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C H A P T E R 5
Henry Murray: Personology
For me, personality is [a] jungle without boundaries.
—HENRY MURRAY
The Life of Murray (1893–1988) Childhood Depression and Compensation Education The Influence of Carl Jung The Harvard Psychological Clinic
Principles of Personology
The Divisions of Personality The Id The Superego The Ego
Needs: The Motivators of Behavior Types of Needs Characteristics of Needs
Personality Development in Childhood Complexes Stages of Development
Questions About Human Nature Assessment in Murray’s Theory The OSS Assessment Program The Thematic Apperception Test Research on Murray’s Theory The Need for Affiliation The Need for Achievement Reflections on Murray’s Theory Chapter Summary Review Questions Suggested Readings
182 PART TWO The Neopsychoanalytic Approach
Henry Murray designed an approach to personality that includes conscious and unconscious forces; the influence of the past, present, and future; and the impact of physiological and sociological factors. The influence of Freudian psychoanalysis can be seen in Murray’s recognition of the effect on adult behavior of childhood experi- ences and in his notions of the id, ego, and superego. Although Freud’s imprint is clear, Murray gave unique interpretations to these phenomena. His deviations from orthodox psychoanalysis are so extensive that his system must be classified with the neo-Freudians rather than with the Freudian loyalists. Two distinctive features of Murray’s system are a sophisticated approach to human needs and the data source on which he based his theory. His proposed list of needs is still widely used in personality research and assessment and in clinical treatment. His data, unlike those of theorists discussed in earlier chapters, come from so-called normal individuals (undergraduate male students at Harvard University) rather than from patients undergoing psychotherapy. Also, some of the data were derived from more empirically based laboratory procedures rather than from case histories. Because of his long affiliation with a major university instead of relative isola- tion in a clinic or private practice, and because of his personal charisma, Murray gathered and trained a large number of psychologists, many of whom have since achieved prominence and carried on his teachings.
The Life of Murray (1893–1988)
Childhood Depression and Compensation
Henry Murray’s childhood contained maternal rejection, elements of Adlerian com- pensation for a physical defect, and a supernormal sensitivity to the sufferings of others. Born into a wealthy family, Murray grew up in New York City, in a house on what is now the site of Rockefeller Center. His summers were spent on a Long Island beach. As a child, he accompanied his parents on four long trips to Europe. For the Adlerians among you, Murray reported that some of his earliest recollections focused on his privileged background (Triplet, 1993). Another signifi cant early memory is more intriguing. Murray called it “the marrow-of-my-being memory” (Murray, 1967, p. 299). At about age 4, he was looking at a picture of a sad woman sitting next to her equally sad son. This was the same kind of gloomy picture Murray later used in his Thematic Apperception Test. Murray’s mother told him, “It is the prospect of death that has made them sad” (Murray, 1967, p. 299). Murray interpreted the memory as indicating the death of his emotional ties to his mother because she had abruptly weaned him when he was 2 months old, preferring, he believed, to lavish her affection on his siblings. He in- sisted that his mother’s actions led to his lifelong depression, a condition that formed the core of his personality. Murray referred to his depression as a source of “misery and melancholy” and he attempted to mask it in everyday behavior by adopting an ebullient, cheerful, and outgoing manner (Murray, 1967). This lack of a childhood attachment to his mother later led Murray to question Freud’s Oedipus complex because it did not coincide
184 PART TWO The Neopsychoanalytic Approach
He lived with the conflict for 2 years until, at Christiana Morgan’s suggestion, he went to Zurich to meet with Carl Jung. The two men spent a month together, and Jung was able to resolve Murray’s difficulty by instruction and example. Jung was also having an affair with a younger woman, a relationship he maintained openly while living with his wife. Jung counseled Murray to do the same, and Murray did so for the next 40 years. But fi rst, the principal actors in this drama all found themselves in Zurich, with Jung in the role of director. He decreed that Christiana Morgan’s husband should be analyzed by Toni Wolff, who was Jung’s mistress. In addition, Jung spent many hours with Christiana, analyzing her bizarre dreams and visions. Murray’s wife, Josephine, was reluctant to play her part. She spent 20 minutes listening to Jung insist that Murray needed to live with both his wife and his mistress and quickly decided that Jung was a dirty old man (Robinson, 1992). In time, however, both Murray’s wife and Morgan’s husband were persuaded to accept the affair. 1 The experience with Jung and the resolution of Murray’s marital dilemma turned Murray toward a career in psychology. He had sought help for a personal problem, and psychology had provided an answer (Anderson, 1988). Thus, Jung did more than resolve Murray’s personal and career dilemmas; he made Murray aware of the breadth and impact of unconscious forces. Murray wrote, “The great floodgates of the wonder-world swung open. I had experienced the unconscious” (1940, p. 153). Murray’s attitude toward the man who helped him through his early crises changed dramatically over the years. His initial acceptance of Jung’s views turned to scathing dismissal. Murray later said that Jung would “believe anything I told him that was along the lines that he liked, but he would overlook what did not fit his theories” (quoted in Anderson, 1988, p. 155).
