William McDougall (psychologist)

William McDougall (born June 22, 1871 Chadderton, Lancashire , England, † November 28, 1938 in Durham (North Carolina) , USA) was an English-American psychologist .

Life

He studied from 1886 to 1890 in Manchester natural sciences with a focus on geology, 1890 to 1894 medicine and physiology in Cambridge . He received his clinical training from 1894 to 1899 at St Thomas Hospital in London under Charles Scott Sherrington . After studying with Georg Elias Müller in Göttingen, he taught experimental psychology at University College London under James Sully from 1900, and at Oxford University from 1904 to 1920, with interruptions due to the First World War . Cyril Burt was among his students at Jesus College , Oxford . From 1920 to 1927 he taught psychology at Harvard University , then he went to Durham at Duke University , where he remained until his death.

McDougall co-founded the British Psychological Society in 1904 and was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1912 , and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1922 .

Hormic psychology

He was the first English-speaking psychologist who determined the subject of psychology as the behavior (e. Behavior) of humans and animals. In doing so, he leaned on the concept of the nude in Franz Brentano's nude psychology and set himself apart from the emphasis on the perception and thinking of structuralism of the time and parts of functionalism . In contrast to the radical behaviorism of John B. Watson , McDougall emphasized the inner drives (instincts, drives, motives, will) and purposefulness of behavior and did not exclude consciousness from his investigations. He called his approach hormic psychology (Greek hormé: drive, urge, zeal). All animals, including humans, had a species-specific set of innate ' instincts '. In humans he adopted various catalogs of instincts: u. a. Fight, defense, flight, curiosity, brood care, self-preservation and self-humiliation. Each of these instincts express itself as a motive, an accompanying emotion and a goal-oriented behavior. While the central aspect, the drive and the accompanying emotion are viewed as unchangeable by him, the triggering stimuli and the response can be changed through behavior through learning. In his 'Social Psychology', he primarily deals with how the individual can learn to 'moralize' these instincts, by which he means to reshape and socialize them in a socially acceptable manner.

His ideas about organizations influenced Sigmund Freud , who dealt extensively with McDougall's The Group Mind in Mass Psychology and Ego Analysis (1921) . Also Konrad Lorenz was influenced by McDougall, even if this is poorly documented.

other areas

William McDougall took part in the Torres Straits Expedition of Alfred Cort Haddon in 1898 as an assistant to WHR Rivers , who carried out research on color vision on the trip.

McDougall was heavily influenced by Francis Galton and a proponent of eugenics . He is part of a tradition of strongly biological, genetic and eugenic psychologists: Francis Galton → William McDougall → Cyril Burt → Hans-Jürgen Eysenck .

At the same time he made experiments that should prove an inheritance of acquired properties ( Lamarckism ).

In addition to this effect in the psychological area, McDougall's views on the writings of Robert Ranulph Marett also found their way into the emerging religious studies. In his theory of animatism, Marett uses both McDougall's model of complex emotions and his expanded concept of instinct .

From 1920 to 1921 he was President of the Society for Psychical Research . On his initiative, the world's first parapsychological laboratory was set up at Duke University in 1935 under the direction of the biologist Joseph Banks Rhine (1895–1980).

Works (selection)

• 1908–50, reprinted 1973: An Introduction to Social Psychology ( PDF )
  • German 1928: Basics of social psychology. Jena: Fischer
• 1912: Psychology: The study of behavior
  • German 1945: Psychology. The science of behavior. Bern: Francke
• 1912: with Charles Hose: The Pagan Tribes of Borneo. A Description of their Physical, Moral and Intellectual Condition with some Discussion of Their Ethnic Relations. With an Appendix on the Physical Characters of the Races of Borneo by AC Haddon . London: Macmillan and Co. ( Online )
• 1920: Physiological Psychology
• 1920: The Group Mind (reprinted 1973, Arno Press)
• 1923: Outline of Psychology
• 1926: Abnormal Psychology
• 1927: Character and the Conduct of Life (1927)
  • German 1946: Character and lifestyle. Practical psychology for everyone. Bern: Francke
• 1929: & John B. Watson: The battle of behaviorism: An exposition and exposure [1]
• 1930: Autobiography. In: C. Murchinson: A history of psychology in autobiography. Worcester. Mass., 191-223 [2]
• 1932: The energies of man. New York: Scribners
  • German 1937: Building forces of the soul. Outline of a dynamic psychology and pathopsychology. After the third edition 1935 ed. by Erich Rothacker . Translated by Friedrich Becker and Hans Bender. Leipzig: Thieme.
• 1934: The Frontiers of Psychology. Contemporary Library of Psychology. London and Cambridge: Nisbet & Co., Ltd., and Cambridge University Press. 1934.

literature

• DK Adams: William McDougall , in: Psychological Review , 46 (1939) pp. 1-8
• Wolfgang Schönpflug : History and systematics of psychology. A textbook for basic studies , Beltz, Weinheim, 2004, ISBN 3-621-27559-2
• Raymond Van Over, Laura Oteri, Angus McDougall (Eds.): William McDougall. Explorer of the Mind; studies in Psychological Research , Helix Press, New York, 1967

Web links

Wikiquote: William McDougall  - Quotes

• Literature by and about William McDougall in the catalog of the German National Library