Lonner, Walter J

Abstract

AbstractWalter J. Lonner, professor emeritus of psychology at Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, has made extensive contributions to cross‐cultural psychology. Throughout his career, Lonner has been active in development of a subfield of psychology that, since the 1960s, has made the discipline more inclusive, aware, and culturally‐sensitive. After obtaining a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Montana, he pursued the Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, where he became increasingly interested in the effects of culture on basic psychological processes. Influenced and encouraged by graduate school professors, and increasingly concerned about the lack of cultural perspectives in the field of psychology, he conducted his doctoral research in Europe in the mid 1960s. Shortly after his return to the United States and earning his Ph.D. in 1967, he joined the faculty at Western Washington University (then Western Washington State College) in 1968, where he continued to shape his career around the interface between psychology and culture. His overriding concern, that the influence of culture on people's lives around the world had not been systematically accounted for in psychological theory or application, was then shared by a small yet growing number of psychologists in various countries.