Two terms used throughout the need discussions are defined below:

Need Conflicts: Within a particular dimension some needs conflict with each other because they evoke incompatible behavior if they are expressed synchronically (simultaneously). For example, the aggression and nurturance needs evoke incompatible behavior in all three dimensions. Needs that conflict in a particular dimension are located in opposite areas of that dimension (see Target Model) indicating that they are not normally activated synchronically in that dimension.

Mal Adaptive Need Fusion: Needs that normally produce conflicting behavior when synchronically evoked in a particular dimension are sometimes combined or fused despite resulting conflicts. Mal adaptive fusion creates frustrations and problems. For example, in the combative dimension, when the aggression and succorance needs are synchronically activated, the fused behavioral expression may take the form of whining and complaining that does not effectively express either the aggression need or the succorance need.

The Harm Avoidance Need
(The need to avoid harm and danger)

Harm avoidance is the basic inhibitor need in the Murray need system. The desire to avoid harm develops from experiencing pain. Pain is a very strong negative reinforcer and learning to avoid it becomes important quite early in life. Some harm avoidance behavior patterns are learned before we start talking. General personality traits of boldness or timidity may thus be partially developed at the preverbal developmental stage.

Acting to avoid most types of harm is such a constant and pervasive aspect of our lives that it becomes like breathing - automatic with little conscious awareness. However, if our air supply is cut off, we are immediately alerted and we mobilize for an all out effort to avoid death by asphyxiation. There are few situations where we do not maintain our harm avoidance need in an active, if automatic and unconscious, state. We look before we cross streets, watch our steps when it is slippery, check to see if food and water are clean and safe, avoid touching hot things, got to a physician or dentist to correct health problems, wear dark glasses to protect our eyes from glare, turn off stoves and electric appliances to prevent fires, stay alert while driving to prevent an accident, etc. As a matter of fact, almost every situation has its potential dangers and yet we learn to deal with danger so effectively and automatically that we may have difficulty identifying our own harm avoidance motivation and the ways it shapes and influences our behavior.

The harm avoidance need can generate different and sometimes opposite reactions to the same stimulus. When threatened by a predator, for example, one animal may flee to avoid harm while another hides or freezes. In general, the harm avoidance need puts us in a state of readiness and causes us to be more alert and tense in order to detect danger and react quickly. It combines readily with the succorance and deference needs to enable us to avoid harm by seeking support from an ally, guidance and direction from a protector, appealing to the mercy or submitting to the control of an adversary.

Fear is the emotional reaction we experience when we feel we are not going to avoid harm. When our judgment tells us harm is imminent our emotional system kicks in with our fear super-charger that releases energy for an alarm reaction. Fear can produce a number of physiological reactions such trembling, perspiring, cardiac and respiratory changes and other alarm reactions.

When a person is unable to avoid harm by evasive tactics, both the combative and noncombative area needs may be simultaneously activated. In such a situation a person can have a strong desire to escape but, if this seems impossible, equally strong aggression and defendance needs may be aroused. These strongly opposed motives mobilize the person's general physical resources. If escape is impossible and the person is truly "cornered", all the pent-up energy produced by the inner conflict will be used to fight for survival. Similar, but less intense conflicts occur when a person views a competitive situation as both challenging and physically threatening. A skier starting down a difficult slope may experience such excitement.

Anxiety is also an emotional reaction to the anticipation of danger or harm that might happen to us. There is some disagreement about the difference between anxiety and fear. One distinction is that fear is a reaction to a real and present danger whereas anxiety is a reaction to less immediate and less definite threatening possibilities. We are fearful when our car is skidding on a dangerous slippery road; we are anxious about a future trip that has some potentially threatening possibilities.

Harm avoidance generalizes along many dimensions. This has adaptive value as long as false generalizations are detected and corrected. For example, a person bitten by a dog might realistically decide that in some situations some dogs are dangerous and should be avoided. It would be unrealistic and unnecessary, however, to avoid all dogs under all circumstances. If the fear not only generalizes to all dogs but to all furry animals or to all four-footed animals, a phobia would have generalized to an unrealistic, constricting belief. Perhaps the most common type of neurotic or unrealistic belief is the over-generalized absolute idea that some event is invariable and inevitable - "I know something bad will happen; it always does." Such absolute beliefs are usually held at an unconscious level. Consciously, the person knows and will state that something bad does not always happen.
The Function of the Harm Avoidance Need

The general function of the harm avoidance need is to help us survive by avoiding danger. It does this by inhibiting or modifying actions we have learned are dangerous. The harm avoidance need is located in the inhibiting areas of all three dimensions. These locations indicate that its role is to impose limits and checks on all forms of assertive behavior. The harm avoidance need is most opposed to competitive activity. There are many competitive activities that are life threatening, especially when we lack experience and expertise (e.g., mountain climbing, car driving). It is less opposed to the personal-social area needs so it is less inhibiting for personal-social situations. The most strongly combative needs are located toward the combative area periphery so that all the inhibiting non combative needs are quite distant and therefore strongly inhibit combative actions.

