Henry Murray

Henry Alexander Murray (May 13, 1893 – June 23, 1988) was an American psychologist who taught for over 30 years at Harvard. He was founder of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and developed a theory of personality based on "needs." He also is the developer of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) a personality test which became one of the most widely used tests by psychologists.

Life

Henry A. Murray was born into a wealthy family in New York City, New York, in 1893. He had an older sister and a younger brother. It is said that he had good relationship with his father, but a poor one with his mother, resulting in a deep-seated feeling of depression (Carver and Scheier, p.100). His early-life experiences probably helped him to be especially aware of people's needs and their importance as underlying determinants of behavior.

Murray completed his undergraduate work at Harvard, majoring in history. He exhibited rather poor performance, but compensated with football, rowing and boxing. At Columbia College he did much better, completing his M.D. and receiving an M.A. in biology in 1919. For the next two years he was an instructor in physiology at Harvard and in 1927 he received his doctorate degree in biochemistry at Cambridge.

A turning point in Murray's life occurred at the age of 30, when he met and fell in love with Christiana Morgan. At the time he had been married for seven years, and now he was experiencing serious conflict as he did not want to leave his wife. This experience contributed toward Murray’s theory of conflicting needs. On the persuasion of Morgan, Murray met Jung in 1925 in Zurich, the experience that changed his life. Jung's advice to Murray concerning his personal life was to continue openly with both relationships. After his meeting with Jung, Murray decided to shift his career toward depth psychology.

In 1927, Murray became assistant director and in 1937 the director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic. In 1935 he developed, with help from Christaina Morgan, his famous Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). In 1938, he published the now classic Explorations in Personality.

During World War II, Murray left Harvard and joined Army Medical Corps to help with the war effort. He worked as lieutenant colonel, establishing the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The goal of the agency was to find and train men for special tasks.

After the war, Murray returned to Harvard, lecturing part-time and establishing with others the Psychological Clinic Annex in 1949. He also served as a chief researcher. Murray retired in 1962. He became emeritus professor, receiving the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association and Gold Medal Award for lifetime achievement from the American Psychological Foundation. He continued to lecture and study the works of author Herman Melville.

Murray died from pneumonia in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 95.

Work

Similar to Carl Gustav Jung, Murray believed that human personality could be better understood by investigating the unconscious mind.

Theory of needs

Murray believed that human action is motivated largely by needs. Those needs are mostly unconscious, and they influence and drive our behavior. He defined need as a:

“potentiality or readiness to respond in a certain way under certain given circumstances… It is a noun which stands for the fact that a certain trend is apt to recur.” (Explorations in Personality, p. 124).

Murray assumed that human natural state is the state of disequilibrium, and that is why we have needs - to satisfy the lack of something. He divided needs into:

Primary needs (biological needs) – need for food, water, air, avoidance of pain.
Secondary needs (psychological needs, or as Murray called them - the psychogenic needs).

Murray made a list of 27 psychogenic needs:

Abasement
Achievement
Acquisition
Affiliation
Aggression
Autonomy
Blameavoidance
Construction
Contrariance
Counteraction
Defendance
Deference
Dominance
Exhibition
Exposition
Harmavoidance
Infavoidance
Nurturance
Order
Play
Recognition
Rejection
Sentience
Sex
Similance
Succorance
Understanding

Murray also developed the concept of:

latent needs (needs not openly displayed),
manifest needs (needs observed in people's actions),
"press" (external influences on motivation) and
"thema" - "a pattern of press and need that coalesces around particular interactions."

Thematic Apperception Test

Murray developed Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) together with his colleague Christiana Morgan in mid-1930s. He published in 1938 Explorations in Personality, which included a description of the test.

Murray used the term "apperception" to refer to the process of projecting fantasy imagery onto an objective stimulus. The concept of apperception and the assumption that everyone's thinking is shaped by subjective, often unconscious processes provides the rationale behind the Thematic Apperception Test.

The test consists of a series of provocative yet ambiguous pictures about which the subject must tell a story. The client identifies with the protagonist (main character) in the picture and tells a story about them. The test is based on an assumption that the client actually expresses his own concerns, fears, desires, and conflicts as reflected in what is going on with the story’s main character. The stories are later carefully analyzed to uncover client’s underlying needs, attitudes, and patterns of reaction.