The Harvard Psychological Clinic
In 1927, psychologist Morton Prince at the new Harvard Psychological Clinic, established specifically to study personality, offered Murray an appointment. A for- mer student described the clinic as “wisteria on the outside, hysteria on the inside” (Smith, 1990, p. 537). As part of his training, Murray underwent orthodox Freudian psychoanalysis and reported that his analyst became bored by the phlegmatic nature of his childhood and his lack of complexes. Murray recalled that the analyst had little to say. The analyst’s stomach rumbled, and his office was “depressing, the color of feces, [a] miserable room … enough to send a patient into a morbid phase” (quoted in Anderson, 1988, p. 159). In the 1930s, Murray and Morgan developed the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), still one of the most widely used projective measures of personality (Morgan & Murray, 1935). For many years, it was thought that the TAT was primar- ily Murray’s work, but in 1985, Murray revealed that Morgan had done most of the
(^1) Christiana Morgan, who at age 63 was described as “attractive, sultry, and mysterious,” drowned in 2 feet of water off an island in the Caribbean. By that time, Murray was reported to be “rather disgusted with her seemingly incurable alcoholism” and was already dating the woman he would marry after his first wife died (Schneidman, 2001, pp. 291, 294).
CHAPTER 5 Henry Murray: Personology 185
work to develop the test. Further, the original idea for the test had come from one of his women students (Bronstein, 1988, p. 64). The TAT became a best-seller for Harvard University Press. Despite the magni- tude of Morgan’s contribution, her name was dropped from the publication, leaving Murray as sole author, an action taken with Murray’s agreement (Douglas, 1993). This decision seems inexcusable, given her importance in the development of the test and in much of Murray’s subsequent work. At age 94, long after Morgan’s death, he acknowledged that she was “part of every paper he wrote and every lecture he gave, and that her very presence at the clinic raised the caliber of his thinking” (Douglas, 1993, p. 297). In 1938, Murray published Explorations in Personality: A Clinical and Experimental Study of Fifty Men of College Age. This book assured his almost in- stant success as a leading personality theorist. Now considered a classic, it boosted the effort begun by Gordon Allport the year before to make the study of personality an academically respectable part of American psychology. During World War II, Murray joined the U.S. Army and became director of assessment for the Office of Strategic Services (the OSS, a forerunner of the CIA), screening candidates for dangerous assignments. He maintained an interest in litera- ture, especially the work of Herman Melville, and in 1951 published an analysis of the psychological meaning of Melville’s novel Moby-Dick. Murray remained at Harvard until his retirement in 1962, conducting research, refining his personality theory, and training new generations of psychologists. He received the American Psychological Foundation’s Gold Medal Award and the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. Although Murray lived to the age of 95, the debilitating effects of a stroke marred the last decade of his life. He came to view the sum of his career as a “series of failures and unfulfilled promises [and] could not escape the feeling that he had not quite made the grade” (Triplet, 1993, p. 386). At the end, as a biographer noted, Murray was certainly willing to be done with life, though never to the point of losing his sense of humor. “I am dead,” he announced to his nurse. “No,” she replied, pinching him gently on the cheek; “see, you’re alive.” “I’m the doctor,” [he] snapped back, not without the hint of a smile—“I’m the doctor; you’re the nurse; and I’m dead.” Just days later, on Thursday, June 23, he had his way. (Robinson, 1992, p. 370)
Principles of Personology
The fi rst principle in Murray’s personology , his term for the study of personality, is that personality is rooted in the brain. The individual’s cerebral physiology guides and governs every aspect of the personality. A simple example of this is that certain drugs can alter the functioning of the brain, and so the personality. Everything on which personality depends exists in the brain, including feeling states, conscious and unconscious memories, beliefs, attitudes, fears, and values. A second principle in Murray’s system involves the idea of tension reduction. Murray agreed with Freud and other theorists that people act to reduce physiological
personology Murray’s system of personality.
personology Murray’s system of personality.