Problems Related to the Harm Avoidance Need

Perhaps the most serious general problem resulting from all types of avoidance behavior is the effect it has on our learning, especially when we over-generalize from harmful or threatening experiences. If we avoid an object or situation because we believe it is dangerous, we cannot learn much about the object or situation. The danger could be gone and we would not know that things had changed. This helps explain the persistence of many phobias and irrational fears. For example, if a fear of snakes is so strong we avoid all snakes under all circumstances, we could not learn which snakes are poisonous and which not. The fear could have even worse consequences if it inhibited us from going into the woods where snakes might be. When generalized to this extent, a lot of our chances to learn about nature would be lost. Over-generalization of fear creates a downward spiral - the more we fear, the more we avoid; the more we avoid, the less we learn; the less we learn, the less capable we are of avoiding danger.

Over reaction as well as over-generalization creates unnecessary harm avoidance problems. People frequently react to a minor threat as if it were a "life-and-death" matter. Maslow attributed this reaction to dichotomous thinking, the all-or-nothing tendency to believe that something is either totally absent or is present to the maximum degree. Dichotomous thinking does not allow for shades of gray between black and white or for any points on a 10 point scale except 0 and 10.

Over reaction to avoid harm creates what might be called the "cliff hanger reaction." An example of the cliff hanger reaction is the fear sometimes aroused when we face an important test that has serious consequences for blame or failure but that does not involve a threat of physical harm. At the feeling level, however, a person may unconsciously believe that the test has the same terrible consequences as falling off a cliff. Because of early strong associations between the harm avoidance need and the blame and inferiority avoidance needs, we are sometimes "scared to death" by a threat that, at worst, could only result in minor blame or failure rather than serious physical harm.

Anxiety is a basic psychological factor in most emotional disorders and psychoses. Chronic anxiety can exhaust us because the constant stress wears us down physically, emotionally, and mentally. Anxiety is maladaptive when we create unrealistic fantasies about harm and then respond to the fantasies as if they were real. Anxiety is also maladaptive when we worry about threats that have very limited possibilities of happening, when we exaggerate or over-generalize a threat, or when we fail to do anything about a real threat except worry about it. An example of unrealistic anxiety is free floating anxiety. This is a form of dread or anxiety with no clearly perceived threat. Free floating anxiety is based on a belief that something catastrophic is about to happen although we don't know what form the catastrophe will take.

A special type of anxiety has been called angst vor der angst or fear of fear. This is a fear that we are about to become afraid (often made worse by the fear that we are going to show our fear). This type of fear or anxiety is usually related to unrealistic beliefs that fear is a shameful and disgraceful emotion and that to show fear or anxiety is a sign of unforgivable weakness. These beliefs may be derived from attempts to emulate folk heroes such as the cool cowboy who doesn't even raise a sweat in a shoot-out. In real life, such people don't exist or don't survive very long. Effective people are emotionally reactive to real dangers but they channel the energy mobilized by fear and anxiety into decisive action to deal with the danger. It is perhaps better to think of many ordinary dangers as exciting challenges rather than fearful threats, especially if we are able to effectively deal with the challenges.

When an unrealistic belief is accepted as true at the conscious level, despite all evidence to the contrary, the person holding the belief is in danger of developing a delusion. Delusions are considered signs of a psychosis. Some delusions, particularly in acute psychoses, are obviously related to fear and anxiety such as paranoid delusions of being hunted, persecuted, harassed and threatened by impersonal forces or agents. Other delusions may serve to mask or allay fear and anxiety, as when a person develops a delusion that he or she is God.

There are some harm avoidance problems caused by consistent under reaction to danger. Failure to realistically perceive and/or assess dangers can have a number of unfortunate consequences. People who are reckless or accident-prone often seem unwilling or unable to anticipate and prevent harm. This may be due to insensitivity or inability to project into the future or to unrealistic beliefs that they are immune to painful consequences of their actions. Sometimes overly dependent people believe that they will be specially protected from the consequences of their actions. Children who have been over-protected have no way of knowing about many dangers since they have been denied opportunities to learn to cope with them. The child who has not been allowed to swim because of the danger of drowning is the most vulnerable to drowning. Children who have been overly dominated and controlled sometimes rebel by seeking or creating harm and danger.