Situation test

Murray was the originator of the term "situation test." This type of assessment, based on practical tasks/activities was pioneered by the British Military. Murray acted as a consultant for the British Government (from 1938) in the setting up of the Officer Selection Board. Murray's previous work at the Harvard Psychological Clinic enabled him to apply his theories in the design of the selection processes used by WOSB and OSS to assess potential secret agents. The assessments were based on analysis of specific criteria (e.g. "leadership") by a number of raters across a range of activities. Results were pooled to achieve an overall assessment. The underlying principles were later adopted by AT&T in the development of Assessment Center methodology, now widely used to assess management potential in both private and public sector organizations.

Analysis of Adolph Hitler

Commissioned by OSS in 1943, Murray helped complete the Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler. The report used many sources to profile Hitler, including a number of informants such as Ernst Hanfstaengl, Herman Rauschning, Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe, Gregor Strasser, Friedelinde Wagner, and Kurt Ludecke.

In addition to predicting that if defeat for Germany was near, Adolf Hitler would choose suicide, Murray's collaborative report stated that Hitler was impotent as far as heterosexual relations were concerned and that there was a possibility that Hitler had participated in a homosexual relationship. The 1943 report stated that: "The belief that Hitler is homosexual has probably developed (a) from the fact that he does show so many feminine characteristics, and (b) from the fact that there were so many homosexuals in the National Socialist German Workers Party during the early days and many continue to occupy important positions. It is probably true that Hitler calls Albert Förster "Bubi," which is a common nickname employed by homosexuals in addressing their partners."

Legacy

Murray's identification of core psychological needs provided the theoretical basis for the later research of David McClelland and underpins development of competency-based models of management effectiveness (Richard Boyatzis), Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and ideas relating to Positive Psychology. Three of Murray's needs have undergone substantial research: The Need for Power (nPow), Affiliation (nAff) and Achievement (nAch).

Murray’s Thematic Apperception Test eventually became one of the most widely used and researched projective psychological tests. His groundbreaking study on Hitler was the pioneer of Offender profiling and political psychology, today commonly used by many countries as part of assessing international relations.

Some of Murray’s work was regarded as highly controversial, especially in relations to his work for the CIA. Alston Chase's book Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist (2003) tells of psychological experiments which Theodore Kaczynski is reported to have undergone at Harvard, under the direction of Henry Murray. Chase connects these experiences in a controversial thesis to Kaczynski's later career as Unabomber.

Publications

Murray, Henry A. 1940. What should psychologists do about psychoanalysis? Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 35, 150–175.
Murray, Henry A. 1943. Analysis of the personality of Adolph Hitler: with predictions of his future behavior and suggestions for dealing with him now and after Germany's surrender. Washington: OSS Archives.
Murray, Henry A. 1943. Thematic apperception test manual. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Murray, Henry A. ed. 1960. Myth and mythmaking. New York: G. Braziller.
Murray, Henry A. 2007 (original published in 1938). Explorations in Personality. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 019530506X
Murray, Henry A., and Christiana D. Morgan. 1945. A clinical study of sentiments. Genetic psychology monographs, v. 32, no. 1-2. Provincetown, MA: The Journal Press.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Anderson, J. W. 1988. Henry Murray's early career. A psychobiographical exploration. Journal of Personality, 56, 138-171.
Carver, Charles S. and Scheier, Michael F. 1992. Perspectives on Personality (5th edition). Allyn & Bacon. ISBN 0205375766
Chase, Alston. 2003. Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393020029.
Cockburn, Alexander and Jeffrey St. Clair. 1999. Ted K., the CIA & LSD CounterPunch Retrieved on August 24, 2007,
Laughlin, Charles D. 1973. The Influence of Whitehead's Organism on Murray's Personology. Journal of the History of the Behavioural Sciences, 9(3), 251-257.
Murray, Henry A. 1943. Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler. Cornell University Law Library. Retrieved on August 24, 2007.
Robinson, Forrest. 1992. Love's story told: A life of Henry A. Murray. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674539281
Shneidman, E. S. ed. 1981. Selections from the Personology of Henry A. Murray New York: Harper-Collins Publishers. ISBN 0060140399
Test Developer Profiles: Henry A. Murray, M.D., Ph.D. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Retrieved on August 24, 2007.

External links

All links Retrieved November 25, 2007.

Henry Murray – Biography on McGraw-Hill Higher Education
Needs as personality: Henry Murray – On Murray’s work
Psychogenic Needs – On Murray’s theories
Thematic Apperception Test – On the TAT in Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders

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