For several years, APA has been working in new and improved ways to achieve members’ desire for APA and psychology to have a meaningful impact on our field and society. We are more frequently elevating our members’ expertise for broader audiences, more routinely packaging psychological knowledge in useable ways, and more clearly demonstrating psychology’s role in solutions to critical societal issues.
As a result, we have seen APA’s and psychology’s impact growing. For instance, media mentions of APA and research from our journals have increased more than 1,000% since 2018. Members of Congress regularly seek psychological expertise across a range of issues that include and go beyond mental health, such as artificial intelligence, social media, and climate change. APA is reaching broader and more diverse audiences through our work with partners like Google, YouTube, Sesame Workshop, and the U.S. Surgeon General, to name a few.
While we celebrate the impressive progress we have made, we cannot stop here. We have to take psychology to the next level—where Congress consults with psychology experts before making any decision; where psychological knowledge is embedded in how schools and workplaces function; where the public instinctively turns to our field for expertise on human behavior and cognition, like they turn to physicians for medical issues and lawyers for legal problems.
So, how do we get there?
- Be flexible. As the world around us changes, we must continuously position psychology as an invaluable guide. As an organization, we should continue working in ways that promote flexibility as issues emerge, while staying true to our mission.
- Adopt a coherent vision. We need to understand the totality of what our field does. Human behavior connects all areas of psychology and is central to practically every critical societal issue. If we do not recognize and elevate that contribution, the public won’t either, impeding our field’s ability to advance and most effectively benefit society.
- Take collective action. Psychology training involves early specialization, resulting in a more fragmented field of specialized identities. If all psychologists—no matter our specialty—serve as ambassadors and advocates for the entire field, we can elevate awareness of our important collective work and attract the best and brightest to the field.
I have no doubt that, together, we can move psychology forward and upward to the next level.
