Keep reading to learn about the different types of needs and how they can impact your personality.
While some needs are temporary and changing, other needs are more deeply seated in our nature.
Murray identified two types of needs:
Psychogenic Needs
Murray and his colleagues identified 24 psychogenic needs.
Eugenio Marongiu / Cultura / Getty Images
Murray also believedenvironmental factorsplay a role in how these psychogenic needs are displayed in behavior.
Murray called these environmental forces “presses.”
Ambition Needs
Ambition needs are related to the need forachievement and recognition.
The need for achievement is often expressed by succeeding,achieving goals, and overcoming obstacles.
The need for recognition is met by gaining social status and displaying achievements.
Sometimes ambition needs even involve a need for exhibition, or the desire to shock and thrill other people.
Materialistic Needs
The materialistic needs center on acquisition, construction, order, and retention.
These needs are resolved by obtaining items, such as buying material objects that we desire.
In other instances, these needs compel us to create new things.
Murray believed autonomy was a powerful need involving the desire for independence and resistance.
Affection Needs
Affection needs are centered on our desireto love and be loved.
We have a need for affiliation and seek out the company of other people.
Nurturance, or taking care of other people, is also important forpsychological well-being.
Humans also have a need for succorance, which means being helped or protected by others.
Murray also suggested playing and having fun with other people was also a critical affection need.
Information Needs
Information needs center around both gaining knowledge and sharing it with others.
According to Murray, people have an innate need to learn more about the world around them.
He referred to the need to seek knowledge and ask questions ascognizance.
In addition to gaining knowledge, he believed people have a need for exposition.
He described exposition as the desire to share what they have learned with other people.
Related Research
Murray’s psychogenic needs have been researched extensively.
They are also more likely to sufferlonelinesswhen faced with little social contact.
Xu X, Mellor D, Read SJ.Taxonomy of Psychogenic Needs (Murray).
In: Zeigler-Hill V, Shackleford TK, editors.Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences.
Springer International Publishing; 2017.
1989;74(1):18.
Hill CA.Affiliation motivation: People who need people… but in different ways.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
1987;52(5):1008. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.52.5.1008
