Robin Campbell 1942-2024

As many of you will know, Robin Campbell sadly died at the beginning of March. Robin was a huge presence for several generations of developmental psychologists, from his early days at Edinburgh, where he worked as a research assistant to Margaret Donaldson, to his subsequent long career at Stirling, and then after retiring in 2009. 

We were keen to mark his passing in suitable fashion, by capturing the memories of some of the many psychologists who knew him well. Below, Josephine Ross, one of Robin's PhD students, recalls him and the impact he had on her. Then we have contributions from Charles Crook, Martin Doherty and Jim Anderson. Thanks go to Jim in particular for sharing the photo of Robin above. 

Josephine Ross writes:

I first met Robin as an undergraduate student at the University of Stirling. Robin's Developmental Psychology lectures were wide ranging, centring his interests in art, language and representation processes, ranging from cave paintings and children's drawings to all the things Piaget was wrong about and back again. They were peppered with laughter, mostly his own, signature loud bark "HA!". Later, when he supervised my final year dissertation, I would ask him why he always laughed at his own jokes in lectures, to which he replied it was important to do that "so that they know when you're joking". Of course this wasn't always a foolproof strategy, but given his colourful sense of humour, I could see why some strategy was needed.

Having identified me as a good student, Robin cajoled me into a career in academia, encouraging me to present at the BPS Developmental Conference as an undergraduate, and to publish an article on dreams originating from an undergraduate essay I'd written for him in The Psychologist. These were bold steps, bolder than I really realised at the time, but I followed his lead. Robin encouraged me to apply for a PhD, saying I'd be 'wasted' on Clinical Psychology, and banking was the only other alternative. Although this was somewhat questionable advice, he was right that I was best suited to academia. When I finished my PhD he wrote me a glowing reference, in which he claimed to have made me out to be an 'Einstein like' figure, securing me a lectureship in Developmental Psychology at the University of Dundee. Now a Reader in the same institution, although I could never live up to Robin's hyperbolic reference, I did thrive there.

It wasn't until relatively recently that I realised how far from unique my experience of Robin's mentorship was. In 2022, the late Professor Nina Hallowell named him as the best role-model she could ever have had in her inauguration speech at the University of Oxford, crediting him for pushing her towards postdoctoral study. In 2023, I heard Professor Julie Dockrell offer a similar accolade, talking warmly of Robin's guidance from undergraduate to academic as she collected her distinguished contribution award from the BPS Developmental section. I began to wonder how many Professors Robin had recognised and pushed to the pursuit of knowledge. I began to wonder if he, despite being the least politically correct individual I have ever encountered, might well have been a progressive feminist.

Robin and I kept in touch over the years, through emails and lunches, at first regularly, and then more sporadically as life moved on for us both. Given these gaps, I am so grateful to have seen him relatively recently, joining him for an autumn walk around the loch at the University of Stirling with other members of the department, with whom he kept up despite having retired over 15 years prior. Afterwards he took me to lunch, where we laughed, talked, ate and drank wine in such a way that caused the staff to gather in the open kitchen of the quiet restaurant, speculating over why we were together and what we were celebrating. The waiter who brought the bill was nominated to ask, but he never got a satisfactory answer – an enigmatic "socialising" from me, and something much less diplomatic followed by a "HA!" from Robin. I'm unsure if the waiter happens to read The Psychologist, but I can now reveal that the reason for the celebration was this: we were friends. Friends of over 20 years by this point, and I will miss him sorely. 

Charles Crook writes:

Podcasters like to call people 'Friend of the Show'. Robin Campbell was surely a great friend of the Developmental Section show. He expressed that not just through his scholarly contributions to the field (which were many) but through his presence in that part of the show that it is the community of developmental psychology. Regular attendees at the Section's annual conference will endorse this. He animated all around him (usually a large group – friends and intrigued newcomers). And on the dancefloor… well.  I am sure others will have particularly fond memories of his witty and perceptive reviews of those conferences in the Section Newsletter. 

But let's affectionally remember his research and writing, as well as his good company. There is much that could be mentioned. I have a special fondness for an article he wrote with David Olson on 'Children's Thinking'.  I was struck by how he floated the idea of 'thinking' as a kind of mental effort we would rather not do. He invokes Rex Stout's detective for whom "..as for most of us, thinking is a repugnant and regressive activity … to be undertaken as a last resort … there are doubtless individuals for whom thinking is a pleasurable activity. Fortunate universities and publishers have them on their payrolls" And so on. I admired the whimsy of this, including its subversive invasion of a sombre academic text. But also the ideas that lay behind it in the full piece, and those have stayed with me as another inspiration from Robin. So, a personal and fond "thank you" – a much missed colleague who made a precious contribution to our discipline and its community.

Martin Doherty writes:

I first came across Robin Campbell when I was a young postgrad at the BPS Developmental Section conference in Edinburgh. Robin was a presence at these meetings, notable for both his irreverent wit and incisive comments. His closing speeches not only provided an insightful overview of the conference but were also hilarious. He was always entertaining to listen to regardless of context.

