“Press” Concept

Although Murray’s elaboration and description of human needs was one of
his major contributions to psychology, his focus on the situational context
for behavior foreshadowed psychology’s future emphasis on environmental
events. He proposed the concept of “press,” or forces provided by situations
or events in the environment. These forces may help or hinder individuals
in reaching their goals. For example, a student may have a need for achievement
that would result in her attending college and receiving a degree. Environmental
conditions such as poverty, however, may hinder her progress
or pressure her away from these goals and necessitate that she take a job to
support her family. In this situation, Murray also distinguished between “alpha
press,” or actual pressure resulting from environmental situations, and
“beta press,” or subjective pressure that results from individual interpretation
of the events. In the example of going to college given above, alpha
press might be the college board scores or the money necessary to go to certain
colleges. These are real, and they involve little interpretation. Beta press
might be the interpretation that if the student does not get into a certain college,
she will be viewed as an embarrassment and a failure. This type of pressure
comes from an internal evaluation of environmental events.