American Psychological Association (APA)
The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest national organization representing psychologists in the United States, founded in 1892 and headquartered in Washington, D.C. The APA's mission encompasses advancing psychology as both a scientific discipline and a profession while promoting human welfare and health. The organization advocates for its members, including practitioners, students, and educators, by influencing public policy, setting ethical standards, and fostering high educational and professional achievements within the field of psychology.
The APA is structured around various directorates and divisions, each focusing on specific areas of psychology such as science, education, practice, and public interest. These groups work collaboratively to disseminate psychological knowledge, engage in research, and address pressing social issues. Additionally, the APA supports its initiatives through member participation, volunteerism, and funding from memberships, conferences, and publications. Notably, the organization has adapted its focus in response to contemporary challenges, such as the psychological impacts of major events like the September 11 attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic. The APA aims to make psychology accessible and relevant, addressing the needs of diverse populations across different contexts.
American Psychological Association (APA)
- DATE: Founded in 1892
- TYPE OF PSYCHOLOGY: All
The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest national organization of psychologists in the United States. The APA represents the interests of members who include practitioners, students, professors, and policymakers bringing psychology to the American public and the larger international community.
Introduction
The American Psychological Association (APA) is a professional organization that represents the interests of psychologists and psychological science in the United States and is headquartered in Washington, DC. It is also in close proximity to many other professional organizations and governmental bodies, such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Science Foundation.
The APA has the mission of advancing psychology as a scientific discipline and as a profession. It promotes psychology as a science, as an area of clinical practice, as a field and tool of education, and as a matter of public policy and interest. Additionally, it maintains a mission of promoting human welfare and health through the work of psychologists. These goals are addressed in several ways. For instance, the APA encourages the continuing development of psychology as a field by forging new and better research methodologies. Similarly, the APA fosters high standards of achievement, education, ethics, and general conduct among psychologists. Finally, it increases the dissemination and use of psychological knowledge through collegial communications and communications with the public at large.
The APA also engages in advocacy, on behalf of its members and their interests. It does this by fostering ethical standards among its members and also by taking positions on important public issues, especially those that are the subject of governmental decisions and debates. In some cases, this might include lobbying, encouraging members to contact governmental representatives or particular organizations, informing them of positions taken by the organization as a whole, or letting key officials know their constituents’ wishes. APA members also participate in various decision-making and policymaking groups that influence laws and guidelines regarding health care, education, and scientific conduct.
Members may also influence clinical practice by participating on boards of psychology that oversee the profession of psychology in each state. In the larger organization of the APA, structured subgroups are devoted to specific activities and areas of psychology to achieve similar tasks. One type of subgroup, the directorate, is devoted to a branch of psychology related to science, practice, public interest, or education. A second type of subgroup, with a special relationship to the directorates, is the division, a group designated to advance specific topical areas in psychology. Together, the directorates and divisions of the APA help inform both the association’s membership and the public at large about special events, themes, or decisions of importance to the discipline.
History and Structure
The APA is managed by a formal set of bylaws. It is membership driven, meaning individuals who are members of the organization vote to determine how it will adapt to contemporary social problems or needs for organizational development.
The bylaws of the APA provide an outline of the structure of the organization and describe this structure as including a central office with a chief executive officer, standing boards and committees, officers, a council of representatives, and a board of directors. The organization is also characterized by divisions, each of which has special interests in particular areas of psychological science, or the study of specific types of behavior. The relative size of the membership in each division determines the voting power and influence of the division within the organization.
The majority of the work completed by the APA as a whole is performed by volunteer members. These members, elected or appointed by division members or the council, volunteer their time and energy to take on special projects and develop proposals for conferences, publications, or special projects; inform other members of important issues; and set strategic plans for the different areas of psychology in the organization. The organization is supported, in part, by membership dues and by money it makes through other means. These other means include an annual convention for the membership and the development and sale of books and professional journals.
As an organization, the APA is diverse. Its divisions are numerous and developed out of basic academic needs to have special discussion groups on specific topics in psychology, around relevant social issues, and around relevant professional issues. In some cases, the divisions developed from organizational societies within the APA. The first divisions focused on different types of basic psychological science. As the APA developed, it added divisions representing more specialized branches of psychological work that grew from the earlier basic areas. Further development resulted in the emergence of numerous groups focusing on specific types of practitioners, populations, and settings. The divisions reveal the maturation process of psychology as a professional discipline, as it grew from a concern with basic science to attend to education, practice, and public policy.
Functions
To understand some strategies the organization uses to reach its goals, it is helpful to take a closer look at each of the four major directorates of the APA: the Science Directorate, the Education Directorate, the Practice Directorate, and the Public Interest Directorate. Each has unique targets for change in terms of how the APA interacts with its members and the public at large.
The Science Directorate has a particular interest in advancing the study of psychology through such endeavors as encouraging career development in the area of psychological science. Such work happens at all levels, from encouraging science students in their precollege years to think about psychology as a field of choice to attracting midcareer professionals who are thinking about a blended career where psychology plays a role. It may take the form of public announcements, for instance, disseminating new psychological research findings on important social problems such as Alzheimer’s disease, why beeping mechanical sounds might distract military personnel, or pain relief in individuals with chronic health problems, or it might take the form of outreach, such as psychologists going into school systems and talking about their work with interested students in science classes. Another important role the Science Directorate plays is informing the members of the APA about policy and governmental regulation changes that have the potential to affect the work of psychological science. Such topics might include rules about how animal or human research is conducted, plans for how tax dollars are distributed for research, or rules related to how data must be preserved.
The Education Directorate focuses on matters related to formal education. This includes issues involving training psychologists, such as graduate education programs, program accreditation, and continuing professional education. Additionally, the directorate focuses its activities on psychology curricula for undergraduates and younger students. For instance, the Education Directorate has an interest in gifted education and also advances efforts to engage young minds with interest in the field by making psychology more accessible to them. Finally, the Education Directorate encourages advocacy on the topic of education in general and also as it specifically relates to psychology.
The Practice Directorate plays the important role of helping professionals who provide psychological services get the information they need. For instance, this directorate provides tips on how to be an advocate of psychology as a profession and information on licensing and service provision for psychologists in independent practice. It also provides information to individuals in the community who might be seeking psychological help or assistance. During the months following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, for instance, the Practice Directorate provided, among other things, public education materials geared toward helping children to cope with the aftereffects of terrorism, a disaster response network for psychologists to volunteer much-needed services, and an advice column written for psychologists to help them cope and maintain their own resilience during such professionally demanding times. This, as well as other directorates, also played a role during the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020, as the public health crisis affected the public psychologically as well as physically; practitioners also had to adapt to control measures such as increased use of telehealth.
Finally, the Public Interest Directorate facilitates the interface between psychology and public policy. Highlighting the needs of special populations and psychology’s ability to better address those needs has been an important focus of the Public Interest Directorate. Aging, children, youth, families, gender, disability, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), sexual orientation, and ethnic and racial health disparities are just some of the areas where the Public Interest Directorate has concentrated its efforts. As with the other directorates, these efforts have taken the form of press releases, the provision of educational materials, and conferences to bring issues of policy to public attention.
As a whole, the directorates form the basic foci for the APA in terms of how it interacts with its members and the general public. Their dynamic natures allow them to shift in response to pressing social issues and foster beneficial growth within the organization.
Bibliography
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