Lois Barclay Murphy (March 23, 1902 – December 24, 2003) was an American developmental psychologist who had an important impact on the study of normal child development.
Murphy graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a major in economics and minors in religion and psychology from Vassar in 1923.
[5] She obtained her master's degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1928, and became a founding faculty member at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, where she taught Comparative Religions.
In order to explore her ideas on child psychology further, she returned to Sarah Lawrence College in 1937 and founded The Nursery School, a laboratory where she could research children's personality development.
The year she became director, she published Methods for the Study of Personality in Young Children, which was based on the research undertaken at The Nursery School.
"Theories of free-play, Rorschach analysis of children, and the application of the Miniature Life Toy Technique were all explored during her time at the school.
The research project on how children deal with the stress of growing up received funding from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Additionally, she was a member of organizations such as the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, American Orthopsychiatry Association, and the New York Academy of Sciences.
[8] Throughout her years as a researcher, Murphy published 16 books, many of which have a deep focus on developmental properties of infants and young children.
As she said herself: "I hope that insofar as I am remembered, it would be as a person who tried to conceptualize and communicate positive aspects of children's development in integrated terms.