Robin must have seen something in me at conferences because at one a couple of years later he encouraged me to apply for a job at Stirling. The start of my first internal talk after appointment was interrupted by a bark of laughter from Robin, probably indicating I had said something he considered outrageous. No doubt others before and after found Robin's barks disconcerting, but I knew him well enough by then to thank him for the 'comment' and continue. 

Discussing research with Robin was always a useful exercise. His psychological knowledge was wide and long. Even recently he would drop me an occasional paper from the 1960s, forgotten by most, that would speak to matters I had recently published on. He also had a proper grasp of theory well beyond most. 

As a lecturer I contributed to Robin's core developmental psychology course, which I later inherited, and in turn passed on updated when I left in 2013. Among the excellent materials were workshops in which student groups read and critically analysed published papers, often ones Robin had spotted flaws in. This was an excellent way of teaching research methods and critical thinking, as well as breaking down students' unwillingness to criticise the literature. Student groups were named for well-known academics, not least women (Goodenough,  Ainsworth, Inhelder, and Kellog). Whether the names meant anything to students or not, it added a quirky charm to proceedings. Robin's course notes for students had a formal style of their own, thorough, authoritative, and clear. Even now I find myself emulating the style in my own teaching materials.

Robin always showed interest in students as individuals. However critical he might have been about the work of our peers, he was not a harsh marker of student work, and encouraged me early to be more empathetic in grades and feedback. When he formally retired I was keen to have him back as a guest lecturer, not least because I felt his lectures offered a unique experience to students.

As a colleague he was more than happy to talk about his non-professional interests, including in art and mountaineering (and he published on both separately and in combination). He'd occasionally suggest I buy some painting or other, in no expectation I would. One was a watercolour by Adolf Hitler, which was available for £5000 (about all I had at the time). I passed up the intriguing if rather macabre opportunity.  Out of curiosity I googled the same painting again a couple of years later, to find it had most recently sold for £100,000. So perhaps a shame my interests in art didn't extend to Austrian house painting, but Robin later helped kindle an interest in Japanese woodblock prints. From him I learned how to date the prints one could buy online, by identifying printers' seals indicating artist and roughly dating when they were printed. Robin's knowledge of art, as with so many things, was surprisingly broad and eclectic.

It's hard to sum up someone I have respected and admired since 1992. Perhaps best simply to say that it has been a privilege.

Jim Anderson writes:

Not long after agreeing to write a personal appreciation of Robin Campbell, I asked myself a few questions: Where to start? (My memories of Robin go back some 50 years.) What specific recollections of this extremely clever, funny and generous man should I include in a short text? And, how to write those down in ways that Robin, if he read the text, wouldn't hold up to ridicule? In the end, I decided on a simple, roughly chronological account of some experiences of Robin as a teacher, colleague, and friend.

In the autumn of 1973, when I started out as an undergraduate in Stirling, I opted for psychology as a minor course, knowing almost nothing about it. In that first year I went through the motions of reading (only) those parts of the course textbook required for the end-of-term exam (Hilgard, Atkinson and Atkinson, 1971; I still have it). I also attended lectures, without getting much out of them. But a handful of talks on developmental psychology stood out; they were given by Dr Campbell. With little heed to Hilgard et al. (an unconstrained approach that I liked), he introduced us to a range of psycholinguistic and cognitive developmental topics in a relaxed fashion, with apt examples from everyday life. Those early talks and examples stirred my curiosity and a growing interest in psychology. However, Dr Campbell came across as a rather serious person.

But that somewhat dour demeanour in the lecture theatre largely disappeared in Robin's office, where he frequently cracked jokes and burst into laughter during tutorials. His responses to questionable statements or a piece of research often included a satirical comment and chuckle, if not a guffaw. The contagion effect was strong; it was hard not to join in! But throughout, he was clearly supportive of students who tried to contribute to the discussion, giving encouraging feedback particularly to more reserved individuals, and fostering their self-confidence. 

On those playful though sometimes sarcastic comments, anybody present when Robin started on one of his reactions or a story will know just how catching his laughter could be, and how much more convincing it seemed to make whatever point he was making. More than a few speakers at departmental seminars – internal colleagues as well as visitors – encountered his soft but audible sighs and mutterings from the back of the room (as did everyone present), precursors to a challenging comment or question. But many also received his genuine praise and thanks for their presentations and work. I remember several post-graduate students about to give a talk admitting to feeling nervous especially about what was in store for them from Robin, but more often than not the feedback included praise and useful remarks.

After kindling my first real interest in psychology, Robin continued to be a positive influence on my own career, through many discussions and his remarkable knack of guiding me to authors and relevant research that I didn't know about. For example, knowing of my interest in development of visual self-recognition in young infants, one day he presented me with a photocopied paper by a (famous) French psychologist on the responses of young twins to mirror-image stimulation (Zazzo, 1975). That led me to pay more attention to French psychology literature. Later, when I was based in France and studying tool-use in monkeys, he gave me another obscure (to most English readers) but fascinating old paper comparing the puzzle-box-solving abilities of a gibbon and a young human (Bouton, 1914). This was long before internet search engines and online journal archives became everyday tools, but Robin already had those papers. In fact, anybody who knew Robin understood: he knew a lot of stuff! And his knowledge went far beyond psychology: music, visual arts, antiques, history, natural history — he could comfortably chat and educate in those and many more domains. 

