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 Sentience Need
(The need to appreciate the beauty and harmony of one's surroundings)

The sentience need is the most uniquely human need in the Murray need system. Esthetic experiences (positive responses to art and beauty) are derived from a highly integrated set of perceptual, emotional, and intellectual processes. This motivation subsystem does not appear to be developed to a significant degree in lower animals although many species respond to attractive colors and forms associated with food and sex. It is important to note that sentience refers to esthetic appreciation rather than artistic creativity. Creative behavior is developed from a different need subsystem that does, however, include the sentience need.

An esthetic experience is initiated by perceptual processes. Although intellectual and emotional reactions are part of our appreciation of beauty and harmony, the perception of distant stimuli (i.e., sights and sounds) provides the original stimuli for most esthetic experiences. The sentience need is heavily dependent on parallel processing (the categorizing and utilization of several incoming streams of information simultaneously). For example, we instantly perceive an attractive face as a complete configuration rather than build or construct the face by linear addition of one part to another. Our brain enables us to match this facial pattern with other images we have stored in our memory so that we can re-cognize the facial configuration if we have seen it before. In poetry and creative literature, verbal symbols evoke esthetic reactions by way of associations with previous esthetic perceptions and by responses to the rhythm and rhyme we perceive in the structure of the writing. Verbal symbols that stimulate us esthetically tend to be metaphorically grounded in phenomena we can directly perceive and appreciate. For example, the moon is a commonly perceived and esthetically appreciated object and the moon is frequently referred to in poetry and song.

Basically, it is the organization we perceive in external stimuli that satisfies our need for sentience. If the notes in a symphony were played in random sequence and time, the organization would be lost and so would its esthetic appeal. The esthetic impact of a creative novel, play, or story does not lie in the literal factual information communicated, but in the organization of the plot and the imagery evoked. We intuitively perceive the plot as a significant life pattern and the imagery as significant life phenomena.

Esthetic satisfaction tends to be enhanced when the organization of stimuli is perceived as both highly complex and strongly integrated. Stimuli that have little or no organization are perceived as meaningless noises, formless blobs, or chaotic masses that offer little or no esthetic satisfaction. Mere collections of unrelated things also lack esthetic appeal (although individual items may be appealing). If the organization of a set of stimuli can be described by a simple set of rules, as in a musical exercise or "color by number" painting, it may satisfy our rational needs for order, achievement, and understanding, but do little for our need for sentience. To be esthetically pleasing, the organization of the stimuli must be sufficiently complex to require intuitive rather than analytic understanding. Conflict and dissonance may be present, as they are in life, but esthetically satisfying configurations are never meaningless.

The opposite of beauty is ugliness. We perceive ugliness when stimuli are disintegrated, degraded, decayed, or fragmented. The sights and smells of decaying organisms are perceived as ugly and disgusting. Imbalance in a pattern or system, as when one element dominates to the extent of disturbing the configuration, also jars our esthetic sensibility and sense of harmony. Peak esthetic experiences occur when we feel ourselves to be an integral part of a meaningful natural process. The sentience need sensitizes us to complex ways in which natural phenomena can be organized to bring harmony and order out of chaos. Esthetic phenomena thus serve as analogs or models that help us organize our sensory and perceptual processes. At the least, they affirm our beliefs that there are positive, creative, life building principles operating in our world. Such beliefs arouse feelings of gratitude, benevolence, affiliation, pleasure, faith and trust. These beliefs also inhibit destructive, aggressive, or rejecting feelings and fears of blame and inadequacy.

As previously noted, seeing and hearing are the senses that provide us with most of our esthetic satisfactions. When we listen to music, we perceive patterns of sounds that change as the music progressives from one note or chord to the next. In music, there are synchronic states (simultaneously occurring stimuli) where the elements (notes) produce a particular blend (chord) at a given moment in time. There is also a melody, theme, or progression that integrates a series of synchronic states into a diachronic (across time) process. The diachronic process is a connected flow of events rather than a series of discreet and unrelated phenomena. One example of this model is the "music of the spheres," a metaphor noted by astronomers. There are many analogies, both for physical and behavioral phenomena, that fit this synchronic-diachronic music model. Performing arts such as the dance, theater, and cinema also have synchronic-diachronic organization and thus have a basic perceptual structure like music. In fact, music is often an important and sometimes necessary part of these art forms. The analogy between music and other art forms and life experiences in general can be appreciated by consciously focusing on the background music for films. There are fast, exciting passages when the action is intense, soft romantic sounds for love scenes, heavy minor modes for tragic sequences, etc. Composers sometimes consciously create music to evoke certain images and moods. A well-known example is Prokofieff's "Peter and the Wolf" in which the composer created musical portraits and scenarios for the different animals and events in the story.

In the visual arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture, the emphasis is on the synchronic aspects of life. Artists select significant events or situations where visual elements (lines, color, form) are arranged in a meaningful way. They abstract and capture this structure for us so it is preserved in a "frozen" synchronized pattern for our esthetic appreciation. The synchronous aspect of any system is basic to our perception and understanding of the system. We cannot perceive a process without perception of the elements as they are synchronously arranged at specific points in time.

