The American Psychological Association (APA) held its first organizational meeting in 1892, at which G. Stanley Hall was elected president.年度会费设定为三美元,第一次年度会议是世界上第一次大型心理会议,于同年12月举行。该组织的建立是心理学史上的一个主要里程碑,将其成熟的年龄标记为独特的学术学科,与生理学和哲学分开,该学科与许多早期的研究人员一起被吸引。APA的年度会议使心理学家有机会与来自全国各地的其他心理学家会面,讨论他们的工作,并找到有关其他人在做什么的最新信息。这些会议以及其他类似他们的会议继续为心理学领域提供这一非常重要的功能。
APA迅速增长,近年来它尤其扩大了其会员资格,因为心理学作为一门学科的普及继续增长。APA是美国第一个主要的学术社会,旨在扩大妇女的正式成员资格。1892年,APA有31名注册成员。截至2004年,APA夺取了15万多名成员。它是世界上最大的心理学家组织,其对研究和临床实践的影响是深远的。心理学家的专业期刊以及大多数其他出版物的文章以及心理学课程的大学论文遵循APA出版物手册的样式和格式指南,现在是第五版。
在美国,几乎所有教育和研究机构的心理学研究都必须遵守APA的心理学家道德标准。
在APA中,有53个部门:致力于心理学中特定子领域或感兴趣的组织,从1到55。发生奇数,因为出于历史原因,既没有一个分区也没有一个部门11.4最初是心理测量学会,但他们选择在第5师(评估和测量)之后不成为APA分部,目的是非常相似的。第11师最初致力于异常的心理学和心理治疗,但到1946年,它已与原始的第12区(临床心理学)联手成为临床和异常心理学的部门,该分工在1998年再次更名为临床心理学协会。反映了过去几十年来心理学领域的巨大增长,分别是1980年或以后的所有日期39至55分(2000年补充的第55条)是美国药物疗法发展协会。
Despite its attempts to be all things to all psychologists, however, the APA’s uncritical promotion of unscientific therapies (such as accepting advertising for subliminal perception self-help tapes and continuing-education credit for thought field therapy) and its increasing advocacy of specific political positions, along with its advocacy of prescription privileges for clinical psychologists, alienated some of its prominent members sufficiently that they started a new, independent organization, the American Psychological Society (APS) in 1988. The APS is explicitly devoted to the advancement of scientific psychology and the representation of psychology as a science on the national level. This is taken seriously enough that a proposal to change the name of the organization to the Association for Psychological Science was narrowly defeated in 2002. The APS started by signing up over 5,000 members in its first six months and had more than 13,500 members by 2003 (a number the APA took about fifty years to reach). Its membership includes most of the leading American psychological scientists and academics, as well as many prominent clinicians. Despite its origins, the APS has maintained a cordial relationship with the APA, and many people are members of both organizations, seeing them as serving different purposes. Indeed, APS members get discounted rates on several APA journals.
参考:
- Cattell,J。M.“协会的建立。”心理评论,50(1943):61–64。