MURRAY

Pae Aldaba
Eunice Arevalo
Celina Quintos

BIOGRAPHY
Born May 13, 1893
Wealthy family in New York
Personology -> study of personality
Recognized value of Freuds observations,
but applied unique interpretations
Identified system of psychological needs still
used today

FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE

Got on well with father
Poor relationship with mother
Maternal rejection
Believed mother neglected him
Weaned early (2 mos.)
More attention to siblings

FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE

Later made him
question Freuds
Oedipus
complex, didnt
coincide with his
experiences
Believed cause of
his depression

FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE

Emotional distress
Depression caused by relationship w/ mother
Source of misery and melancholy
Masked it by acting happy
Relationship with two disturbed aunts

FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE

Physical deficiency
Born cross-eyed
Surgery corrected this but removed
stereoscopic vision -> bad at some sports
(e.g. tennis)
Stutter

FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE

Drove him to compensate
Football quarterback
Schoolyard champion
Local featherweight champion boxer
Emotional sensitivity continued throughout
his life

EDUCATION
Groton Prep School
Harvard University
Originally
studied history,
got bad grades
because he
preferred Rum,
Rowing, and
Romanticism

EDUCATION
Went into
psychology but
didnt enjoy it,
didnt attend
another psych
class until he
started
teaching one

EDUCATION
Columbia
University
Medicine
Masters in
Biology
Harvard
University
(teaching)
Taught
physiology

EDUCATION
New York
2 yr. internship at a hospital
Cared for Franklin Delano Roosevelt
2 yr. internship at Rockefeller

EDUCATION

University of Cambridge
Doctorate in Biochemistry (1927)

INFLUENCE OF JUNG
Read Psychological
Types by Carl Jung ->
fascinated by ideas
Fell in love with
Christiana Morgan, also
fascinated by Jung

INFLUENCE OF JUNG
Didnt want to leave his wife of 7 yrs.
Insisted he needed both women
Lived w/ conflict for 2 yrs.
Met Jung
Jung told him to carry on with both
relationships
Went on with both relationships for 40 yrs.

INFLUENCE OF JUNG
Murray initially idolized
Jung, works greatly
influenced him
Mistress Wolff contributed
to his work in both books
and his clinic, but never
fully recognized until after
death

INFLUENCE OF JUNG
believe anything I told
him that was along the
lines that he liked, but
he would over look what
did not fit his theories

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL
CLINIC
offered an appointment
by Morton Prince at the
Harvard Psychological
Clinic
wisteria on the outside,
hysteria on the inside
underwent orthodox
Freudian psychoanalysis

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL
CLINIC
psychoanalyst got bored with him;
phlegmatic childhood, lack of usual Freudian
complexes
his office was depressing, the color of
feces. . . .[a] miserable room . . . enough to
send a patient into a morbid phase

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL
CLINIC
Murray and
Morgan
developed
Thematic
Apperception
Test (TAT), still
one of the
most used
projective
tests

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL
CLINIC
Originally
attributed
to just
Murray;
revealed
Morgan did
much of
the work

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL
CLINIC
idea apparently came from one of their
female students
became a best seller for the Harvard
University Press but Morgans name was
dropped from publication
later admits Morgans importance in his life

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL
CLINIC
Explorations in Personality:
A Clinical and Experimental
Study of Fifty Men of
College Age.
almost instant success as
a leading personality
theorist

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL
CLINIC
Boosted effort begun by
Gordon Allport to make the
study of personality an
academically respectable
part of American
psychology
Used regular people rather
than patients undergoing
psychotherapy

WWII
Joined OSS, precursor to
CIA
Thematic Apperception
Test and other screening
procedures to identify
potential candidates

WWII
Helped complete Analysis
of the Personality of Adolph
Hitler: With Predictions of
His Future Behavior and
Suggestions for Dealing
with Him Now and After
Germanys
Surrender (1943)
Used a combination of diff.
existing psych theories

WWII
Predicted Hitler would
commit suicide if he lost
the war
Entertained idea that
Hitler was homosexual
Pioneer study for
offender profiling &
political psych

