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Henry A. Murray Personology

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Henry A. Murray: Personology

Personology is the science of people. It is used to interpret and organize the lives of humans. The central ideas of the science must be to "understanding of what we mean by the concept "person," and for development of methods of understanding the lives of persons as the "long unit for psychology"" (Barresi & Juckes 1988 pg 1). It is important to take accounts when studying personology from first person perspective instead of a third person perspective. Henry A. Murray believed that personality psychology had to deal with the life course of person and came up with the word "personology" (Barresi & Juckes 1988). He developed the phrase because he felt that personality psychology was an "unwieldy" phrase. …show more content…

It has a selfish instinct, an acceptable instinct such as a need for love, achievement, and to be nurtured, and tension reduction is pleasurable. The Ego has defensive functions. It also has promoted expressions of acceptable impulses. Some of the ego functioning can be conflict free. The Superego has more emphasis on the "Ego-Ideal". The natural tendency of the superego is to get the maximum gratification with minimum anxiety and guilt ("Henry Murray: Personology").
According to Murray there are two types of Needs: Viscerogenic (internal source) and Psychogenic needs (external source or press).Needs are arranged according to their hierarchy of strength. The strongest of the needs are called "Prepotent" needs. If needed needs will combine to achieve the same goal. Needs can conflict with one another. According to Murray needs are based on internal influences on behavior. External behaviors are called press. There is an Alpha press and a Beta press. The Alpha Press is the objective characteristic of an object in that environment in comparison with Beta press which is a person's evaluation and perception of that object. Viscerogenic needs include lacks(leading to intakes), Inspiration(of oxygen), food, water, sex lactation, expiration, urination, defecation, sentience(sensuous impressions), distensions(leading to outputs), harms(leading to retractions), noxavoidance, heat and cold avoidance, and harm

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