You are here: Fairness.com > Resources > American Psychological Association (APA)

American Psychological Association (APA)


Self Description

November 2005: "Based in Washington, DC, the American Psychological Association (APA) is a scientific and professional organization that represents psychology in the United States. With 150,000 members, APA is the largest association of psychologists worldwide."

http://www.apa.org/about/

Third-Party Descriptions

May 2008: "...If minors aren't capable of fully matured reasoning....Scalia took the American Psychological Association to task for filing a brief opposing the juvenile death penalty, when it had argued in an earlier case that young people were mature enough to get an abortion without parental agreement."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/02/AR2008050203365.html

August 2007: SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 19 -- The American Psychological Association ruled Sunday that psychologists can no longer be associated with several interrogation techniques that have been used against terrorism detainees at U.S. facilities because the methods are immoral, psychologically damaging and counterproductive in eliciting useful information.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/19/AR2007081901513.html

June 2007: On Wednesday, dozens of psychologists made public a joint letter to American Psychological Association president Sharon Brehm fingering another CIA-employed psychologist, R. Scott Shumate. Previous news reports led the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association to ban their members from participating in interrogations, but the issue has remained divisive within the American Psychological Association, which has not forbidden the practice. 'We write you as psychologists concerned about the participation of our profession in abusive interrogations of national security detainees at Guantanamo, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at the so-called CIA 'black sites,'' the psychologists wrote. In violation of APA ethics, they said, 'It is now indisputable that psychologists and psychology were directly and officially responsible for the development and migration of abusive interrogation techniques, techniques which the International Committee of the Red Cross has labeled 'tantamount to torture.'' [Ed. note: The full letter detailing the allegations of APA complicity can be read here.]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/21/cia_sere/

November 2005: While the American Psychological Association also ruled this summer that cruel and degrading techniques were out of bounds for psychologists, the group has not spelled out exactly what specific techniques that would allow and disallow.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/13/AR2005111300868.html

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Owner of (partial or full, past or present) Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) Organization Sep 28, 2008
Organization Executive (past or present) Prof. Stephen H. Behnke Ph.D., Esq. Person Nov 22, 2005
Member (past or present) Prof. Mark S. Goldman Ph.D. Person Jun 14, 2007
Member (past or present) Prof. Saul Kassin Ph.D. Person Apr 9, 2008
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Ronald F. Levant Ed.D., M.B.A. Person Nov 22, 2005
Director/Trustee/Overseer (past or present) Prof. Elizabeth Phelps Person Mar 3, 2008
Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) Prof. Nancy Felipe Russo Ph.D. Person Jan 23, 2007

Articles and Resources

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Apr 20, 2011 Boot camp in Malaysia for effeminate boys slammed

QUOTE: An education department in one Malaysian state is sending effeminate boys to a boot camp to change their behavior… Donna Guest, deputy director of the Asia-Pacific program at Amnesty International, deplored the action, which "feeds into gender stereotyping and homophobia."

 CNN (Cable News Network)
Apr 19, 2011 Parents, don't dress your girls like tramps

QUOTE: Abercrombie & Fitch came under fire this spring for introducing the "Ashley," a push-up bra for girls who normally are too young to have anything to push up… It's easy to blast companies for introducing the sexy wear, but our ire really should be directed at the parents who think low rise jeans for a second grader is cute.

 CNN (Cable News Network)
Jul 28, 2009 A Rorschach Cheat Sheet on Wikipedia?

QUOTE: in the last few months, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been engulfed in a furious debate involving psychologists who are angry that the 10 original Rorschach plates are reproduced online, along with common responses for each. For them, the Wikipedia page is the equivalent of posting an answer sheet to next year’s SAT.

 New York Times
May 06, 2008 He's a Man, as Charged: But Should Emerging Brain Science Affect Courts' Handling of Young Defendants?

QUOTE: The debate over whether kids should be tried and punished as adults has simmered for years. The discussion is intensifying, however, because of recent discoveries that the brain's prefrontal cortex, which governs reasoning, develops more slowly than the limbic system, where the emotions reside.

