American Association
The American Psychological Association (abbreviated APA ) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the U.S. and is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 152,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students and has an annual budget of around $70m. The American Psychological Association is occasionally confused with the American Psychiatric Association, which also uses the acronym APA.
Profile
Mission
The APA mission statement is to advance psychology :
- as a science and profession and
- as a means of promoting health, education, and human welfare by the encouragement of psychology in all its branches in the broadest and most liberal manner;
- by the promotion of research in psychology and the improvement of research methods and conditions;
- by the improvement of the qualifications and usefulness of psychologists through high standards of ethics, conduct, education, and achievement;
- by the establishment and maintenance of the highest standards of professional ethics and conduct of the members of the Association;
- by the increase and diffusion of psychological knowledge through meetings, professional contacts, reports, papers, discussions, and publications;
- thereby to advance scientific interests and inquiry, and the application of research findings to the promotion of health, education, and the public welfare.
The APA core values statement
The American Psychological Association commits to its vision through a mission based upon the following values:
- Continual Pursuit of Excellence
- Knowledge and its Application Based Upon Methods of Science
- Outstanding Service to its Members and to Society
- Social Justice, Diversity and Inclusion
- Ethical Action in All that We Do
Awards
Each year, the APA recognizes top psychologists with the "Distinguished Contributions" Awards; these awards are the highest honors given by the APA, and among the highest honors that a psychologist or psychology researcher can receive.
- Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology (Early Career / Senior)
- Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest (Early Career / Senior)
- Award for Distinguished Scientific Applications of Psychology
- Award for Distinguished Contributions to Education and Training in Psychology
- Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Applied Research
- Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Practice in the Public Sector
- Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology
The use of "psychologist" as title
APA policy on the use of the title psychologist is contained in the General Guidelines for Providers of Psychological Services: "Psychologists have a doctoral degree in psychology from an organized, sequential program in a regionally accredited university or professional school" and suggests "refer to master's-level positions as counselors, specialists, clinicians, and so forth (rather than as 'psychologists')." A definition of psychology is offered: "the study of the mind and behavior.".
Present organizational structure
APA comprises an executive office, a publishing operation, offices that address administrative, business, information technology, and operational needs, and four substantive directorates:
- the Education Directorate accredits doctoral psychology programs and addresses issues related to psychology education in secondary through graduate education;
- the Practice Directorate engages on behalf of practicing psychologists and health care consumers;
- the Public Interest Directorate advances psychology as a means of addressing the fundamental problems of human welfare and promoting the equitable and just treatment of all segments of society; and
- the Science Directorate provides support and voice for psychological scientists.
Affiliate organizations
The American Psychological Association Practice Organization (APAPO) and the Education Advocacy Trust, which operates autonomously as a part of APAPO, are 501(c)(6) entities, separate from APA. They engage in advocacy on behalf of psychological practitioners and health care consumers and psychology education, respectively.
The Psychologically Healthy Workplace program
The Psychologically Healthy Workplace is a program sponsored by the American Psychological Association designed to promote better employment practices. The program and award recognizes employers that provide outstanding work environments and programs in five key areas: employee involvement, work-life balance, employee growth and development, health and safety, and employee recognition. Awards are given at the state and national level.
2007 national award winners included: El Nuevo Dia, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Healthwise, Koinonia Homes, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, YAI/National Institute for People with Disabilities Network.
APA style, flawed sixth edition
APA is well known for APA style, a writing style and formatting standard widely used in the social sciences. The sixth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , issued in July 2009, contains more than 19 pages of errors in academic papers for which the APA has issued 19 pages of corrections on its blog.
In addition, the APA has issued eight pages of corrections to fix errors of spelling, punctuation, usage and incorrect application of APA sixth edition style throughout the first printing of its Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association .
In the first paragraph of its eight-page correction list, the APA asks buyers and other users of the APA style guide "to check the copyright page (unnumbered p. iv) to determine which printing you are using."
The American Psychological Association produces the main style guide used by a range of fields, including communications, education, psychology, sociology, economics, business, nursing and justice administration, and other fields. The fifth edition was published in 2001.
Discussion of the details of the errors and corrections to the sixth edition are contained in the APA's online blogs and on blogs frequented by scholarly APA style users who have advised the APA of ethical ways to handle crisis management without doing damage to its reputation as a publisher.
Gavin W. Henning, associate director for assessment in Dartmouth College's Office of Institutional Research, told Inside Higher Ed that he is "concerned about the quality of the product we're getting. The APA manual is about precision in writing and having the manual be as imprecise as it is seems wrong to me."
The sixth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association has gone into its second printing with corrections. However, there is no easy way for the buyer to determine whether a copy for sale is the error-laden first printing or the corrected second printing because the ISBN number of both printings is the same.
To determine whether a copy of the sixth edition is uncorrected, APA advises customers to "Check the copyright page, opposite the Table of Contents. If it is a second printing, the second paragraph will read "Second printing: August 2009." If it is the first printing, this information will appear on the last line, near the bottom of the page.
To date, the manual has received seventeen 1-star reviews on Amazon (1 star representing the lowest possible rating), representing more than one-quarter of all reviewers. Themes in consumers' comments mention that the APA "should be ashamed" and deplore their "abuse of power"; call the manual "faulty and defective," "useless," and "worthless"; call for an apology from the APA; and urge other consumers not to buy the manual . Reader comments on the Inside Higher Ed article about the errors (Epstein, 2009) expressed similar sentiments and also called for compensation from the APA, likening the 6th edition of the manual to a defective product.
Mary Lynn Skutley, editorial director for APA books, responded to customer complaints about the style guide on the APA blog. Skutley told Inside Higher Ed that the manual, was "very complicated to put together" because it includes 188 style rules and 980 examples. "With so much in the book, it's unavoidable that we wouldn't need to make corrections of some kind," she said.
Publications
The American Psychologist is the Association's official journal. APA also publishes 74 other journals encompassing most specialty areas in the field, including:
- Developmental Psychology
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied
- Psychological Review
- Psychological Bulletin
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Journal of Applied Psychology
- Psychology and Aging