The Function of the Sentience Need

The sentience need is tuned to immediate gratification. It provides a restorative, recreational role in our lives. In this respect it is similar to the play need except that play satisfaction is of a more physical or proprioceptive nature. Our body feels good when we play and relax. The sentience need is gratified through distance receptors and experienced at a more cognitive emotional level. The Victorian critic, John Ruskin, felt that both the intellect and the emotions must be stimulated and co-active to provide esthetic satisfaction and to avoid both rational sterility or the pathetic fallacy (the intellect unduly influenced by emotions). Perhaps, in some ways, the condition of unity between the cognitive and emotive processes is like a return to an early developmental state. We start life with little differentiation between thinking and feeling. These processes become increasingly differentiated as we mature so that our decisions and actions can be based on independent input from both of the two processes. In an esthetic experience, the cognitive and the emotive subsystems are recombined in a unity that makes us feel whole and at-one-again with the world.

Problems Related to the Sentience Need

There seem to be fewer personality problems related to the sentience need than there are for most of the other needs. Perhaps this is because, in evolutionary terms, it is a recently developed need and is not, as yet, as necessary to our survival (as a species) as are the other Murraay system needs.

Decay and disintegration are unpleasant but unavoidable phenomena of life, requiring a certain degree of tolerance for anti-esthetic experiences. Some people place so much emphasis on the sentience need that they are overly sensitive and fastidious and demand that all situations be harmonious and beautiful. Such people tend to become easily depressed when they encounter the inevitable drabness and ugliness that are a part of life.

Sentience provides a cerebral form of restoration that some people rely on to the neglect of more active proprioceptive forms of playful recreation and restoration. Although satisfaction of the sentience need is conducive to a restoration of positive cognitive-emotive processes, it is not an adequate substitute for the body feelings of well-being and relaxation provided by active play.

Some people fail to develop normal esthetic sensitivity. Such a deficiency may be due to genetic or experiential factors or some combination of the two. Lack of esthetic sensitivity places limitations on a person in many social situations and in work that requires esthetic judgment.

Dimension Locations of the Sentience Need

The sentience need is located in the non combative area of the combative dimension. This location indicates that sentience is opposed to combative activity. Sentience motivates us to appreciate the good and the beautiful whereas combative needs motivates us to attack and destroy. Sentience is thus an inhibitor of combative action.

The sentience need is located in the personal-social area of the personal-social dimension. In this location it enhances our sensitivity to, appreciation for, and refinement of, the intellectual and emotional aspects of personal-social interactions. The sentience need clusters with the rational needs (understanding, order, achievement) in the combative and competitive dimensions. However, in the personal-social dimension the sentience need separates from the rational needs that are located in the impersonal area. Thus, the need for harmony and beauty is present in the personal-social area but the needs for rational analysis and goal directed striving are more appropriately located in the impersonal area.

The sentience need is located in the competitive area of the competitive dimension. Sensitivity to esthetic qualities is an important element in crafts and arts and in the poetic aspects of truth and knowledge. There is grace and beauty in a superior and excellent performance or work of art. Scientists note the harmony and beauty in nature and our universe. The sentience need's mid location in the competitive area suggests that the need is not as active in strongly competitive activities (striving for status and dominance) as it is in the development of skills and knowledge.

Sentience Dislocated in the Combative Area of the Combative Dimension

If the sentience need is dislocated in the combative area it conflicts with combative activity. Desires for harmony make it difficult to disagree with or oppose others. In some cases sensitivity may mal adaptively fuse with combativeness to make the person especially critical of any lack of refinement or esthetic appreciation perceived in others. It could also mean that critical feelings are concealed by expressions of appreciation.

Sentience Located Too Near the Periphery of the Non combative Area of the Combative Dimension

When the sentience need is located too near the non combative periphery relative to other needs, the sentience need acquires too much inhibiting power over combative impulses when it is activated. Although it may be rarely activated in this location, the sentience need would make it hard for the person to be assertive if it is active. Also, the sentience need may be too far removed from most of the other non combative needs to support them in creating a more general opposition to combativeness.

Sentience Dislocated in the Impersonal Area of the Personal-Social Dimension

If the sentience need is dislocated in the impersonal area it conflicts with the combative needs in that area making it hard for the person to express dissatisfactions when attempting to resolve personal-social conflicts. In this location, the personal-social area lacks the contribution of the sentience need which promotes harmony in personal-social interactions.

Sentience Located Too Near the Periphery of the Personal-Social Area of the Personal-Social Dimension

If the sentience need is located too near the periphery of the personal-social area relative to other needs, it assumes too much power and control over personal-social interactions. Esthetic concerns take priority over other needs so that the person is overly concerned with keeping things harmonious and refined. As a result, needs for more extroverted play and socializing may suffer.

Sentience Dislocated in the Noncompetitive Area of the Competitive Dimension

The dislocation of the sentience need in the noncompetitive area may indicate an unrealistic belief that the appreciation of beauty and harmony is opposed to competence and excellence. Such a belief could have a negative effect on many of the competitive endeavors that require sensitivity to style, grace, and good form.

Sentience Located Too Near the Periphery of the Competitive Area of the Competitive Dimension

If the sentience need is located too near the periphery of the competitive area relative to other needs, it assumes unusual power to shape the person's competitive activities. It may mean that the person's concern for style and beauty causes neglect of other aspects of competitive striving such as needs for recognition and dominance.