My move back to Stirling 1995 after 12 years in France gave us more opportunities to exchange ideas on research and other things, and our friendship continued.

Image

Although we never collaborated directly, we did so indirectly thanks to a jointly supervised PhD student. Robin had spotted Josephine Ross's potential while she was still an undergraduate, and encouraged her to continue. Josephine's interests in how self-awareness influences young children's thinking and behaviour led to a series of experiments that produced sometimes surprising yet coherent results (Ross, Anderson, and Campbell, 2011).

Robin's influence on me went beyond psychology; he is largely responsible for my art collecting. Given my fascination with the psychological properties of mirrors, he alerted me to a rare opportunity to buy an original of impression of probably the most famous 20^th century British etching: "Adolescence," by Gerald Leslie Brockhurst. (The image is of a girl sitting in front of her dressing-table mirror.) Robin drove me from Stirling to the art gallery, located in a remote village in Perthshire. I saw the picture and bought it immediately. Shortly thereafter, he told me of another Brockhurst etching coming up at auction, and from then I was hooked, as over many years I bought (and more recently, sold) at auctions, with Robin always on hand to offer good advice. He also scoured art galleries and auction houses for pictures of Stirling and surrounding areas, advising and bidding on behalf of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum.

Getting "hooked" reminds me that Robin liked fishing, although I don't think he did it very often. One day he suggested a trout fishing trip to the Lake of Menteith. He drove us there, and rowed us out to the middle of the loch. In went the lines and hooks, and out they came, no fish. This general sequence occurred repeatedly over the course of several hours, during which it started to rain heavily. The morning was dreich and completely fishless, but we enjoyed chatting about various things. A kind of payback occurred a few years later. At that time Robin was living in Perth with his wife, Vicki (we were PhD students in Stirling together). I suggested going to watch my favourite football team (Partick Thistle) playing against the local Perth team (St Johnstone), promising an exciting match. If Robin hadn't been to many matches before that, he certainly didn't go to many subsequently, after the dullest, most uneventful game imaginable (no goals, no shots on target, no memorable incidents). The best (only) entertainment for the crowd around us was Robin's loud sighs, mutterings, and occasional guffaws in response to the ineptitude on display on the field. Neither that fishless fishing expedition nor the above-mentioned footballing travesty were ever mentioned again.

Another frequent discussion topic was mountains. Robin was an important figure – even a pioneer – in Scottish mountaineering, and my brother was leader of the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue team. Mountains are also implicated in why a somewhat creepy, almost life-size kilted figure was sometimes seen sitting in a chair by the door in Robin's office. It no doubt puzzled many visitors, but for those of us in the know it was an effigy of Sir Hugh Munro, author of Munro's Tables, which listed all Scottish mountains believed at the time (1891) to be over 3,000 ft high. Sir Hugh, however, never managed to complete all the Munros before he died. Robin therefore took it upon himself to "resurrect" him and then carry him up the few remaining Munros, putting an end to what he felt was unfinished business. Of course he was aware of the amusing, eccentric side to this, but he also did it out of respect. 

Image

This second photo illustrates my closing story. Around 20 years ago Robin introduced me to a little book entitled "Botanical Monkeys," by E. J. H. Corner. It's the fascinating memoirs of a British botanist who trained pigtailed monkeys to climb trees to detach vegetation samples in Malaya (now Malaysia) in the 1930s. Corner describes the difficulties of procuring and training the monkeys, and how the Japanese invasion of WWII affected his work and monkey colony. (You don't need to be a botanist or a primatologist to enjoy this book.) In 2019 I was delighted to receive an e-mail surprise from Robin: a photo of him standing happy and smiling beside a commemorative plaque in the grounds of E J H Corner House, Singapore! He wasn't in Singapore just to visit Corner's house, but ever curious and on the lookout for new experiences, he made a point of including it in his itinerary. 

Ten years after leaving Stirling to move to Kyoto, I returned to my alma mater to give a talk in April 2023. It was a great pleasure to see Robin near the front of the audience, in fine form as usual, taking full part in the post-talk discussion and then keeping us all entertained in the bar later on. He was truly a unique individual who has been — and I only recently realised to what extent – one of my role models. He certainly had a lasting, positive impact on many other people too. 

References

Bouton, L. (1914). Les deux méthodes de l'enfant. Actes de la Sociéte Linéenne de Bordeaux,

           68, 217-360.

Corner, E. J. H. (1992). Botanical Monkeys. Edinburgh: Pentland Press.

Ross, J., Anderson, J. R., & Campbell, R. N. (2011). I remember me: Mnemonic self-reference

effects in preschool children. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 76, No. 3.

Zazzo, R. (1975). Des jumeaux devant le miroir: questions de méthode. Journal de Psychologie,

4, 389-413.