Hormic Psychology

William McDougall (1871–1938) was one of the giants of early psychology, yet his legacy has gone largely unheralded, and his name is seldom recalled outside students of the history of psychology. His brand of psychology, termed “hormic” psychology, serves as one of the foundational frameworks for understanding the wide range of human motivational forces. The term “hormic” comes from the Greek word for impulse and according to Hilgard (1987) was drawn from the work of T. P. Nunn, a British colleague.

McDougall was born and raised in Britain and studied biology at the University of Lancaster and later medicine at Cambridge. He completed his medical training at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, with some additional physiological research under Sherrington. He went on to study experimental psychology under G. E. Müller at Göttingen.

His current lack of popularity in part stems from his taking up the cause of Lamarckian evolutionary theory, the notion that acquired traits can be inherited. He...