In 2013, Dr. Conaco shared in her speech at the annual convention of the Psychological Association of the Philippines the laboratory's early history. Tracing its roots to a government funded project on the psychological factors of poverty, those who were to become the first members of the research laboratory took on roles as research assistants, field researchers, data encoders, and statistical consultants. Overlapping with the poverty project, other pioneering members came from a small group of graduate students taking a course on social cognition who held discussion sessions that extended way beyond the class hours, and sometimes even during weekends.

From then on, regular meetings were set. Members of the lab present regularly in academic conferences, publish in academic journals, and partner with people in the government, academe, development organizations, and industry to put into practice the science of psychology.