GARDNER LINDZEY, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL
ASSOCIATION, IS DEAD AT 87

Gardner Lindzey, a psychologist, editor and former president of the
American Psychological Association who helped build a national
framework to encourage scholarly exchanges and collaborations in the
social sciences, died on Feb. 4 in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 87.

Dr. Lindzey's death was confirmed by his family.

Through his writings and his contributions to blue-ribbon committees,
Dr. Lindzey provided an influential voice for psychologists and
behavioral scientists. From 1975 to 1989, he was director of the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford,
Calif., which brings together scholars from various disciplines for
independent studies and cross-disciplinary endeavors.

Dr. Lindzey was widely known for his editorship of "The Handbook of
Social Psychology," a comprehensive reference intended for graduate
students and professionals. It includes chapters on group dynamics,
psychoanalytic theory, persuasion and the basics of conducting
interviews, surveys and statistical analyses.

Dr. Lindzey was sole editor of the book's first edition, published in
two volumes in 1954, and a co-editor of three later editions.

Elliot Aronson, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University
of California, Santa Cruz, called the 1954 edition "an incredible
achievement that soon became recognized as the gold standard in
social psychology, and a work that set the agenda for an entire field."

Dr. Aronson became a co-editor of the handbook's 1968 edition, when
it grew to five volumes, and in 1985, when it was edited down to two.
The handbook, which was republished in 1998, remains in broad use.

Dr. Lindzey was president of the American Psychological Association
in 1966 and 1967, and was often selected for advisory committees
convened to address social and psychological issues.

In 1982, he was a member of a panel that studied the effects of
federal drug laws and a proposal to legalize marijuana. The 18-member
panel, appointed by the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that
such legal changes would bring "substantial savings" to law
enforcement and society at large, by keeping small-scale users out of
the penal system.

The findings met opposition from officials in the Reagan
administration and were publicly criticized by the president of the
National Academy of Sciences, Frank Press.

Gardner Edmund Lindzey was born in Wilmington, Del., on Nov. 27,
1920. He received his doctorate in psychology from Harvard in 1949.

After teaching briefly at Harvard, he was named a professor of
psychology at Syracuse University. In 1957, he moved to the
University of Minnesota. From 1964 to 1971, he was a professor of
psychology at the University of Texas, where he also became chairman
of the psychology department. Dr. Lindzey was later appointed vice
president for academic affairs at Texas.

In 1972, he returned to Harvard to head the psychology department,
but left the next year to become dean of graduate studies at Texas.
He subsequently moved to Stanford, where he retired.

Dr. Lindzey is survived by his companion, Lyn Carlsmith, who is a
psychologist. They lived in Menlo Park, Calif. He is also survived by
a daughter, Leslie, of Menlo Park; four sons, David, of Temple, Tex.,
Jonathan, of Bellefonte, Pa., and Jeffrey and Gardner Jr., both of
Austin; and six grandchildren.

With Calvin S. Hall, Dr. Lindzey wrote an influential review,
"Theories of Personality" (1957), which provided a critical analysis
of the ideas of Freud, Jung, Adler, Skinner and other analysts and
psychologists, in an effort to explain different approaches to the
organization of the mind.

Eric Wanner, a psychologist and president of the Russell Sage
Foundation, compared the book to Dr. Lindzey's efforts in helping to
organize his field.

"His main contribution," Dr. Wanner said, "was to organize
psychology, make connections between people and create a more
effective scientific infrastructure."