Needs as Personality:

Henry Murray (1893 - 1988) was active in developing a theory of motivation throughout the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s. He believed that a need is 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.
(Murray, et al. 1938, p. 124).

A major assumption of Murray’s theory was that behaviour is driven by an internal state of disequilibrium. In other words we have a LACK of something and this drives us. We are dissatisfied and we desire something.

Murray classified needs as being either:

Primary needs (which are biologically based): food, water, air, sex, avoidance of pain

Secondary needs (which either derive from our biological needs or are inherent in our psychological nature):

achievement, recognition, acquisition

dominance, aggression, autonomy

affiliation, rejection

nurturance, play, cognizance (asking questions of others)

Murray believed that stronger needs are expressed more often over time and lead to more intense behaviour.

The main contribution from Murray’s was that he understand personality as being driven by the secondary needs: Achievement, Dominance, Affiliation and Nurturance. The extent to which each of these needs was felt by an individual shaped their personality and behavior.

Since the 60s and 70s the main needs studies have examined Achievement, Power, Affiliation and Intimacy.

For example, the need for achievement (or Achievement Motivation) was studied extensively by
David McLelland in the 70s, and is the single most researched need. Achievement motivation refers to the desire to do things well, overcome obstacles, to do things better. A person high in achievement motivation tends to choose more difficult tasks than a person low in achievement motivation, because they want to find out more about their ability to achieve.

The need for power was studied intensely by David Winter in the 70s. The need for power is the desire to have dominance, impact on others, prestige, position, and influence over others. Those who have a need for power are often concerned about controlling the image of themselves that is portrayed to others. If the need for power can be combined with taking on responsibility, then "acceptable" displays of power can be experienced.

The need for affiliation has been studied by McAdam in the 80s. The need for affiliation refers to the desire to desire to spend time with other people. It can be more useful to look at subcomponents such as social comparison, emotional support, positive stimulation, and attention from others.

The need for intimacy is the desire to experience warm, close, and communicative exchanges with
another person. Ultimately, it is the desire to merge self with another. The need for intimacy correlates .58 (medium correlation) with the need for affiliation, but focuses more on one to one interactions, particularly self-disclosure and listening.

Murray’s Needs theory is sometime studied as part of the trait perspective as “needs” are seen as akin to traits. But probably more often, you’ll see Needs’ theory studied within the psychoanalytic
perspective as it is seen as a DRIVE theory of personality. We’ll return to this when you look at the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) in the psychoanalytic section of the course. The TAT was derived from Murray’s Needs theory.

The Essential Personality Trait Approach

Many psychologists have tried to reduce the many traits to a few essential ones. Amongst the best known essential trait approaches are:

Murray 1938 (20+ “needs”)

Cattell (16 traits): 16 Personality Factors questionnaire

Eysenck (3 traits): Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) - Extraversion, Neuroticism, Psychotocism

Costa & McCrae (5 traits): NEO - Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness

The Single Personality Trait Approach

The Single Personality Trait Approach
Much personality research has studied the origin, nature and consequences of single traits, such as introversion. Funder (2001) focuses on three single traits that have received wide attention and have been the subject of investigation in hundreds of studies:

conscientiousness

self-monitoring

authoritarianism

To illustrate the single trait approach, let's take a look at authoritarianism.

Single Trait: Authoritarianism
The personality trait of authoritarianism has been extensively studied since the 1950's. Much initial research was done as a reaction to the outrages which occurred in Nazi Germany during WWII. Authoritarianism began to be studied in order to try to understand its nature and its origin. Authoritarianism is felt to lie at the heart of racial prejudice.

Think of the stereotypical "Hitler", and you have the authoritarian personality.

The Authoritarian personality may be described a person who is unthinking and inflexible, aggressive, worshipful of authority above, contemptuous of those below, fascinated by power, cynical, and may be sexually repressed.

The origins of authoritarianism have been studied but it has been difficult to determine whether adult authoritarianism is attributable to:

The Many Personality Traits Approach

Some theorists look at many traits at once when investigating personality. They try to determine which traits are correlated with certain behaviours, thereby gaining understanding of the underpinnings of various behaviours as well as the more general workings of personality. For example, personality research has investigated the relationship between personality traits and the ability to delay gratification, political orientation and drug taking.

For example, a study (cited in Carver & Scheier, 2000) found young children rated as being emotionally unstable, disobedient, domineering, aggressive, teasing, fidgety, restless, and susceptible to stress were found nearly a decade later at age 14 years to be more likely to be using illegal drugs.

The implication of using this many trait approach is you can get to have an understanding of what sort of personality underpins a certain type of behaviour (in this case drug-taking). The practical implications of this are that instead of anti-drug campaigns targeted at 14 year olds we should have campaigns at helping problem behaviours and susceptibility to stress at an earlier age.