 Washington Post
Aug 20, 2007 APA Rules on Interrogation Abuse: Psychologists' Group Bars Member Participation in Certain Techniques

QUOTE: The American Psychological Association ruled Sunday that psychologists can no longer be associated with several interrogation techniques that have been used against terrorism detainees at U.S. facilities… [But] critics of that measure… said that psychologists play an essential role in these settings…

 Washington Post
Jun 21, 2007 The CIA's torture teachers: Psychologists helped the CIA exploit a secret military program to develop brutal interrogation tactics -- likely with the approval of the Bush White House.

QUOTE: There is growing evidence of high-level coordination between the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. military in developing abusive interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects .... Two CIA-employed psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, were at the center of the program, which likely violated the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners.

 Salon
Jan 19, 2007 Cover Story: Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome?

QUOTE: '...Waxman’s office investigated some of the crisis pregnancy centers and found that when women there asked about abortion’s health effects, 20 of 23 centers gave out false information. At 13 centers, this included characterizing the psychological effects of abortion as “severe, long-lasting and common.”'

 New York Times
Dec 03, 2006 Supreme Court to Review Two School-Integration Plans: Justices to Consider Whether Race Can Still Be a Factor in Public School Placement

QUOTE: More than 50 years after the Supreme Court decided in Brown v. Board of Education that separate schools are inherently unequal, the court will consider tomorrow whether race can still be a factor when school systems design programs to promote racial integration. A broadly written decision on Louisville's plan, and on a related one from Seattle, could have a profound impact on school systems across the country.

 Washington Post
Aug 16, 2006 Psychologists Aiding Torturers

QUOTE: he APA unequivocally condemned any involvement by psychologists in torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in any setting...The APA’s action was a good first step, but it doesn’t go far enough. The resolution essentially says that its members should not be involved in helping to conduct torture, but are allowed to participate in national security interrogations, which have since 9/11 regularly involved cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

 TomPaine.com
Aug 09, 2006 At schools, less tolerance for 'zero tolerance'

QUOTE: "Zero tolerance" discipline policies that are enforced widely in U.S. schools are backfiring: They may be promoting misbehavior and making students feel more anxious, the American Psychological Association (APA) said Wednesday. The group called for more flexibility and common sense in applying the policies, reserving zero tolerance for the most serious threats to school safety.

 USA TODAY
Dec 28, 2005 Determining diminished capacity

QUOTE: A legal finding of "diminished capacity" can have financial ramifications, especially if an estate is contested....How is a finding of diminished capacity made? How can it affect wills, trusts and estate plans? And what can you do to make sure your wishes are carried out even after your mind has "left the building?"

 Bankrate.com
Nov 14, 2005 Medical Experts Debate Role In Facilitating Interrogations

QUOTE: Although the Bush administration has asserted that it does not condone or practice torture, articles in prominent medical forums such as the New England Journal of Medicine have said that doctors and behavioral scientists have violated ethical norms while interrogating terrorism suspects at the behest of the U.S. government and become "complicit in torture."

 Washington Post
Aug 19, 2005 American Psychological Association Calls for Cutback of Violent Games: Research finds increased aggression

QUOTE: According to the APA, recent research indicates that "exposure to violence in video games increases aggressive thoughts, aggressive behavior, and angry feelings among youth"... youth may not learn the consequences of their actions...APA insists that video games are more influential than movies or television...

 BusinessWeek
Aug 10, 2004 For Psychotherapy's Claims, Skeptics Demand Proof

QUOTE: On one side are experts who argue that what therapists do in their consulting rooms should be backed by scientific studies...On the other are those who say that the push for this evidence threatens the very things that make psychotherapy work...

 New York Times
Jun 29, 2004 All in the Head: Three Approaches to Mental Health Treatment That Stretch the Boundaries -- and, Sometimes, Credulity

QUOTE: Some [alternative mental health treatments--Ed.], such as relaxation exercises and yoga...have been subjected to at least some scientific study. But others, including past life therapy and dolphin-assisted therapy, have little or no grounding in science.

 Washington Post
Mar 10, 2003 Study links violent TV, later aggression: A group at the University of Michigan tracked children and found apparent results.

QUOTE: Children who watch a lot of violent television are more apt to be aggressive in young adulthood, doing such things as physically attacking someone or throwing things at their spouses.

 Philadelphia Inquirer
Mar 04, 2003 Forcing Mentally Ill on Trial to Take Drugs Is Pondered

QUOTE: In addition to due process and fair trial rights, Dr. Sell's supporters also raise objections under the First Amendment to involuntary mind-altering medication.

 New York Times