Agnieszka Biedrzycka, Master 2 developpemental psychology
Key words: TAT test, theories of giftedness and talent, high gifted student, study of personality, Harvard controversial study, Unabomber, Utøya massacre
Henry A. Murray (1893-1988) was a prominent American psychologist and psychoanalyst. He was a faculty member at the Harvard University from the 1920s until his retirement in the 1960s, worked as a psychology professor and served as director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic. He was also a member of the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Murray was highly influential in the field of psychology and had a significant impact on the study of personality and motivation. His work continues to be influential today being used in order to develop theories of giftedness and talent.
One of his most famous studies was the “Thematic Apperception Test” (TAT), a projective psychological test in which subjects are asked to interpret ambiguous scenes and stories. The TAT test is one of the most used to assess personality and emotional functioning.
During the years after the second war, his work focused on the psychological characteristics of individuals who are exceptionally talented and intelligent. Murray argued that these individuals often possess a high level of energy, creativity, and drive, and tend to be independent, self-directed and able to cope with stress and adversity.
He conducted some of his most well-known researches at Harvard, including the “Explorations in Personality” study which involved analyzing the lives and personalities of a group of high-achieving individuals. This study, which was conducted in the 1930s and 1940s, was one of the first large-scale investigations of personality and led to the development of Murray’s theory of personality which focused on the role of psychological needs in shaping individual behaviour.
Murray and his colleagues identified a set of common characteristics among the young gifted people they studied, including a strong sense of purpose, a desire for excellence and a willingness to take risks.
However, the most unexpected issue concernes the link between the psychologist and the notorious terrorist Ted Kaczynski also known as “the Unabomber”. Theodore Kaczynski was born in Chicago in 1942 within a working-class family of polish emigrants. One of two children, along with his younger brother David, later involved in his sibling’s arrest. Ted was noted by his class mates as a “loner” but academically excellent. Kaczynski was without a doubt a high gifted student, he skipped 11th grade in high school and was accepted at Harvard university on a full scholarship at the age of only sixteen. During his university years, he didn’t make many friends either but he continued to perform exceedingly well academically. However during his Harvard time, Kaczynski participated in a controversial study led by Henry Murray, his code name was “Lawful”. Today, the employed method would be considered as highly unethical. In that experiment, subjects were asked to write an essay to expose their personal philosophy. Later, they got insulted for hours and subjected to personal attacks based on these elements.
Notice that lately, Kaczynski himself wrote a tweet exposing his disagreement with a thesis that participation in the Murray study might have push him, the years after, to become a revolutionary against science and society. Today, his file is buried in a deep corner of the Harvard campus, somewhere in the largest collection of psychological data in the US. The “Lawful’s” file sealed contents might help understand what drove him to kill people. Despite the records may put the light on Kaczynski motivations, the Murray Center has locked the file up for good.
Still, he graduated from Harvard with a master degree in mathematics in 1964 and a doctorate in the same subject from the University of Michigan in 1967. At the age of 25, Kaczynski became the youngest assistant professor in the history of the University of Berkeley. However, he didn’t stay long and resigned two years later, in 1971. He moved to the middle of a forest to live in a cabin he had built on his own. He hoped to be able to live self-sufficiently using survival skills such as hunting and organic farming.
By 1975, he felt disturbed by industrial development in the area around his place. Influenced by French Christian anarchist philosopher, a neo luddist Jacques Ellul, Kaczynski took action. He ran a series of coordinated attacks using mail bombs sent via the U.S. Postal Service targeting academics, business executives and others between 1978 and 1995. The bombings caused three deaths and twenty three injuries. Finally, he got captured after his brother recognized his writing style in a manifesto published by The New York Times and The Washington Post in September 1995. The publishing of his manifesto was Unabomber’s requirement to stop the bombings.
Kaczynski was arrested in 1996 after a nationwide manhunt led by the FBI known as the FBI’s longest and most expensive manhunt. After his arrest, Kaczynski pleaded guilty to all federal charges in spite of his attorney’s advices and in 1998 was sentenced to life prison without any possibility of parole.
Kaczynski’s bombings were motivated by his opposition to what he considered as the negative effects of modern technologys. He argued that technology was leading to the loss of individual freedom and to environmental degradation, and that it needed to get controlled or even eliminated in order to prevent the total destruction. In addition, he argued that the only way to save the human kind was to return to what he described as “wild nature”.
Kaczynski’s actions and the subsequent FBI’s investigation and trial received widespread media attention and had a significant impact on public opinion about technology and its impact on society. Also, his Manifesto continues to influence extremists such as Andreas Breivik sadly revealed by the Utøya attack in 2011. The Utøya massacre was the deadliest mass shooting committed by a lone murder in modern history. A long way from Harvard experiments to a little island next to Oslo in Norway !
Bibliography :
- D. Colon, Propagande, Belin, 2019
- Th. Kaczynski, « Industrial Society and his Future », The Washington Post, [Enligne], 1995, mise en ligne le 19 septembre 1995, URL : https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm
- K. G. Studlien, « Murray Center Seals Kaczyński Data », The Harvard Crimson [En ligne], 2000, mise en ligne le 14/07/2000. https://www.thecrimson;com/article/2000/7/14/muray-center-seals-kaczynski-data-plondon-burried/
- Unabomber (Ted Kaczyński) – History. https://www.history.com/topics/crime/unabomber-ted-kaczynski