About APA DIVISION 10

The Society for Psychology and the Arts (APA Division 10) is committed to interdisciplinary scholarship, both theoretical and empirical, encompassing the visual, literary, and performing arts. Broadly conceived, we study three interrelated topics: creativity (including developmental, motivational, affective, and cognitive processes), the arts (including aesthetic content, form, and function) and audience response to the arts (including preferences and judgments). Other foci include the use of the arts as diagnostic and therapeutic tools, and creativity in the sciences. To this end, we apply personality, clinical, cognitive, perceptual, physiological, and cultural psychologies to diverse artists, styles, and epochs.

Why Psychology and the Arts?

Many members in APA also have a special interest in creativity in all fields, ranging from art to music to literature to science and even creativity in everyday life. We deal with questions such as how creators form ideas for artistic or musical compositions, how audiences respond to dance or to drama, and how performers express their creativity through instrumental or vocal music. We believe these kinds of questions are among the most exciting addressed in psychology, and yet they are also among the most widely neglected. Almost everyone goes to art museums or concerts at some point, for example, but how many of them understand why a certain artistic composition or piece of music moves them whereas another leaves them cold.

Our division is a small one, which creates special opportunities for members to make a difference to the division. Many members are actively involved in the division, either on committees or through presentations at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. All members are encouraged to attend our annual business meeting at the APA convention.

History of Division 10

In a recent commentary in the APA Monitor, Dr. Raymond Fowler, the APA Executive Director, noted that "Throughout APA's history, psychologists have been interested and involved in the arts.... APA's Division 10 (Psychology and the Arts) was one of the 19 charter Divisions established by APA in 1945. It now has more than 500 members who are interested in promoting research in psychology and the arts on topics including cognition, creativity, motivation, personality, and the relationship between pathology and the arts."

Gerald C. Cupchik, Rudolf Arnheim, and Colin Martindale recently published A History of Division 10 Through the Eyes of Past Presidents, which appeared in D. Dewsbury (1996) (Ed.), Unification Through Division: Histories of the Divisions of the American Psychological Association, Volume 4, pp. 9-34. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. This chapter chronicles the division's early years, developing newsletters, as well as successful and failed attempts to change the division's name. Even the origin of our first name, Division on Esthetics, had a surprising twist. And so if you read this chapter it will provide a sense for how far we have come and just how much we have preserved.

Click here to read the DIVISION 10 BYLAWS

Past Presidents

The presidents of the division represent the rich and diverse history of Division 10. They include:

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