Henry Murray
American psychologist of personality at Harvard
American psychologist at Harvard who developed a need-based theory of personality and, with Christiana Morgan, the Thematic Apperception Test. Experiments he ran on Harvard undergraduates from 1959 to 1962 are described as likely unethical.
Why this person matters
Murray's concepts of needs and press shaped personality research, and the Thematic Apperception Test became a widely used projective measure. Christiana Morgan co-developed the test with him. In the Second World War he worked with the Office of Strategic Services on assessing recruits and on a profile of Hitler.
Main contributions
Needs and press
Murray described needs as readiness to respond in certain ways and listed 27 psychogenic needs, alongside environmental press, which acts on those needs. He set out the framework in Explorations in Personality (1938).
Thematic Apperception Test
With Christiana Morgan he developed the test in the 1930s (1935 in most accounts). Subjects tell stories about ambiguous pictures, and the stories are analysed for underlying needs and conflicts.
Wartime assessment and profiling
The Office of Strategic Services used situation tests drawing on his work to select agents. In 1943 he helped complete Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler, commissioned by William Donovan and prepared with several psychoanalysts.
Context and limits
From late 1959 to early 1962 Murray ran experiments on 22 Harvard undergraduates. After writing essays on their philosophies of life, students faced a staged debate with a lawyer told to attack them, attacks Murray called 'vehement, sweeping, and personally abusive'. Ted Kaczynski was a participant. The journalist Alston Chase argued the study contributed to Kaczynski's later crimes; Kaczynski disputed this. Chase found no evidence that LSD was used, and a link to MKUltra is unconfirmed.
In your introductory course
Personality.He appears in personality chapters for the Thematic Apperception Test and need theory, and in research ethics discussions for the stress experiments.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 10.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1926
He joined the Harvard psychology faculty.
- 1935
He and Christiana Morgan developed the Thematic Apperception Test.
- 1938
He published Explorations in Personality.
- 1943
He helped complete the OSS analysis of Hitler's personality.
Sources
- The Atlantic Monthly, Alston Chase, Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (June 2000), text reproduced at holtz.orgReference work. Text passages inspected.
- New World Encyclopedia, Henry MurrayReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, Henry MurrayReference work. Reference article inspected.