Gardner Murphy's Double-Aspect Psychology

Abstract

The present article is a sympathetic appraisal of Gardner Murphy's (1895–1979) “biosocial” psychology. Biosocial psychology is presented not as a personality theory but as one attempt to conceptualize the respective influences of heredity and environment on behavior. Murphy's use of the term biosocial is differentiated from that of A. P. Weiss (1930) and other theorists. For Murphy, biosocial psychology referred to a double-aspect monism in the tradition of Spinoza and William James and informed by the contributions of Herbert Spencer and the emerging post-Euclidean worldview of his own era. Canalization and other tenets of biosocial psychology are outlined and related to contemporary findings. Murphy's views are distinguished from postmodern psychology, cognitive–representational theories, evolutionary psychology, and interactionism.