Background
Mcdougall, William was born in 1871 in Lancashire, England. Son of I. S. and R. (Smalley) Mcdougall.
Mcdougall, William was born in 1871 in Lancashire, England. Son of I. S. and R. (Smalley) Mcdougall.
Educated Owens College, Manchester. St. Thomas Hospital, London. Bachelor of Medicine, Cambridge U.
Master of Arts, University of Oxford. Studied Göttingen; Dc.Sc., British Society Psychical Research (president).
Fellow St. John’s College, Cambridge, 1898. Reader, University College, London. Reader in mental philosophy and fellow, Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
Professor psychology, Harvard, 1920-1927. Professor of psychology, Duke University, since 1927. Major Royal Army Medical Corps, 1914-1919.
Author: Physiological Psychology, 1905. Social Psychology, 1908. Pagan Tribes of Borneo.1911
Psychology, 1912. Body and Mind, 1912
Group Mind, 1920. Is America Safe for Democracy?, 1921.Outline of Psychology, 1923. Ethics and Some Modern World Problems, 1924. Outline of Abnormal Psychology, 1926.Janus, 1927
Character and the Conduct of Life, 1927. Modern Materialism and Emergent Evolution, 1929. World Chaos—the Responsibility of Science, 1931.Energies of Men, 1933.
Although widely influential in his day. William McDougall is now remembered mainly as the founder of hormic, or instinct-driven, psychology. His first major work on psychology was Physiological Psychology (1905), in which he brought together the ideas of James and Sherrington.
During the First World War he ran a medical unit for shell-shocked soldiers which was to provide the case material for his Outline of Abnormal Psychology (1926). After the war he moved to America, where he published a number of polemical works of a political character. He supported the work of J. B. Rhine on ESP and sought experimental proof of Lamarckism.
McDougall first outlined his hormic psychology in An Introduction to Social Psychology in 1908.
'Hormic' is derived from the Greek horme, meaning impulse. In opposition to the stimulusresponse model of behaviourism, hormic psychology takes activity to be driven by instincts. These are innate psychophysical dispositions to behave in certain ways.
They are made up of three elements: cognitive, affective and conative. For example, the instinct of self-preservation comprises the cognitive ‘perception of danger’, the affect of fear and a conativc drive leading to flight. Behaviour is thus to be understood as an active striving after goals rather than merely a passive response to stimuli.
In normal human development the instincts become associated with objects and socially acquired patterns of behaviour called ‘sentiments’.
These include the higher instincts, such as parental love and family feeling, which are organized hierarchically around a master sentiment. In a mature personality the master sentiment is ‘self-regard’. McDougall elaborated this theory of personality in later publications, showing how the selfregarding sentiment was strengthened through identification with those we admire.
This resulted in an integration of personality, an aspect of child development which, he argued, both Freud and Jung had neglected.
Although initially an experimental psychologist, McDougall came to rely increasingly on metaphysical speculation as a substitute for empirical research. In his early work he espoused a form of psychoneural parallelism to explain the coexistence of subjectivity and purposive activity on the one hand and causality on the other. However, in Body and Mind (1911) he discarded this in favour of a cocktail of dualist-interactionism, vitalism, animism and Lamarckism.
Morals emerged as an aspect of the self-regarding sentiment, free will being the control of the primitive instincts through the exercise of conscience. In a further elaboration of this theory he pictured the personality as made up of monads, some goal-seeking, others causedirected, these being organized hierarchically through telepathic influences under the control of a supreme monad. Despite the highly speculative nature of much of McDougall’s later work his prolific writings and charismatic teaching inspired many students to study psychology.
His early expenmental work is of lasting importance.
Fellow St. John’s College, Cambridge, 1898.
Married A. A. Hickmore, of Brighton, England, 1899. Children: Mistress Paul Brown, Duncan Shimwell, Angus Dougal, Kenneth Dougal, Janet Aline (deceased).