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Murray's System of Needs
In 1938, Henry Murray published Explorations in Personality, describing his theory of personality. He defined personality as "the branch of psychology which principally concerns itself with the study of human lives and the factors which influence their course, and which investigates individual differences". He focused on the process of personality over more static concepts, and emphasized individuals and their reactions to specific environments. Needs and motivations were very important to his theory, as well as the environmental press (influences on a person that come from other people or events occurring in the environment). His theory focused on individuals, not aggregates, and he observed and evaluated situations and interactions that individuals encountered throughout their life. He referred to his theory as a personological system, and preferred the term personology over personality. Murray stated that personology encompassed many types of psychology, including psycho-analysis, analytical psychology, individual psychology, and many others.

Explanation
For Murray, human nature involves a set of universal basic needs and individual differences of these needs lead to the uniqueness of a person's personality due to varying amounts of each need. In other words, specific needs are more important to some than to others. Murray defined a need as the "immediate outcome of certain internal and external occurrences", as well as a "readiness to respond in a certain way under given conditions." Needs are a result of forces, and they are not static entities. They are a hypothetical construct, and an important determinant of behaviour. Basic needs include the need for achievement, affiliation, dominance, and exhibition.

There are two categories of needs: primary needs (viscerogenic needs) and secondary needs (psychogenic needs). Primary needs are any biological need, such as: food, water, and oxygen. Secondary needs as needs that are generally psychological- such as: nurturing, achievement, and independence. Murray identified 13 primary needs and a number of secondary needs. Needs can be interrelated, and an individual may experience many needs in a short period of time. Several needs can be active at once, in what Murray calls a fusion of needs, or they could be activated due to another need taking place, known as a subsidation of needs. They may also come into conflict.

List of Needs
A list of Murray's psychogenic and viscerogenic needs.

Personality testing[edit]
Murray's system of needs had an influence on personality testing. His method led him to develop the Thematic Apperception Test, which has since helped us better understand what motivates people. A personality test is a method of assessing human personality constructs. They can be in the form of a questionnaire or use other standardized instruments, and are designed to reveal aspects of an individual's character or psychological makeup. The first personality tests were developed in the 1920s and were intended to ease the process of personnel selection, particularly in the armed forces.

Thematic apperception test[edit]
Henry Murray, along with Christina Morgan, developed the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) as a tool to assess personality. The Thematic Apperception Test is based on the main assumption that human unconscious needs are directed towards an external stimulus. Murray and Morgan created the TAT to evaluate "press" and "need", which Murray emphasized in his theory of personality. A typical combination of presses and needs was named a thema.

The TAT is a projective personality test. Projective tests allow a person to "project" their innermost unconscious feelings, thoughts, and motivations onto the test. They are seen as the most useful when a theory is based on unconscious motivations, as Murray's was. The TAT looks at how individuals project their own personality onto an ambiguous image.

To implement the TAT, the assessor first chooses a subset out of 32 cards. Each card features various ambiguous scenes which relate to interpersonal situations. The test-taker is asked to give a detailed explanation of what they see, and what they believe to be happening in the picture. For example, an explanation may include a narrative of what is happening, what may unfold, and what the characters in the scene are feeling and thinking. From the test-taker's answer, themes of identity are derived. Murray identified four places where people generally sourced information from when interpreting the photos: 1) Movies and books, 2) events that someone close to them experienced, 3) subjective or objective experiences occurring in the individual's own life, and 4) the individual's conscious and unconscious fantasies.

Criticisms[edit]
Although Murray's theory has had substantial influence on further personality testing and research, critics say that his system of needs is too broad and rather subjective. There are concerns about the validity and the reliability of the TAT. Since the answers given are subjective, they are nearly impossible to disprove. As well, interpretations of the answers by the researchers may be inconsistent, as there is no standardized way to assess them. It seems to be a valuable tool when used in conjunction with other tests, but not on it's own.