George Westby was a British psychologist who played an important role in establishing the discipline at the

University College Hull The University of Hull is a public research university in Kingston upon Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1927 as University College Hull. The main university campus is located in Hull and is home to the Hu ...

and the

University College Cardiff Cardiff University () is a public research university in Cardiff, Wales. It was established in 1883 as the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire and became a founding college of the University of Wales in 1893. It was renamed Unive ...

Career

Westby read

philosophy, politics and economics Philosophy, politics and economics, or politics, philosophy and economics (PPE), is an interdisciplinary undergraduate or postgraduate academic degree, degree which combines study from three disciplines. The first institution to offer degrees in P ...

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

and then worked in a variety of roles before returning to that university and obtaining a Diploma in Psychology under the guidance of

Oliver Zangwill Oliver Louis Zangwill FRS (29 October 1913 – 12 October 1987) was a British neuropsychologist. He was Professor of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, 1952–1981, and then professor emeritus. His father was author Israel Zangw ...

. In 1946, he was appointed as the first lecturer in psychology at

. Here he rapidly offered an undergraduate degree in psychology and led the development of a separate department. In 1962, he moved to

as the first Chair of Psychology. His inaugural lecture on behaviour theories was published by the University of Wales (Westby, 1963). He also co-edited a book on computers in psychology (Apter & Westby, 1973). He was active in the

British Psychological Society The British Psychological Society (BPS) is a representative body for psychologists and psychology in the United Kingdom. History It was founded on 24 October 1901 at University College London (UCL) as ''The Psychological Society'', the org ...

becoming its president in 1967. His presidential address provides further details of his career. In his address he emphasised the importance of grasping the philosophical assumptions of the discipline. He said: 'philosophy, as the logic of inquiry, is the seminal methodological discipline of all the conventionally separated and contrasted sciences and arts'(p. 7).

Publications

* Westby, G. (1963). ''Behaviour Theories and the Status of Psychology''. * Westby, G. (1966). ''Psychology today: problems and directions.'' * Apter, M.J., & Westby, G. (eds) (1973) ''The Computer in Psychology''.

Honours

* 1965 - 1966 - President,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Westby, George British psychologists Presidents of the British Psychological Society Alumni of the University of Oxford