Psychogenic Needs
Friedman and Schustack (2016) discuss a different approach to personality assessment as seen from Henry Murray’s perspective, who believes an individual’s personality develops through satisfying psychogenic needs. These needs are inspired by motives which are “internal psychobiological forces that help induce particular behavior patterns toward a goal (Friedman & Schustack, 2016).” The term “need” refers to an individual’s readiness to respond to certain situations under different conditions. Meeting many of these needs are easily understood by their labels such as achievement, recognition or rejection; others, require a little more definition.
Three Needs
The long list of psychogenic needs has been subject to interpretation and the list of names has varied over the years depending on the time frame and the authors. Although many of the psychogenic needs have not been researched enough or find support for their individualistic incarnations, many of them could be inclusive of fulfillment or satisfaction of these three needs that found significant research. Three of these needs are for power, affiliation and achievement.
The need for affiliation has a long history of research and most can be understood to have larger social circles. They tend to spend more time interacting with others such as talking on the phone or writing letters. They are also more likely to get lonely than others that score lower in this need, because their need for affiliation may be related to their sense of self and their desire for external stimulation (Sandalgaard et. al., 2011).
Those with a high need for achievement have often demonstrated a consistent concern for meeting obligations and accomplishing tasks. They can be focused on internal motivations rather than external rewards. This is often described as the “desire or tendency to do things as rapidly and/or as well as possible” and “to overcome obstacles and attain high standards. To excel one’s self. To rival and surpass others (Friedman & Schustack, 2016; Sandalgaard et. al., 2011).”
The need for power refers to an individual’s desire to impact others, to have control or be in a position of influence or dominance. Often times people falling under this category seek careers in high power places such as politics. They don’t necessarily make the best leaders, though (Sandalgaard et. al., 2011). Leadership has experienced an evolution over the last several decades as commerce, private and public, has been forced to adapt to the rapidly advancing technological trends, gadgets and tools. Traditional leadership patterns where a manager or leader made all the rules and dictated to the employees have been replaced by contemporary models of leadership described as transactional or transformational (Hollander & Offermann, 1990).
Transformational leadership extends and expands upon transactional leadership to include intellectual stimulation, individual attention to followers, as well as ascribing the trait of charisma to the leader (Hollander & Offermann, 1990).
References
Friedman, H. S. & Schustack, M. W. (2016). Personality: Classic theories and modern research (6th ed.). MA: Pearson
Hollander, E. P., & Offermann, L. R. (1990, February). Power and leadership in organizations: Relationships in transition. American Psychologist, 45(2), 179-189. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0003-066X.45.2.179
Sandalgaard, N., Bukh, P. N., & Poulsen, C. S. (2011). The interaction between motivational disposition and participative budgeting: Evidence from a bank. Journal of Human Resource Costing and Accounting, 15(1), 7-23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/14013381111125297
Comments
Post a Comment