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develop throughout life, reflecting the greater complexity and sophistication of our experiences as we grow older. 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 sup- pressed. 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.
The Ego
The ego is the rational governor of the personality; it tries to modify or delay the id’s unacceptable impulses. Murray extended Freud’s formulation of the ego by propos- ing that the ego is the central organizer of behavior. It consciously reasons, decides, and wills the direction of behavior. Thus, the ego is more active in determining behavior than Freud believed. Not merely the servant of the id, the ego consciously plans courses of action. It functions not only to suppress id pleasure but also to foster pleasure by organizing and directing the expression of acceptable id impulses. 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 to- ward 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). Opportunity exists in Murray’s system for conflict to arise between the id and the superego. A strong ego can mediate effectively between the two, but a weak ego leaves the personality a battleground. Unlike Freud, however, Murray did not believe that this conflict was inevitable.
Needs: The Motivators of Behavior
Murray’s most important contribution to theory and research in personality is his use of the concept of needs to explain the motivation and direction of behavior. He said that “motivation is the crux of the business and motivation always refers to some- thing within the organism” (quoted in Robinson, 1992, p. 220). A need involves a physicochemical force in the brain that organizes and directs intellectual and perceptual abilities. Needs may arise either from internal processes such as hunger or thirst, or from events in the environment. Needs arouse a level of tension; the organism tries to reduce this tension by acting to satisfy the needs. Thus, needs energize and direct behavior. They activate behavior in the appropriate direction to satisfy the needs. Murray’s research led him to formulate a list of 20 needs (Murray, 1938, pp. 144–145). Not every person has all of these needs. Over the course of your lifetime you may experience all these needs, or there may be some needs you never experience. Some needs support other needs, and some oppose other needs (see Table 5.1).
ego-ideal A component of the superego that contains the moral or ideal behaviors for which a person should strive.
ego-ideal A component of the superego that contains the moral or ideal behaviors for which a person should strive.
ego To Murray, the conscious organizer of behavior; this is a broader conception than Freud’s.
ego To Murray, the conscious organizer of behavior; this is a broader conception than Freud’s.
188 PART TWO The Neopsychoanalytic Approach
Table 5.1 Murray’s list of needs
Abasement To submit passively to external force. To accept injury, blame, criti- cism, and punishment. To become resigned to fate. To admit inferior- ity, error, wrongdoing, or defeat. To blame, belittle, or mutilate the self. To seek and enjoy pain, punishment, illness, and misfortune. Achievement To accomplish something difficult. To master, manipulate, or organize physical objects, human beings, or ideas. To overcome obstacles and attain a high standard. To rival and surpass others. Affi liation To draw near and enjoyably cooperate or reciprocate with an allied other who resembles one or who likes one. To adhere and remain loyal to a friend. Aggression To overcome opposition forcefully. To fight, attack, injure, or kill an- other. To maliciously belittle, censure, or ridicule another. Autonomy To get free, shake off restraint, or break out of confinement. To resist coercion and restriction. To be independent and free to act according to impulse. To defy conventions. Counteraction To master or make up for a failure by restriving. To obliterate a humil- iation by resumed action. To overcome weaknesses and to repress fear. To search for obstacles and difficulties to overcome. To main- tain self-respect and pride on a high level. Defendance To defend the self against assault, criticism, and blame. To conceal or justify a misdeed, failure, or humiliation. Deference To admire and support a superior other. To yield eagerly to the influ- ence of an allied other. To conform to custom. Dominance To control one’s environment. To influence or direct the behavior of oth- ers by suggestion, seduction, persuasion, or command. To get others to cooperate. To convince another of the rightness of one’s opinion. Exhibition To make an impression. To be seen and heard. To excite, amaze, fasci- nate, entertain, shock, intrigue, amuse, or entice others. Harmavoidance To avoid pain, physical injury, illness, and death. To escape from a dangerous situation. To take precautionary measures. Infavoidance To avoid humiliation. To quit embarrassing situations or to avoid con- ditions that may lead to the scorn, derision, or indifference of others. To refrain from action because of the fear of failure. Nurturance To give sympathy to and gratify the needs of a helpless other, an infant or one who is weak, disabled, tired, inexperienced, infirm, humili- ated, lonely, dejected, or mentally confused. Order To put things in order. To achieve cleanliness, arrangement, organiza- tion, balance, neatness, and precision. Play To act for fun, without further purpose. Rejection To exclude, abandon, expel, or remain indifferent to an inferior other. To snub or jilt another. Sentience To seek and enjoy sensuous impressions. Sex To form and further an erotic relationship. To have sexual intercourse. Succorance To be nursed, supported, sustained, surrounded, protected, loved, ad- vised, guided, indulged, forgiven, or consoled. To remain close to a devoted protector. Understanding To be inclined to analyze events and to generalize. To discuss and argue and to emphasize reason and logic. To state one’s opinions precisely. To show interest in abstract formulations in science, math- ematics, and philosophy.
