ideas, particularly the achievement and affiliation needs, and the
assessment techniques, but only limited portions of his theory have been put
to experimental test.
 SUMMARY
Three basic divisions of personality are the id, superego, and ego. The id
contains primitive, amoral impulses as well as tendencies to empathy, imitation,
and identification. The superego is shaped by parents, peer groups, and
cultural factors. The ego consciously decides and wills the direction of behavior

Murray and Morgan developed the TAT, based on the Freudian concept of
projection. Considerable research has been conducted on Murray’s proposed
needs for affiliation and for achievement. Although we have some free will,
much of personality is determined by needs and by the environment.

Each person is unique yet shares similarities, which are determined by

inherited and environmental forces, with other people. Murray held an optimistic
view of human nature, which is oriented toward the future and grants us the
ability to grow and develop.

In summary, Murray’s importance lies in his list of needs and his techniques
for assessing personality.
 REFERENCES
Anderson, J. W. (1988). Henry A. Murray’s early career: A psycho biographical
exploration. Journal of Personality, 56(1), 139–171. An analysis of Murray’s life
through his early 30s, examining his decision to become a psychologist, his
involvement with psychoanalysis, and the impact of

Murray, H. A. (1938). Explorations in personality. New York: Oxford University

Press. Murray’s classic work on personology that includes the evaluation of a
typical subject by the Diagnostic Council, the list of human needs, and the
advantages of projective techniques for personality assessment. The 70th
anniversary edition.

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