A Recap of the 2007 APA Annual Convention in San Francisco

by: Mona Alcazar

The 115th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association recently held in the beautiful city of San Francisco, August 17-20, 2007, was a resounding success! 

REGISTRATION
Final registration for the convention ended at 15,210 (our highest registration total since 2001!). Below is a final breakdown. For an attendee breakdown by APA divisional affiliation, please e-mail Mona Alcazar or Jodi Ashcraft.

Members & Affiliates	8,958
Full-time students (Non Affiliates)	802
Non-members	1,217
Spouses/Dependents	2,779
Exhibitor Representatives	985
Other (Media, APA staff, Volunteers)	469
Total	15,210

2007 SPONSORS
Sponsors for this year's Annual Convention included the following items or services:

• APA Convention Tote Bags provided courtesy of the APA Insurance Trust
• APA Presidential Reception co-sponsored by Cadmus Communications
• Headquarter hotel room key cards sponsored by Chase Education Finance
• The PsycCareers booth, APA's Online Career Center, sponsored by Dell
• Shuttle bus transportation provided by Pearson Assessments
• The Cyber Café sponsored by The Psychological Corporation
• San Francisco City Guides and Exhibit Hall Maps provided courtesy of Riverside Publishing
• Continuing Education Workshop Coffee Break on Sunday, August 19, 2007 sponsored by Wrigley Science Institute

Convention sponsorships are a great way to increase your visibility in the marketplace (particularly for a new product launch or acquisition) and can be custom tailored around a larger integrated marketing program.

TRAFFIC GENERATING FEATURES
A number of features designed to increase traffic flow were placed inside the exhibit hall. They included:

Exhibits-Only Hour, Friday, August 17, 4:00pm - 5:00pm: With no competing substantive sessions, attendees were encouraged to visit the exhibits during the Exhibits-Only Hour.

Coffee with the Authors, Saturday, August 18, 10:00am - 11:00am: This was a new feature inside the exhibit hall in 2007. Coffee and pastries were served on the show floor during author signings in participating publisher booths.

Cyber Café: The Cyber Cafe allowed attendees to stay connected at home and at the office. Attendees read and responded to email, left local messages for other attendees, and electronically searched for information during exhibit hall hours.

Posters: To attend poster sessions, attendees had to walk through the exhibits.

Massage Break Lounge: Attendees and exhibitors took a break from the convention with upper-body seated "chair" massages provided by certified massage therapists.

EXHIBIT HALL ACTIVITY
A look at leads captured by those exhibitors renting lead retrieval devices across the show floor showed lead retrieval activity up compared to the last five years. In addition, traffic inside the exhibit hall continues to be high on the first two days of the conference with the 11:00am hour continuing to be the highest lead retrieval period throughout the convention.

CONVENTION HIGHLIGHTS
Below are some highlights from the APA Annual Convention (for more information, visit http://www.apa.org/convention07/conv07news.html):

CEO welcome address
"Transitions" was the theme of APA's CEO, Norman Anderson, PhD, in his welcome at the Opening Session. Three items dominated his agenda: First, he spoke of the forthcoming issuance of the first comprehensive and strategic plan for APA. Next, he mentioned APA is planning significant changes to its Website within the next year. Finally, he announced the departure of Russ Newman, PhD, JD, executive director of the Practice Directorate; and APA CFO Jack McKay, who is retiring with over 30 years of service.

APA reaffirms position against torture
APA's Council of Representatives voted in favor of a resolution upholding its position against torture. For more information, please visit http://www.apa.org/governance/resolutions/councilres0807.html.

Video game violence
Playing a violent video game for just 20 minutes has a measurable negative impact, said Brad Bushman, PhD, at Convention. In a series of experiments Bushman found that game players quickly became desensitized to scenes of violence and became less likely to come to the assistance of victims of violence than those who played non-violent video games. In addition, Bushman says, players of violent video games are generally more aggressive than are players of non-violent games.

Serious mental illness treatment
Investing in intensive interventions to help people with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia transition into the community can have big payoffs, said William D. Spaulding, PhD, at Convention: Not only do the patients improve, but the health-care system saves money over time. He described the Community Transitions Program, which has reduced hospitalizations by 57 percent and helped many inpatients learn to live independently.

The Lucifer effect
Evil isn't usually perpetrated by "bad apples," said Philip Zimbardo, PhD, in his presentation to a packed house at Convention, but by "good apples" caught up in "bad barrels." Everyone is capable of perpetrating evil, given a particular context, he said. The soldiers convicted of torture at Abu Ghraib, for example, were good people corrupted by the circumstances of working in a bad prison. Many, if not most, other people would act similarly if placed in the same situation. Heroes, he said, are those who buck that trend, and act on behalf of others by disobeying unjust authority.

What men really think about relationships
Journalist Neil Chethik's survey of 350 men for the book "Voice Male" suggests that men are not typically commitment phobic: After all, some 90 percent of men will marry, and 98 percent of them expect their marriage to last forever. Rather, he suggests, it takes them longer to commit because they want to be sure. He also proposed that people do not meet or marry their soul mate, but instead become their partner's soul mate through sharing a lifetime of everyday experiences.

Psychology's first governor
APA President Dr. Sharon Stephens Brehm, PhD, awarded a Presidential Citation to Ted Strickland, PhD, at the Opening Session. As the governor of Ohio, Strickland has assumed the highest office to which a U.S. psychologist has ever been elected. He was also the first psychologist elected to the U.S. Congress. In his remarks, Strickland expressed his pride in being a psychologist and the many ways in which the discipline contributes positively to politics and public service.

David Satcher on mental health parity
What progress has been made since the 1999 release of Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General? Comprehensive access to mental health care has grown, and there have been advances in brain research, completion of the Human Genome Project and advances in personalized medicine. But challenges remain, reported former Surgeon General David Satcher, MD, PhD, at Convention. There are now 46 million uninsured Americans, millions more than when the report was first issued. And wars and natural disasters are challenging the mental health of citizens as well as the ability of practitioners to help those in need.

Nobel Laureate honored
Also at the opening session, Daniel Kahneman, PhD, was the recipient of the APA Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology in recognition of his research career, groundbreaking insights and role in demonstrating the value of psychology to a wide audience. In his acceptance speech, Kahneman professed his great thanks to his mother, to the vastly under-acknowledged Lady Luck, and his longtime collaborator, Amos Tversky, who passed away in 1996. His work with Tversky has been recognized by many—most notably through the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Economics to Dr. Kahneman in 2002.