190 PART TWO The Neopsychoanalytic Approach
Some needs are complementary and can be satisfied by one behavior or a set of behaviors. Murray called this a fusion of needs. For instance, by working to ac- quire fame and wealth, we can satisfy the needs for achievement, dominance, and autonomy. The concept of subsidiation refers to a situation in which one need is activated to aid in satisfying another need. For example, to satisfy the affiliation need by be- ing in the company of other people, it may be necessary to act deferentially toward them, thus invoking the deference need. In this case, the deference need is subsidiary to the affiliation need. Murray recognized that childhood events can affect the development of specific needs and, later in life, can activate those needs. He called this influence press be- cause an environmental object or event presses or pressures the individual to act a certain way. Because of the possibility of interaction between need and press, Murray intro- duced the concept of thema (or unity thema). The thema combines personal factors (needs) with the environmental factors that pressure or compel our behavior (presses). The thema is formed through early childhood experiences and becomes a powerful force in determining personality. Largely unconscious, the thema relates needs and presses in a pattern that gives coherence, unity, order, and uniqueness to our behavior.
Personality Development in Childhood
Complexes
Drawing on Freud’s work, Murray divided childhood into five stages, each charac- terized by a pleasurable condition that is inevitably terminated by society’s demands. Each stage leaves its mark on our personality in the form of an unconscious complex that directs our later development. According to Murray, everyone experiences these five complexes because ev- eryone passes through the same developmental stages. There is nothing abnormal about them except when they are manifested in the extreme, a condition that leaves the person fixated at that stage. The personality is then unable to develop sponta- neity and fl exibility, a situation that interferes with the formation of the ego and superego. The stages of childhood and their corresponding complexes are shown in Table 5.2.
subsidiation To Murray, a situation in which one need is activated to aid in the satisfaction of another need.
subsidiation To Murray, a situation in which one need is activated to aid in the satisfaction of another need.
press The influence of the environment and past events on the current activation of a need.
press The influence of the environment and past events on the current activation of a need.
thema A combination of press (the environment) and need (the personality) that brings order to our behavior.
thema A combination of press (the environment) and need (the personality) that brings order to our behavior.
complex To Murray, a normal pattern of childhood development that influences the adult personality; childhood developmental stages include the claustral, oral, anal, urethral, and genital complexes.
complex To Murray, a normal pattern of childhood development that influences the adult personality; childhood developmental stages include the claustral, oral, anal, urethral, and genital complexes.