Much harm avoiding behavior is not aroused by immediate, obvious, and drastic threats such as an impending auto accident. Many health dangers have delayed or uncertain consequences and are hard to recognize. For example, threats to our health from over-eating, alcohol, tobacco, drug abuse, lack of exercise, etc., are consistently disregarded by some people with certain types of harm avoidance problems. Such people show too little concern for delayed consequences and may employ repression and denial to avoid responding to their need to avoid harm. Normal people are alert to real dangers, whether they are immediate or delayed, and take preventive steps but they do not indulge in obsessive worry. They also have a firm belief that they can stand or tolerate considerable pain and harm when it is unavoidable.

Dimension Locations of the Harm Avoidance Need

The harm avoidance need is normally located in the noncombative area of the combative dimension. Thus, harm avoidance is opposed to combative behavior and serves as an inhibitor of combative impulses. In combative situations we may choose to ignore danger so we can fight effectively without the inhibiting effects of fear ("Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead"). The alternative is to withdraw from the conflict if we choose to avoid the danger.

The harm avoidance need is normally located in the impersonal area of the personal-social dimension but close to the neutral or mid-point of the dimension. In this location it can be mildly inhibitive of either personal or impersonal social conduct. On the other hand, it does not strongly conflict with either type of social behavior. Good personal relationships are not inhibited by fear or anxiety.

The harm avoidance need is normally located very near the periphery of the noncompetitive area of the competitive dimension. In this location it functions as a strong inhibitor of competitive action. As previously noted, many competitive activities can be dangerous if one does not have the experience, skill, and knowledge required for competent performance (e.g., driving a car, skiing, contact sports, etc.) The harm avoidance need prohibits us from attempting risky competitive ventures for which we are ill prepared.

Harm Avoidance Dislocated in the Combative Area of the Combative Dimension

If the harm avoidance need is dislocated in the combative area , it may cause strong conflicts between combative impulses and fears of harm that can result from combative conflict. Such "fight or flight" conflicts can cause a paralysis of will in a combative situation or either panic withdrawal or over-reactive combative behavior. This motivation conflict may also be an indicator of underlying feelings of distrust, suspicion, and unrealistic fears of being self-assertive. The fears may be expressed by overly sensitive reactions to perceived (projected) hostility.

Harm Avoidance Located Too Near the Periphery of the Noncombative Area of the Combative Dimension

If the harm avoidance need is located near the periphery of the noncombative area relative to other needs, the need has too much power to inhibit combative self-assertion. Arousal of any fear or anxiety causes the person to withdraw completely from any combative self-assertion. If the person chooses to be combatively assertive, the harm avoidance need is too distantly located to exert any moderating influence and this lack of constraint may cause the person to be unwisely combative at times.

Harm Avoidance Dislocated in the Personal-Social Area of the Personal-Social Dimension
When the harm avoidance need is dislocated in the personal-social area it can be overly inhibiting in personal-social interactions. It can create feelings of vulnerability and insecurity in intimate relationships. These concerns make relaxation and enjoyment difficult in social and personal relationships. In some cases, this location could have the paradoxical effect of motivating the person to seek personal interactions to allay anxiety and fear.

Harm Avoidance Located Too Near the Periphery of the Impersonal Area of the Personal-Social
Dimension

When the harm avoidance need is located near the periphery of the impersonal area relative to other needs, it exerts an overly strong inhibiting power over personal-social interactions and may cause complete withdrawal from such relationships if they feel threatened. In this location, it may also produce inhibiting anxiety when the person is trying to impersonally resolve conflicts.

Harm Avoidance Dislocated in the Competitive Area of the Competitive Dimension

When the harm avoidance need is dislocated in the competitive area it strongly conflicts with competitive activity. It makes it difficult to choose between accepting a competitive challenge or withdrawing because of possible dangers. In some cases, it may lead to reckless competitive actions as the person seeks to overcome anxiety by increased competitive efforts.

Harm Avoidance Located Too Near the Periphery of the Noncompetitive Area of the Competitive Dimension

When the harm avoidance need is located too near the periphery of the noncompetitive area relative to other needs, it has extreme inhibiting power in competitive situations. It may cause over reactions to possible dangers when deciding whether or not to accept a competitive challenge. It also means that the need is out-of-range as a restraining force when competitively engaged so that realistic reactions to danger is lacking.