Biography

Born in Utah, he was educated at Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

 and received his Ph.D. from Harvard

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. He joined the faculty of Princeton

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 in 1936 and later became chairman of Princeton University Department of Psychology

Princeton University Department of Psychology

The Princeton University Department of Psychology, located in Green Hall, is an academic department of Princeton University on the corner of Washington St. and William St. in Princeton, New Jersey. For over a century, the department has been one of the most notable psychology departments in the...

. He was a member of the Princeton Radio Research Project

Radio Project

The Radio Project was a social research project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation to look into the effects of mass media on society.In 1937, the Rockefeller Foundation started funding research to find the effects of new forms of mass media on society, especially radio...

 before it relocated to Columbia during the early 1940s, and was the main author of The Invasion from Mars, an academic study of the 1938 radio broadcast of the story "The War of the Worlds", which frightened many people. In 1940 he served as a consultant to the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs

Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs

The Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs was a United States agency promoting inter-American cooperation during the 1940s, especially in commercial and economic areas...

. Cantril's later psychological work included collaboration with Adelbert Ames, Jr.

Adelbert Ames, Jr.

Adelbert Ames, Jr. was an American scientist who made contributions to physics, physiology, ophthalmology, psychology, and philosophy. He pioneered the study of physiological optics at Dartmouth College, serving as a research professor, then as director of research at the Dartmouth Eye Institute...

 developing a transactional method for studying human perception, as well as other research in humanistic psychology

Humanistic psychology

Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective which rose to prominence in the mid-20th century, drawing on the work of early pioneers like Carl Rogers and the philosophies of existentialism and phenomenology...

.

Public Opinion Research

Though trained as a psychologist, Cantril's most important work concerned the then-new topic of Public Opinion

Public Opinion

Public Opinion , by Walter Lippman, is a critical assessment of functional democratic government, especially the irrational, and often self-serving, social perceptions that influence individual behavior, and prevent optimal societal cohesion...

 research. Influenced initially by the success of George Gallup

George Gallup

George Horace Gallup was an American pioneer of survey sampling techniques and inventor of the Gallup poll, a successful statistical method of survey sampling for measuring public opinion.-Biography:...

 and Elmo Roper

Elmo Roper

Elmo Burns Roper, Jr. was a pollster known for his pioneering work in market research and opinion polling. In 1934, he cofounded Cherington, Wood, and Roper, a marketing research firm. When that partnership fell apart, he founded his own research company, Elmo Roper, Inc...

 during the 1936 presidential election, Cantril sought to apply their systematic polling technique to academic social psychology. Cantril was a founding editor of Public Opinion Quarterly

Public Opinion Quarterly

Public Opinion Quarterly is an academic journal published by Oxford University Press for the American Association for Public Opinion Research...

. In 1940 he founded Princeton University's Office of Public Opinion Research. and from autumn 1940 onwards provided the Roosevelt administration with confidential information about American public opinion, particularly regarding the war in Europe. In 1942 Cantril conducted a small-sample survey of Vichy officials in Morocco, prior to Operation Torch

Operation Torch

Operation Torch was the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign, started on 8 November 1942....

, that revealed the intensity of the anti-British sentiment of the French forces there, and influenced the disposition of forces during the operation (American troops landing near Casablanca, with mixed forces at Oran and Algiers).

In 1955 he founded the Institute for International Social Research with Lloyd A. Free. Cantril had previously provided data on public opinion in America and abroad to Presidents Roosevelt and Eisenhower, and the IISR was often asked by agencies of United States Government to conduct small-sample public opinion polls in foreign countries. Notably, Cantril and Free conducted a poll of Cuba during 1960 demonstrating great support for Fidel Castro, which was overlooked during the presidential transition between Eisenhower and Kennedy and only read after the Bay of Pigs Invasion

Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...

 fiasco. Cantril's most-cited work is The Pattern of Human Concerns, notable for the development of the self-anchoring scale (also known as "Cantril's Ladder"). Cantril and Free also first discovered the paradox that American voters tend to oppose 'big government' in general while supporting many specific liberal social programs.

During the late 1950s, Cantril served on the International Objectives and Strategies panel of the Rockefeller Brothers' Special Studies Project

Special Studies Project

The Special Studies Project was a study funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and conceived by its then president, Nelson Rockefeller, to 'define the major problems and opportunities facing the U.S. and clarify national purposes and objectives, and to develop principles which could serve as the...

.

Works

Social Psychology of Everyday Life, 1934

The Psychology of Radio (with Gordon Allport

Gordon Allport

Gordon Willard Allport was an American psychologist. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personality psychology...

), 1935

Industrial Conflict: a Psychological Interpretation, 1939

The Invasion from Mars, a Study in the Psychology of Panic, 1940

America Faces the War, a Study in Public Opinion, 1940

Psychology of Social Movements, 1941

Gauging Public Opinion, 1944

Psychology of ego-involvements : social attitudes & identifications, 1947

Why's of man's experience, 1950

Tensions that cause wars (a report for UNESCO), 1950

Public Opinion, 1935–1946, 1951

How Nations See Each Other, a study in public opinion, 1953

Perception: a Transactional Approach, 1954

On Understanding the French Left, 1956

Faith, Hope, and Heresy: the Psychology of the Protest Voter, 1958

Politics of Despair, 1958

Reflections on the Human Venture, 1960

Soviet Leaders and Mastery over Man, 1960

Human Nature and Political Systems, 1961

Pattern of Human Concerns, 1965

Political beliefs of Americans; a study of public opinion, 1967

The Human Dimension: Experiences in Policy Research, 1967

Psychology, Humanism, and Scientific Inquiry: the Selected Essays of Hadley Cantril, 1988 (posthumously)