Table 5.2 The childhood stages and complexes in Murray’s personology Stage Complex
The secure existence within the womb Claustral complexes The sensuous enjoyment of sucking nourishment while being held
Oral complexes
The pleasure resulting from defecation Anal complexes The pleasure accompanying urination Urethral complex Genital pleasures Genital or castration complex
CHAPTER 5 Henry Murray: Personology 191
Stages of Development
The claustral stage. The fetus in the womb is secure, serene, and dependent, condi- tions we may all occasionally wish to reinstate. The simple claustral complex is ex- perienced as a desire to be in small, warm, dark places that are safe and secluded. For example, one might long to remain under the blankets instead of getting out of bed in the morning. People with this complex tend to be dependent on others, passive, and oriented toward safe, familiar behaviors that worked in the past. The insupport form of the claustral complex centers on feelings of insecurity and helplessness that cause the person to fear open spaces, falling, drowning, fires, earthquakes, or simply any situation involving novelty and change. The anti-claustral or egression form of the claustral complex is based on a need to escape from restraining womblike con- ditions. It includes a fear of suffocation and confinement and manifests itself in a preference for open spaces, fresh air, travel, movement, change, and novelty. The oral stage. The oral succorance complex features a combination of mouth ac- tivities, passive tendencies, and the need to be supported and protected. Behavioral manifestations include sucking, kissing, eating, drinking, and a hunger for affection, sympathy, protection, and love. The oral aggression complex combines oral and ag- gressive behaviors, including biting, spitting, shouting, and verbal aggression such as sarcasm. Behaviors characteristic of the oral rejection complex include vomiting, being picky about food, eating little, fearing oral contamination (such as from kiss- ing), desiring seclusion, and avoiding dependence on others. The anal stage. In the anal rejection complex , there is a preoccupation with def- ecation, anal humor, and feces-like material such as dirt, mud, plaster, and clay. Ag- gression is often part of this complex and is shown in dropping and throwing things, fi ring guns, and setting off explosives. Persons with this complex may be dirty and disorganized. The anal retention complex is manifested in accumulating, saving, and collecting things, and in cleanliness, neatness, and orderliness. The urethral stage. Unique to Murray’s system, the urethral complex is associated with excessive ambition, a distorted sense of self-esteem, exhibitionism, bedwetting, sexual cravings, and self-love. It is sometimes called the Icarus complex, after the mythical Greek figure that flew so close to the sun that the wax holding his wings melted. Like Ica- rus, persons with this complex aim too high, and their dreams are shattered by failure. The genital or castration stage. Murray disagreed with Freud’s contention that fear of castration is the core of anxiety in adult males. He interpreted the castration complex in narrower and more literal fashion as a boy’s fantasy that his penis might be cut off. Murray believed such a fear grows out of childhood masturbation and the parental punishment that may have accompanied it.
Questions About Human Nature
Although Murray’s personality theory is similar to Freud’s in several ways, his image of human nature is quite different. Even the ultimate and necessary goal in life—which, like Freud’s, is the reduction of tension—is considered from a different
CHAPTER 5 Henry Murray: Personology 193
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). One such test required the candidate to build a bridge across a stream in a fixed period of time. No plans were provided, but the person was assigned a group of workers to assist him. In this way the candidate’s ingenuity, ability to improvise, and leadership skills could be assessed in a realistic setting. To determine the candidate’s reaction to frustration, the assistants included some stooges—people instructed to do everything possible to prevent the building of the bridge. Many candidates became enraged, and some were even reduced to tears, when faced with the lack of cooperation and the mounting frustration at being unable to complete the task. This pioneering attempt at employee selection through large-scale personality assessment has evolved into the successful assessment-center approach widely used in business today to select promising leaders and executives. The OSS program provides a striking example of the practical application of assessment techniques originally intended purely for research.
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. Interpreting the responses to the TAT pictures is a subjective process, as Murray admitted in an interview. He referred to the TAT as
a kind of booby trap which may catch more embryo psychologists than patients. The patient reveals parts of himself when he composes a story to explain the picture. Then the psychologist may reveal parts of himself when he composes a formulation to explain the patient’s story. (quoted in Hall, 1968, p. 61) In the hands of a trained clinician, the TAT can reveal considerable useful in- formation. 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 administer- ing, 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).
194 PART TWO The Neopsychoanalytic Approach
Figure 5.1 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:
- 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.
- 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. ( Pervin, 1984, p. 110) source: Reprinted by permission of the publishers from Henry A. Murray, Thematic Apperception Test , Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1943 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, © 1971 by Henry A. Murray.
196 PART TWO The Neopsychoanalytic Approach
A study of 176 people in Sweden who were alcoholics showed that those who demonstrated a higher likelihood of affiliating with a support group were far more likely to abstain from drinking than were those who did not have the tendency to affiliate (Bodin & Romelsjo, 2006). Additional research has found that people who score high in the affiliation need are unpopular, apt to avoid interpersonal conflicts, and likely to be unsuc- cessful as business managers. These tendencies may be due to their high level of anxiety about whether other people will like them. They may act in an overly assertive manner to avoid any possible rejection (McClelland, 1985; McClelland & Boyatzis, 1982). What impact does the Internet age have on the need for affiliation? Can this need be satisfied by virtual interactions or does such satisfaction require the presence of other people? Research on 687 teenagers in the Netherlands found that those with a higher affiliation need preferred to communicate through the Internet rather than in person. The virtual social setting allowed them to be more honest, open, and intimate with others than they thought they could be in a face-to-face situation (Peter & Valkenburg, 2006). This suggests that for people with a strong need for affiliation, Internet contacts can be more satisfying and less threatening than actual contacts.
