Hadley Cantril

Albert Hadley Cantril, Jr. (16 June 1906 – 28 May 1969) was an American psychologist from the Princeton University, who expanded the scope of the field.

Cantril was born in Hyrum, Utah in 1906 and first studied at Dartmouth College, graduating Bachelor of Science in 1928. He did graduate study in Munich and Berlin, then studied at Harvard graduating with Doctor of Philosophy in psychology in 1931. He was hired as an instructor by Dartmouth and joined the Princeton University faculty in 1936. The next year he became president of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis and one of the founding editors of Public Opinion Quarterly. Later he became chairman of the Princeton University Department of Psychology.

Though trained as a psychologist, Cantril's most important work concerned the then-new topic of public opinion research. Influenced initially by the success of George Gallup and Elmo Roper during the 1936 presidential election, Cantril sought to apply their systematic polling technique to academic social psychology. While Cantril was department chairman he became a presidential advisor:

In 1940 he served as a consultant to the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs.

In 1942 Cantril conducted a small-sample survey of Vichy officials in Morocco, prior to Operation Torch, that revealed the intensity of the anti-British sentiment of the French forces there. This information influenced the disposition of forces during the operation, with American troops landing near Casablanca and mixed forces at Oran and Algiers. According to George Gallup, "On the basis of his opinion studies, [Cantril] advised Presidents Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Kennnedy at critical points in history. Judged by subsequent events his advice was exceptionally sound."

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

In 1955 he and Lloyd Free founded the Institute for International Social Research (IISR). The IISR was often asked by United States government agencies 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 read only after the Bay of Pigs Invasion fiasco.