McDougall was an opponent of behaviourism and stands somewhat outside the mainstream of the development of Anglo-American psychological thought in the first half of the 20th century; but his work was known and respected among lay people.

He was interested in eugenics, but departed from neo-Darwinian orthodoxy in maintaining the possibility of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, as suggested by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck; he carried out many experiments designed to demonstrate this process.

The term “hormic” comes from hormḗ (ὁρμή), the Greek word for "impulse" and according to Hilgard (1987) was drawn from the work of T. P. Nunn, a British colleague (Larson, 2014).

Because of his interest in eugenics and his unorthodox stance on evolution, McDougall has been adopted as an iconic figure by proponents of a strong influence of inherited traits on behavior, some of whom are regarded by most mainstream psychologists as scientific racists.

He wrote: "...; the few distinguished Negroes, so called, of America – such as Douglass, Booker Washington, Du Bois – have been, I believe, in all cases mulattoes or had some proportion of white blood.

We may fairly ascribe the incapacity of the Negro race to form a nation to the lack of men endowed with the qualities of great leaders, even more than to the lower level of average capacity" (McDougall, William., The Group Mind, p.187, Arno Press, 1973; Copyright, 1920 by G.P.

Thus, revised histories of psychical research and its relationship to psychology with a critical thrust not limited to that which has been viewed with suspicion anyway, offer both a challenge and a promise to historians, the discussion of which the present article hopes to stimulate (Sommer, 2012).

[10] McDougall worked to enlist a number of scientific, religious, ethical, political and philosophical issues and causes into a wide “actor-network” which finally pushed through the institutionalization and professionalization of parapsychology (Asprem, 2010).

[7] McDougall was critical of spiritualism, he believed that some of its proponents such as Arthur Conan Doyle misunderstood psychical research and "devote themselves to propaganda".

[13][14] As a parapsychologist he also claimed telepathy had been scientifically proven, he used evidence from psychic research as well as from biology and psychology to defend his theory of animism.