The Need for Achievement
The need for achievement , which Murray defined as the need to overcome ob- stacles, to excel, and to live up to a high standard, has been studied extensively by David McClelland (1917–1998), using the Thematic Apperception Test. In the initial research, McClelland and his associates asked groups of male college students to write brief stories about the TAT pictures (McClelland, Atkin- son, Clark, & Lowell, 1953). To vary the experimental conditions, the researchers gave different test-taking instructions to different groups, urging a high achieve- ment need in one condition and a low achievement need in the other. The results showed that the stories written under the high-achievement condition contained significantly more references to attaining standards of excellence, desiring to achieve, and performing well. For example, one picture showed a young man sit- ting at a desk with an open book in front of him. Stories from high-need-achieve- ment research participants involved working hard, striving for excellence, and doing one’s best. Stories from low-need-achievement research participants dealt with sedentary activities such as daydreaming, thinking, and recalling past events. Later analyses have confirmed the validity of the TAT as a way of measuring the need for achievement (see, for example, Spangler, 1992; Tuerlinckx, DeBoeck, & Lens, 2002). A great deal of research has been conducted on the differences between people who measure high in the need for achievement and people who measure low. Research participants testing high in the need for achievement were found more often in middle and upper socioeconomic classes than in lower socioeco- nomic groups. They demonstrated a better memory for uncompleted tasks and were more likely to volunteer to serve as research participants for psychological
need for achievement The need to achieve, overcome obstacles, excel, and live up to a high standard.
need for achievement The need to achieve, overcome obstacles, excel, and live up to a high standard.
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research. They were more resistant to social pressures and less conforming than were research participants testing low in need achievement. Young people high in the need to achieve were more likely to attend college, earn higher grades, and be involved in college and community activities. High-need-achievement people were also more likely to cheat on examinations in certain situations. They got along better with other people and enjoyed greater physical health (McClelland, 1985; Piedmont, 1988). Do people high in achievement motivation perform better in every situation? No. Only when high-need-achievers are challenged to excel will they do so. From these findings, McClelland predicted that people with a high need to achieve will seek life and career situations that allow them to satisfy this need. They will set personal achievement standards and work hard to meet them (McClelland, Koestner, & Weinberger, 1989). People high in the need for achievement more frequently hold high-status jobs. They work harder, have a greater expectation of success, and report more job satisfaction than do people low in the need for achievement. High-need-achievers choose jobs that provide personal responsibility, in which success depends primarily on their own efforts, and they are dissatisfied with jobs in which success depends on other people or on factors beyond their control (Reuman, Alwin, & Veroff, 1984). Because high-need-achievement people prefer jobs with considerable respon- sibility, McClelland suggested that they prefer to be entrepreneurs, to operate their own business and be their own boss. This kind of work situation provides optimal challenge and authority. In a follow-up study of male college students 14 years af- ter their achievement-motivation scores had first been measured, it was found that 83 percent of those who had become successful entrepreneurs had scored high in the need to achieve. Only 21 percent of those who had become successful in non- entrepreneurial jobs had scored high in the need to achieve. Research in several countries supports the finding that high-need-achievement people are more attracted to entrepreneurial jobs (McClelland, 1965a, 1987). These early workplace studies were conducted only with male research partici- pants. To determine whether women entrepreneurs were also high in achievement motivation, psychologists studied 60 female business owners in Australia. Approxi- mately 82 percent of these entrepreneurial women showed moderate to high levels of the need to achieve, a finding similar to McClelland’s research with entrepreneurial men (Langan-Fox & Roth, 1995). High-need-achievers even prefer different kinds of vacations. A study of Ameri- can tourists showed that those scoring high in the need to achieve preferred adven- ture tourism with travel to remote or exotic places and challenging activities such as white-water rafting, mountain climbing, or scuba diving. People high in the need for affiliation, in contrast, seemed to prefer cultural tourism involving museums, concerts, and tours of famous writers’ houses (Tran & Ralston, 2006). Cultural factors can influence a person’s need for achievement. A cross-cultural study compared need achievement among 372 male and female high school and college students living in Hong Kong. Some of the students were from England (children of British parents working in Hong Kong); other students were native Chinese. The British students focused on individual achievement in competitive
