Lois Barclay Murphy

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 was instrumental in changing the ways in which children were viewed in psychology—previous work tended to focus on pathology, while Murphy emphasized more positive and social elements, including normal development and the development of empathy and ethics in children. She founded the Early Childhood Center (EEC), a college laboratory school focused on child development, at Sarah Lawrence College in 1937 which is still in operation today. Murphy was presented with the G. Stanley Hall Award in developmental psychology in recognition of her contributions to the field. As the oldest of five children, she played a large role in caring for her younger siblings. Due to her parents' careers, the family moved frequently and by her 16th birthday they had moved 13 times. During this time she was struck by how different lives were for rural and urban children and observed how some were neglected and thought of poorly. She married Gardner Murphy in 1924; the couple had two children. Murphy's partnership was helpful academically; it allowed her to make great strides in her field. Murphy disliked the behaviorist approach to child psychology that was common at the time, specifically Watson's ideas about the discipline of children, so it was not until she was introduced to her future husband, Gardner Murphy, and other psychologists with less strict views that she kindled a serious interest in developmental psychology. She died of congestive heart failure at the age of 101 on December 24, 2003.

Career focus Murphy graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a major in economics and minors in religion and psychology from Vassar in 1923. Her honors thesis investigated life at a girls' reform school; the investigation exposed her to a bitter, almost prison-like environment. The school did not reform girls, but Murphy's investigative thesis helped reform the institution. 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.

She stayed only a year, and in 1929 enrolled in Columbia College in the graduate psychology program. She earned her doctorate in 1937 and her dissertation was the basis of a book, Social behavior and child personality (1937). Murphy's research ran counter to the behaviorist perspectives of John B. Watson, which were dominant at the time. Watson's ideas on children were much respected, but Murphy stood her ground with her research since she thought Watson did not really understand children.

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. Murphy looked at the positive aspects of social development, such as the origin of sympathy.

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. Murphy is recognized as one of the first to document feelings of sympathy in preschoolers. For her contributions to the field of psychology, and child care and development, Murphy received many awards, including the G. Stanley Hall Award and the Dolly Madison Award of the National Center of Clinical Infant programs.

Murphy is best known for expanding the study of child development to include more positive social aspects. 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."