Robert Maclaughlin Farr

Career

Rob Farr was born in Northern Ireland in 1936 where he gained a BSc (1957) followed by a MSc (1959) in Psychology from Queen's University Belfast. After this he studied for the Church of Ireland ministry at Trinity College Dublin but gave up after a short period. In 1962 returned to Queen's University as an assistant lecturer for two years and then worked as researcher with the Royal Air Force for another two years. He took up a post as a lecturer in social psychology at University College London in 1966.

In 1979 he was appointed Chair of Psychology at the University of Glasgow but did not stay there for long. In 1983 he was appointed Chair of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics and returned to London. His inaugural lecture was entitled Some reflections on the historical development of psychology as an experimental and social science (Farr, 1985). He remained at that institution until he retired in 2000. During that period he supervised many successful graduate students. He had a lasting impact on what became the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science which awards a prize each year in his name.

He was active in the British Psychological Society of which he was elected president in 1986. His Presidential address was entitled The Science of Mental Life: A social psychological analysis in which he championed the work of George Herbert Mead (Farr, 1987).