The origins and development of social psychology in Canada

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the historical events, significant personalities, and contextual influences that have shaped the development of social psychology in Canada. For much of its history, Canada and its closest neighbour, the US, have shared similar social problems and, for a time, even research funding. Although the influence of the US has been imprinted on Canadian research and theory, Canadian social psychology has also developed its own discipline with a focus on culture and explicitly Canadian social issues that makes it distinct from that of the US. This account reveals how Canadian social psychology developed and where US influence has been felt. Emerging from its roots within philosophy, Canadian psychology began as a decidedly applied discipline; but following its widely acknowledged contributions to the Canadian war effort it was basic research that ultimately received the academic appointments and financial support. Social psychology was often invisible; to be found, if at all, only on the fringe of both these early developments. In the 1970s, the Canadian government's decision to fund social research, and a period of exceptional growth of higher education, contributed to the discipline's emergence. Substantial numbers of experimental social psychologists imported from the United States raised questions about the Canadian content of their teaching and research, but their perspective and numbers created the critical mass needed for advancement of our discipline. With the help of a partly government‐imposed Canadianization of academia and a blending of these imported researchers with the culture‐oriented researchers trained in Canada, social psychology evolved into the mature, distinctive discipline that exists in Canada today. Canada has a strong, self‐sustaining national disicpline, that in accord with its size makes substantial contributions to the world of psychology and to the social psychology of North America. This developmental history describes how these accomplishments have been realized.