William McDougall (psychologist)
William McDougall (* June 22, 1871 Chadderton, Lancashire, England; † November 28, 1938 in Durham (North Carolina), USA ) was an English- American psychologist
Life
He studied 1886-90 in Manchester sciences with a focus on geology, 1890-94 medicine and physiology at Cambridge. He received his clinical training at 1894-99 St. Thomas Hospital in London under Charles Scott Sherrington. After a period of study at Georg Elias Müller at Göttingen he taught from 1900 at University College London under James Sully Experimental Psychology, 1904-20, interrupted by the First World War at the University of Oxford. Among his students at Jesus College in Oxford was Cyril Burt. 1920-27 he taught at Harvard University psychology, then he went to Durham at Duke University, where he remained until his death.
McDougall was co-founder in 1904 of the British Psychological Society and was elected in 1912 a member of the Royal Society.
Hormische Psychology
He was the first English-speaking psychologist who determined the subject matter of psychology as the behavior (e. behavior) of humans and animals. He leaned against the concept of the Act in the Aktpsychologie Franz Brentano and sat down against the emphasis on the perception and thinking of then- structuralism and parts of functionalism. In contrast to the radical behaviorism of John B. Watson McDougall emphasized but the internal drives ( instincts, drives, motives, willingness ) and goal-directedness of behavior and closed the consciousness not from his studies. He called his approach hormische Psychology (Greek HORME: drive, urge, eagerness ). All animals and humans possessed by a species-specific set of innate ' instincts '. In humans, it took several catalogs of instincts at: ua Combat, defense, escape, curiosity, parental care, self-preservation and self-abasement. Each of these instincts press out as a motive, an accompanying emotion, and goal-directed behavior. While the central aspect, the drive and the accompanying emotion is regarded by him as unalterable, the triggering stimuli and the response by the behavior through learning are changeable. So he looks at in his ' Social Psychology ' especially so, how can learn the individual, these instincts to ' moralize ', by which he means to send them to form a socially acceptable and to socialize.
His ideas about organizations influenced Sigmund Freud, the detail grapples in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego ( 1921) with McDougall The Group Mind. Konrad Lorenz was also influenced by McDougall, even if this is not well documented.
Other countries
William McDougall took in 1898 at the Torres Strait Expedition of Alfred Cort Haddon as an assistant to WHR Rivers in part, who conducted studies on the journey to color vision.
McDougall was heavily influenced by Francis Galton, and a representative of eugenics. He is thus in a strong tradition series bio- genetic and eugenic -oriented psychologist Francis Galton > William McDougall > Cyril Burt > Hans- Jürgen Eysenck
At the same time he made experiments that demonstrate the inheritance of acquired characteristics ( Lamarckism ).
In addition to this effect in the psychological field McDougall's views on the writings of Robert Ranulph Maretts have also been incorporated into the nascent science of religion. Marett uses in his theory of animatism both McDougall's model of complex emotions as well as its expanded concept of instinct.
1920 to 1921 he was president of the Society for Psychical Research. On his initiative, the world's first parapsychological laboratory was founded in 1935 at Duke University established under the direction of the biologist Joseph Banks Rhine ( 1895-1980 ).
Works (selection)
- Germany 1945: Psychology. The science of the behavior. Bern: Francke
- Germany 1946: character and lifestyle. Practical Psychology for everyone. Bern: Francke