| AdminHistory | In 1963, visiting American scholars, John Lanzetta and Luigi Petrullo, under the impression that Europe's social psychologists needed to be brought together, established a Planning Committee, with the help of which Lanzetta convened a "European Conference on Experimental Social Psychology" at Sorrento . According to Jozef Nuttin's report, of the 28 participants, 21 came from eight European countries, two from Israel, the other five being Americans, four of them visiting scholars and the fifth Ben Willerman (a former MIT assistant of Kurt Lewin's) as representative of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). SSRC from then on became a kind of foster agency for the European-Association-to-be. John Lanzetta also used the Sorrento Planning Committee (consisting of M. Mulder, R. Pages, H. Tajfel, R. Rommetveit and J. Thibaut) to prepare and submit a more ambitious "Proposal for Contributions to the Development of Experimental Social Psychology in Europe.' This "Proposal,' submitted to SSRC for financial support, contained in outline some of the future objectives of the EAESP: a further European Conference, a first summer school, the idea of an exchange program within Europe, specialized seminars, etc.
The next of three steps, leading from the Association's conception (in 1963) to its birth (in 1966), was a "Committee on Transnational Social Psychology,' appointed by SSRC in 1964 and chaired by Leon Festinger. Its task was "the stimulation of international cooperation and developments in experimental social psychology" . Two major elements of the "Proposal" were approved and supported by the SSRC Committee: a second European Conference and a first summer school.
For a complete history of the EAESP visit http://www.eaesp.org/about/history.htm |