The predecessor of the Institute of Psychology of Chinese Academy of Sciences was the Institute of Psychology of Academia Sinica. It was founded in 1928 with Yue Tang (1891-1987) as its Director. The establishment of this Institute was initiated by Yuanpei Cai (1868-1940), President of Academia Sinica and Peking University.

The People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949. In 1951 a new Institute of Psychology was established under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Richang Cao was appointed as its first Director. In 1953, the Institute was renamed the “Psychology Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences”. In 1956, the Department of Psychology of Nanjing University was merged into the Psychological Laboratory. Thereafter, the name of the Laboratory was changed to its current official name, Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Shu Pan was appointed the second Director of the Institute of Psychology, Richang Cao and Zan Ding were both Deputy Directors.

The Directors of the Instiute of Psychology since 1977 were as follows: Lianchang Xu, Peizhi Kuang, Kan Zhang, Yufang Yang, Kan Zhang. The current Director is Xiaolan Fu, and the Deputy Directors are Anlin Li ,Jianxin Zhang and Xianghong Sun.

The inauguration meeting of the Institute of Psychology of CAS at Beijing Peace Hotel on December 22, 1956, after the merge of the Psychology Laboratory of CAS with the Psychology Department of Nanjing University