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Results of the Commitee on Women in Psychology 1996 Questionnaire: Introduction
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WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP IN THE AMERICAN
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION DIVISIONS, STATE, PROVINCIAL AND TERRITORIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL
ASSOCIATIONS, AND REGIONAL PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATIONS
The Task Force on the Changing Gender Composition of Psychology was
appointed by the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Association (APA) in
1991 to study and assess the significance and implications of the increase in the number
of women entering the discipline of psychology over the past two decades. In October 1995,
the Report of the Task Force on the Changing Gender Composition of Psychology was
published and widely disseminated. It contains two sections: Part I is the Case Study and
Part II is the Action Plan. As its final action, the task force requested and received
approval for the APA's Committee on Women in Psychology (CWP) to assume responsibility for
oversight of the Action Plan. As part of its charge to implement the Action Plan, CWP
undertook the task of addressing the stated objectives in the report. CWP has recently
focused their efforts on Objective 4: "We must increase the participation of women in
leadership and policymaking positions for the profession. Because women will comprise the
majority of psychologists in the near future, they must become stakeholders now so that
they will be experienced in the protection and advancement of the profession's
future" (p. 57 of the task force report). Toward that end, the committee's 1996
Women's Leadership Questionnaire was designed to determine the level of women's
involvement as members and leaders (e.g., past presidents, committee chairs, conference
speakers) in the APA divisions, state psychological associations, and regional
psychological associations. It was also intended to determine the importance of women's
issues and gender equity to the different organizations and to raise awareness within each
organization of the need for women leaders and activities (or lack of activities) to
ensure the full participation of women in leadership roles. CWP concluded that a survey to
presidents of APA divisions, state, provincial, and territorial, and regional
psychological associations would provide invaluable information about progress in this
arena. State regional psychological associations were also surveyed as part of this
project, but it was determined that these organizations were not comparable to the three
other APA affiliated groups and therefore, results from the state regional associations
are a supplemental attachment to this report.
In the summer of 1996, 274 questionnaires were mailed to 49 division
presidents; 58 state, provincial and territorial psychological association presidents; 7
regional psychological association presidents; and 160 state regional psychological
association presidents. The overall response rate for the survey was 53%. Five
questionnaires were unusable because they were completed and returned to the Women's
Programs Office with no organizational name. All of the questionnaires were mailed to the
president of each organization, but as the statistics within each subsection of this
report indicate, some of the questionnaires were completed by other officers or staff
within the organization. Responses to a few of the questions were not included in the
report because they did not add substantially to information already available.
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