LATER LIFE
Interest in literature
Published analysis of
psychological meaning of
Herman Melvilles Moby
Dick

LATER LIFE
Remained at Harvard until retirement in
1962, refining his theory and training
psychologists
American Psychological Foundations (APA)
Gold Medal Award
APAs Distinguished Scientific Contribution
Award

LATER LIFE
Lived to age of 95, last few years marred by
effects of a stroke
Died of pneumonia June 23, 1988

CONTROVERSY
1959 1962: Conducted psychological
experiments on 22 undergraduate students
Supposedly sponsored by CIA
Intended to measure how people react under
stress
Unethical, traumatizing
Psychological disturbance of Unabomber
Ted Kaczynski partially attributed to
participation in these experiments

THEORY
Extension of Freudian theories
Needs -> main theory
1) Primary needs (viscerogenic needs)
- From internal body states
- Survival
2) Secondary needs (psychogenic needs)
- Indirectly from primary needs

THEORY
3) Proactive
4) Reactive
Stages (akin to Freuds)
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 because an environmental
object/event presses/pressures the individual
to act a certain way

THEORY
Thema
personal + environmental factors that
pressure behavior
formed through early childhood
experiences and becomes a powerful force
in determining personality

THEORY
Thema
Largely unconscious
relates needs and presses in a pattern that
gives coherence, unity, order, and
uniqueness to our behavior

ASSESSMENT OF THEORY
Goal not a tension-free state but the
satisfaction from acting to reduce tension
Personality is determined by needs and the
environment, but people have free will to
change and grow
Each person is unique but there are
similarities

ASSESSMENT OF THEORY
Shaped by our inherited attributes and by
our environment; roughly equal influence
(nature vs. nurture)
criticized a psychology that projected a
negative and demeaning image of human
beings
Vast powers of creativity, imagination, and
reason, we are capable of solving any
problem we face (non-deterministic)

ASSESSMENT OF THEORY
Teleogical
recognized the imprint of childhood
experiences on current behavior, did not
envision people as captives of the past
childhood complexes unconsciously affect
our development, but personality also
determined by present events and by
aspirations for the future

HOW HIS EXPERIENCES SHAPED

THE FIVE PRINCIPLES
1. Personality is rooted in the brain
- Extensive education in biology and
physiology
2. Individuals align themselves towards tension
reduction not tension elimination
- Seen in extramarital affair with Morgan

HOW HIS EXPERIENCES SHAPED

THE FIVE PRINCIPLES
- Did not choose to end affair (tension free)
- Chose to follow the advice of Jung and create
an uneasy yet stable compromise (reduced
tension but not eliminate it completely)

HOW HIS EXPERIENCES SHAPED

THE FIVE PRINCIPLES
3. Personality is shaped by continuous
development and is heavily shaped by the past
- Blamed his lifelong depression on early
actions of mother (2 mos.)
- influenced by Freudian concepts: believed
early weaning had created an atmosphere of
maternal rejection that would remain for
most of his life

HOW HIS EXPERIENCES SHAPED

THE FIVE PRINCIPLES
4. Personality changes over time and is not
fixed or static
- underwent many major changes in his life in
response to crises
- (e.g.) transition from biologist to
psychologist to soldier

HOW HIS EXPERIENCES SHAPED

THE FIVE PRINCIPLES
5. All individuals have personalities which are
similar yet profoundly unique to the individual
- acknowledgement of personality similarity =
indicates agreement with Jungian personality
type theory
- Murray himself had been quite close to Jung
and admired him early on. However as his
views of Jung changed, Murray also adapted
the theory to emphasize uniqueness instead.

INFLUENCES: FOR TAT

Worked with psychologically healthy
individuals instead of neurotics; dream
analysis & free association inappropriate
Freudian-influenced projective technique;
relies on the participant projecting his/her
self onto the ambiguous images
Utilized TAT + other assessment techniques
during stay as director for OSS during WW2

Thank you
:)