William McDougall (psychologist)

William McDougall (1871-1938) was an early twentieth century psychologist who spent the first part of his career in the UK and the latter part in the US. He wrote a number of highly influential textbooks, and was particularly important in the development of the theory of instinct and of social psychology in the English-speaking world. He was an opponent of behaviourism and stands somewhat outside the mainstream of the development of Anglo-American psychological thought in the first half of the twentieth century; but his work was very well known and respected among lay people.

McDougall was born in Chadderton, Lancashire, and studied medicine and physiology at the University of Cambridge and in London, and Göttingen. After teaching at London and Oxford, he was recruited by William James to Harvard University, where he served as a professor of psychology at from 1920 to 1927. He then moved to Duke University where he remained until his death. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society. Among his students was Cyril Burt.

McDougall's interests and sympathies were broad. He was interested in eugenics, but departed from Darwinian orthodoxy in maintaining the possibility of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, as suggested by Lamarck; he carried out many experiments designed to demonstrate this process. Opposing behaviourism, he argued that behaviour was generally goal-oriented and purposive, an approach he called hormic psychology; however, in the theory of motivation, he defended the idea that individuals are motivated by a significant number of inherited instincts, whose action they may not consciously understand, so they might not always understand their own goals. His ideas on instinct strongly influenced Konrad Lorenz, though Lorenz did not always acknowledge this. McDougall underwent psychoanalysis with C. G. Jung, and was also prepared to study parapsychology; in 1920 he served as president of the Society for Psychical Research, and in the subsequent year of its US counterpart, the American Society for Psychical Research .

Because of his interest in eugenics and his stance on evolution, McDougall has been adopted as an iconic figure by proponents of a strong influence of inherited traits on behaviour. With the continued failure of education in the USA to narrow the enormous gap between various racial groups, McDougall's emphasis on inherited instincts controlling behaviour and inclination have become increasingly relevant.

Selected Bibliography

• An Introduction to Social Psychology (1908–50, reprinted 1973)
• Physiological Psychology (1920).
• Outline of Psychology (1923)
• Body and Mind
• Outline of Abnormal Psychology