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| American Psychological Association | |
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 Logo of the APA |
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| Formation | 1892 |
| Headquarters | 750 First Street, NE Washington, D.C., United States |
| Membership | 152,000 members |
| 2010 President | Carol D. Goodheart, EdD |
| CEO | Norman Anderson, PhD |
| Website | www.APA.org |
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.
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The APA mission statement is to advance psychology:[1]
The APA core values statement
The American Psychological Association commits to its vision through a mission based upon the following values:
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.
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[ence] 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."[3].
APA comprises an executive office, a publishing operation, offices that address administrative, business, information technology, and operational needs, and four substantive directorates:
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 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.[4][5]
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.[6]
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.[7]
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.[8]
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."[9]
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.[10] [11] 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.[12][13]
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." [14]
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.[15]
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.[16]
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 [2]. 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.[17]
Mary Lynn Skutley, editorial director for APA books, responded to customer complaints about the style guide on the APA blog. [18] 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.[19]
The American Psychologist is the Association's official journal. APA also publishes 74 other journals encompassing most specialty areas in the field, including:[20]
APA maintains an abstract database named PsycINFO. It contains citations and summaries dating from the 1800s, including journal articles, book chapters, books, technical reports, and dissertations within the field of psychology. As of January 2010, PsycINFO has collected information from 2,457 journals.[21] Similar databases operated by other organizations include PsycLit and Psychological Abstracts.
The APA was founded in July 1892 at Clark University by a group of 26 men. Its first president was G. Stanley Hall. There are currently 54 divisions in the APA,[22] and it is affiliated with 60 state, territorial, and Canadian provincial associations [3].
Due to the dominance of clinical psychology in APA, several research-focused groups have broken away from the organization. These include the Psychonomic Society in 1959 (with a primarily cognitive orientation), and the Association for Psychological Science (which changed its name from the American Psychological Society in early 2006) in 1988 (with a broad focus on the science and research of psychology). Theodore H. Blau was the first clinician in independent practice to be elected president of the American Psychological Association in 1977.[23]
National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), the main secular group advocating conversion therapy, opposes the APA's 1973 statement that homosexuality is not a mental disorder.[24][25][26] There is a concern in the mental health community that the advancement of conversion therapy itself causes social harm by disseminating inaccurate views about sexual orientation and the ability of gay and bisexual people to lead happy, healthy lives.[27] Most mainstream health organizations are critical of conversion therapy and no mainstream medical organization endorses conversion therapy.[27][28][29][30][note 1]
Robert Perloff, APA's 1985 president and NARTH's 2004 annual conference keynote speaker, said in 2001 that the APA should "ease strictures" against conversion therapy stating "First, the data are not fully in yet. Second, if the client wants a change, listen to the client. Third, you're barring research."[31][32]
The APA adopted a resolution in August of 2009 stating that mental health professionals should avoid telling clients that they can change their sexual orientation through therapy or other treatments.
The "Resolution on Appropriate Affirmative Responses to Sexual Orientation Distress and Change Efforts"[33] also advises that parents, guardians, young people and their families avoid sexual orientation treatments that portray homosexuality as a mental illness or developmental disorder and instead seek psychotherapy, social support and educational services "that provide accurate information on sexual orientation and sexuality, increase family and school support and reduce rejection of sexual minority youth."
When it emerged that psychologists as part of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team were advising interrogators in Guantánamo and other U.S. facilities on improving the effectiveness of the "Enhanced interrogation techniques", the Association called on the U.S. government to prohibit the use of unethical interrogation techniques and labeled specific techniques as torture.[34] Critics pointed out that the APA declined to advise its members not to participate in such interrogations.[35] This was in contrast to the American Psychiatric Association ban in May, 2006 of all direct participation in interrogations by psychiatrists,[36] and the American Medical Association ban in June 2006 of the direct participation in interrogations of physicians.[37]
In September 2008, APA’s members passed a resolution stating that psychologists may not work in settings where “persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the U.S. Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights.”[38] The resolution became official APA policy in February 2009.
Amending the Ethics Code
In February 2010 APA's Council of Representatives voted to amend the association's Code of Ethics to make clear that its standards can never be interpreted to justify or defend violating human rights. Following are the two ethical standards and the changes adopted. Language that is in bold was newly adopted:
1.02, Conflicts Between Ethics and Law, Regulations, or Other Governing Legal Authority
If psychologists’ ethical responsibilities conflict with law, regulations, or other governing legal authority, psychologists clarify the nature of the conflict, make known their commitment to the Ethics Code and take reasonable steps to resolve the conflict consistent with the General Principles and Ethical Standards of the Ethics Code. Under no circumstances may this standard be used to justify or defend violating human rights.
1.03, Conflicts Between Ethics and Organizational Demands
If the demands of an organization with which psychologists are affiliated or for whom they are working are in conflict with this Ethics Code, psychologists clarify the nature of the conflict, make known their commitment to the Ethics Code, and take reasonable steps to resolve the conflict consistent with the General Principles and Ethical Standards of the Ethics Code. Under no circumstances may this standard be used to justify or defend violating human rights.
   | Website of the APA - American Psychological Association |
| | Letter to the CEO of the American Psychological Association - OpEdNews » Letter to the CEO of the American Psychological Association |
| | Statement on Interrogation - Page Not Found |
| | Protecting the Torturers - Stephen Soldz: Protecting the Torturers |
| | American Psychological Association Rejects Blanket Ban on Participation in Interrogation of U.S. Detainees - American Psychological Association Rejects Blanket Ban on Participation in Interrogation of U.S. Detainees |
| | Noted psychologist Theodore Blau - Hillsborough: Noted psychologist Theodore Blau |
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