Richard Shweder traces the origin back to the work of Michael Cole, Allan Howard and James Peacock, all in the early eighties. The initiative was taken by the director of the Psychogical Laboratory at that time, Professor F. J. Th. Psychology is a practical science. In order for psychological interventions to be adequate, this science cannot remain indifferent to the developments and changes in society and culture at large.
Psychology also has a critical function.
If the local cultural values are not explicated by contrasting them with other values in other times and at other places, psychology is doomed to adopt uncritically in its scientific practice the local mores and customs. Religion is a system that exerts its influence on nearly every other aspect of culture, including the local conventions of self definition. By appointing Professor Han Fortmann in 1957, the program of cultural psychology and psychology of religion took a start. I nitially, cultural psychology at the Nijmegen university was used for the development of a scientific perspective on religion. That explains why the Catholic University of Nijmegen did harbor a cultural psychology department at such an early point in time.