CHAPTER 5 Henry Murray: Personology 199
infl ated praise and gentle criticism in this example could deprive Black students of the high expectations and challenges provided to White students. That, in turn, could reduce the amount of effort and striving needed to maintain high achievement and result in lowered performance (Harber, 1998). Gender is another factor that has an impact on the need to achieve. Studies of children and adolescents suggest that some girls and young women experience confl ict between the need to do their best and achieve at a high level versus the need to appear feminine, empathic, and caring. These research participants feared that achieving at too high a level would lead to unpopularity, especially with boys. A study of gifted third- to sixth-grade girls revealed several concerns they saw as barri- ers to achieving at a level appropriate to their abilities (Eccles, Barber, & Jozefowicz, 1999, p. 179):
■ Concern about hurting other people’s feelings by winning ■ Concern about being seen as a show-off by expressing pride in one’s achievements ■ Concern about reacting negatively to situations in which one is not successful ■ Concern about physical appearance and standards of beauty ■ Concern about being seen as too aggressive in classroom situations Another area of investigation deals with the distinction between the achievement need as an approach motive and that need as an avoidance motive. The question is whether behavior in achievement settings such as school or place of employment is directed primarily toward attaining success or toward avoiding failure. In other words, are we driven to win, or are we motivated instead to avoid losing? Perhaps it is some combination of the two and depends on the situation. Studies of college students in the United States found that pursuing avoidance goals over the course of a semester led to a decline in self-esteem and in feelings of competence and control, as well as reduced vitality and overall life satisfaction. The researchers suggested that satisfying the achievement need by striving for success rather than acting to avoid failure is vital to subjective well-being (Elliot & Church, 1997; Elliot & Sheldon, 1997). A study of 93 German university students found that success-motivated students performed significantly better and persisted more in achievement-related tasks than did students whose motivation was to avoid failure (Puca & Schmalt, 2001). Other research has shown that simply recalling a previous episode of achieve- ment was associated with a variety of positive emotions including surprise, happi- ness, and excitement (Zurbriggen & Sturman, 2002). A study of college students in Israel demonstrated that those high in need achievement tended to be more extraverted and conscientious than those low in need achievement (Roccas, Sagiu, Schwartz, & Knafo, 2002). Finally, research suggests two types of goals in achievement motivation, mastery and performance , or two ways of satisfying the need to achieve. Mastery involves developing competence through the acquisition of knowledge and skills to satisfy oneself. Performance goals involve acquiring competence with a view toward performing better than other people (Barron & Harackiewicz, 2001).
200 PART TWO The Neopsychoanalytic Approach
Research conducted in the Netherlands involving more than 600 college students found that the majority (two-thirds) preferred the mastery instead of the performance goal attainment approach, which was associated with greater subjec- tive well-being, more positive emotional states, and higher levels of perfectionism. In other words, it seemed preferable to these students to be motivated to achieve for self-satisfaction rather than to show that they could do better than other people (Van Yperen, 2006).
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 re- search, 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 ef- fect 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 infl uence 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 affi liation needs, and the assessment techniques, but only limited portions of his theory have been put to experimental test. Of course, as we have seen in previous chapters, this criticism is not unique to Murray. Murray’s research method in the study of Harvard undergraduates has also been questioned. The Diagnostic Council may have been laudably democratic, but it was hardly scientific; to reach a scientific conclusion by majority rule is not the most objective procedure. In addition, some concepts, such as proceedings and serials, are defi ned too vaguely. What constitutes an important pattern of behavior? What happens to those judged insignificant? How long is a proceeding? These questions have not been answered satisfactorily. Murray’s classification of needs may be overly complex and a great deal of overlap exists among the needs. It is unclear how the needs relate to other aspects of personality and how the needs develop within an individual. However, the list of needs has had considerable impact on the construction of psychological tests. Further, the concept of need and the importance Murray placed on motivation in his system have influenced the modern study of personality.
Chapter Summary
Murray’s childhood was characterized by maternal rejection, Adlerian compensa- tion, and depression. The major principle of Murray’s work is the dependence of psychological processes on physiological processes. Altering the level of need-
