Association for Psychological Science
historyThe Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in research, application, teaching, and the improvement of human welfare. APS is dedicated to the advancement of scientific psychology and its representation at the national level. To this end, it holds annual meetings, publishes several journals, and works with government agencies to promote scientific psychology.
The current president (2009-2010) is Linda Bartoshuk, University of Florida and the President-Elect is Mahzarin Banaji)], Harvard University. The Past President is [[Walter Mischel, Columbia University.
Membership
APS has approximately 22,500 members worldwide, including psychological scientists and academics, clinicians, researchers, teachers, and administrators across all fields of science.
Convention
The 22nd Annual Convention will be held on May 27-30, 2010 in Boston, MA .
Professional activities
Journals
Dissemination of psychological research is one of the primary goals of the Association for Psychological Science. To fulfil this mission, APS publishes four scientific psychology journals:
- Psychological Science publishes general interest articles across all of scientific psychology's sub-disciplines, including the behavioral, clinical, cognitive, neural, and social sciences, and is ranked among the top 10 general psychology journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information.
- Current Directions in Psychological Science publishes concise reviews, spanning all of scientific psychology and its applications. The reviews published in this journal cover such current topics as theory of mind, neural bases of memory, face recognition, expression of emotion, cognition and aging, and attachment and personality in mammals.
- Psychological Science in the Public Interest reviews topics where psychological science may have the potential to inform and improve the well-being of society. Topics addressed in this journal include the validity of projective techniques, such as the Rorschach Inkblot Test, the impact of classroom size on student achievement, sex differences in science and math, enhancing the effectiveness of work groups and teams, and risk and rationality in adolescent decision making.
- Perspectives on Psychological Science publishes theoretical statements, literature reviews, viewpoints and opinions, research presentations, and scholarship. This journal publishes larger and more integrative articles, including broad integrative reviews, an overview of a research program, a standard literature review, meta-analytic reviews, theoretical statements, book reviews, and eclectic articles on topics such as the philosophy of science issues, opinion pieces about major issues in the field, autobiographical reflections of senior members of the field on some topic of interest, or even humorous essays and sketches.
APS's monthly newsletter is the Observer, which contains research and opinion pieces by psychological researchers. APS undergraduate affiliates publish an online-only journal, Undergraduate Update.
APS issues press releases and on the research appearing in its journals. Wray Herbert, Senior Director for Science Communication, writes the blog, "We're Only Human" which is also printed in Scientific American Mind.
APS lobbies federal policy makers about the role of behavioral science in health, education, productivity, and other areas of public concern, and works to improve the visibility of psychological science and further its use in developing public policy.
APSSC
The APSSC is the Association for Psychological Science Student Caucus. The APS Student Caucus is a representative body of the student affiliates of the Association for Psychological Science. The APSSC was initiated in 1989 (a year after the Society was founded) by a group of students at the 2nd annual APS convention. All student affiliates of APS automatically become a member of the APSSC. The current president (2009-2010) is Jeremy Ashton Houska of University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
- American Psychological Association