Personology

Henry A. Murray
Type of psychology: Personality
Fields of study: Humanistic-phenomenological models; personality
theory
Murray’s study of personality, or personology, as he preferred to call it, highlights the
uniqueness of the individual and the interaction between individual needs and environmental
constraints. His theory precipitated the in-depth study of human needs and
provided an instrument for assessing human personality.
Key concepts
• alpha press
• beta press
• need
• need for achievement
• press
• thematic apperception test (TAT)
Henry A. Murray was born into a wealthy family in New York City in 1893.
His early life was unremarkable, and unlike numerous other personality theorists,
he experienced no major traumas that obviously influenced his theory.
He was not trained in psychology (in fact, he greatly disliked psychology
classes); rather, he studied biology and later received his Ph.D. in biochemistry
from the University of Cambridge. His interest in psychology and personality
processes was ignited during a three-week stay with Carl Jung, the
eminent Swiss psychoanalyst. This meeting led to a change in career aspirations,
whereupon Murray was brought to Harvard University to engage in
personality research and establish the Harvard Psychological Clinic.
Murray’s biomedical training is reflected in his belief that personality
processes are dependent on brain functioning. He did not believe that personality
actually existed; he believed that descriptions of personality were
shorthand methods of describing various aspects of individuals and their behaviors.
He thought that personality helped explain and predict an individual’s
actions, drives, needs, goals, and plans. He stated that his system of personality,
“personology,” was a tentative theory, as psychologists did not yet
know enough to capture completely the essence of each individual.
As opposed to personality theorists who developed their ideas in the
clinic, working with emotionally disturbed individuals, Murray believed that
the best way to investigate personality was to study normal individuals in
their natural environments. While at Harvard, he undertook an intensive
study of fifty-one male undergraduates during a six-month period. The undergraduates
were examined by a council of twenty-eight specialists of various training and expertise so that the personalities of the students might be
fully understood.
From these studies, Murray developed his ideas about human needs. He
believed that these needs helped individuals focus their attention on certain
events and guided their behaviors to meet those needs. There are primary
needs that originate from internal bodily processes (for example, air, water,
food, and sex) and secondary needs that are concerned with mental and
emotional satisfaction (for example, achievement, dominance, understanding,
and affiliation). He proposed a hierarchy of needs, a concept later elaborated
on by Abraham Maslow, in which the most basic needs, such as that
for food, must be met before others can be addressed. Murray originally
proposed a list of twenty basic human needs, although this list was later revised
and expanded by his students and followers. 625