Hommage à John Levine, Professeur honoris causa de la Faculté des sciences sociales et politiques

In Memoriam John Levine (1942 - 2025)

We are very sad to report that our dear friend and beloved colleague, John M. Levine, died following a brief illness.

After World War II, during the early years of social psychology’s emergence as a scientific discipline, the study of small groups and group processes was an important focus of research activity in this developing enterprise. Although the centrality of small group research faded in subsequent decades, as the focus shifted to the individual level and person-based processes, the study of groups and particularly of intergroup processes continued. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a social psychology that fails to recognize the importance of group-based processes. One of social psychology’s central leaders in maintaining and further developing that tradition, John M. Levine, died on February 25, 2025. On that day social psychology lost one of its genuine leaders.

John’s interest in psychology was kindled in his undergraduate courses at Northwestern University, but they flourished during his graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, where his mentor, Vernon Allen, inspired John in research on small groups. He completed his Ph.D. in 1969 and then joined the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, where he remained throughout his career. He was Professor in the Psychology Department there as well as Senior Scientist in the University’s Learning Research and Development Center.

John quickly became a central figure in experimental social psychology, both because of his seminal published work and his leadership of the field. His research was broad in scope and meaningfully contributed to our understanding of numerous topics. His work explored conformity to group norms, the psychological consequences of deviance from norms, and the dynamics and parameters of majority and minority influence. His long-lasting collaboration with his colleague Richard Moreland was seminal and produced an influential model of the processes underlying group socialization, shedding light on the processes that lead people to join and to leave groups, thereby also increasing our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying group change over time. In all of these areas John’s work built upon and broadened the scope of our understanding on those topics. Indeed, his own contributions crossed some traditional boundaries in exploring relationships between social and cognitive processes. Not surprisingly, for many years John was known as the pre-eminent researcher of his time in the area of small groups. His work was SOCIAL psychology in its true and original meaning. John was also an amazing teacher, with an immense culture and an astounding ability to communicate his passion for research. Many generations of students and researchers have been trained by John to doing science with passion.

John was central to social psychology in many other ways as well. He was Chair of the Executive Committee of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP) in 2000. He served as Associate Editor (1990-1993) and then as Editor of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (1994-1998). He assumed many important roles in the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, including serving as chair of its publication committee from 2012 to 2015. He was also a very active member of the European Association of Social Psychology (EASP); he participated in several EASP General Meetings and countless small group meetings sponsored by EASP, and facilitated in many ways the circulation of ideas and research across the Atlantic ocean. His honors are numerous, including the Joseph E. McGrath Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Study of Groups (with his longtime colleague Richard Moreland). The international recognition of his work included honorary and visiting professorships at the Universities of Rome, Kent, and Lausanne, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. 

Beyond his many accomplishments, John was a true friend and gentle supportive person, devoted to his dear departed wife, Jan, his sons Jeff and Andy and their families, and his many students and colleagues. We will sorely miss his friendship, his guidance and support. His warm smile and his dry and subtle wit always made interactions with him easy and enjoyable.  He was a truly wonderful human being who gave so much to our discipline and to us all.

Charles Judd, David Hamilton & Fabrizio Butera