SPSSI Research Articles

Martha Tamara Schuch Mednick (1929-2020).

Memorializes Martha Tamara Schuch Mednick (1929-2020). Mednick was one of the most influential women in the development of the psychology of women. In 1965, Martha joined and was very active in the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). SPSSI, an organization of social scientists who have brought research to bear on a wide array of societal problems, and was considered the "conscience" of APA. In 1967, Martha received an offer of a faculty position at Howard University and began work there in 1968. She was promoted to full professor in 1971 and remained at Howard until her retirement in 1995. In 1972, Martha coedited, with Sandra Tangri, an issue of the Journal of Social Issues entitled "New Perspectives on Women." She later expanded the issue into a book, coedited with Tangri and Lois Wladis Hoffman, Women and Achievement: Motivation and Social Analysis (1975). Around 1972, Martha became involved in organizational work on behalf of women in psychology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Policy Statement on the Incarceration of Undocumented Migrant Families: Society for Community Research and Action Division 27 of the American Psychological Association.

Policy Statement on the Incarceration of Undocumented Migrant Families: Society for Community Research and Action Division 27 of the American Psychological Association.

“Cautious Courage”: SPSSI's Connections and Reconnections at the United Nations

The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) has had official connections to the United Nations (UN) at two separate points in its history. In the period right after World War Two (1946–1960), SPSSI leaders were involved in the building of a global social science network through the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Otto Klineberg was heavily involved in creating connections between UNESCO and SPSSI. Changes at UNESCO as well as in academic research culture, combined with continued Cold War politics, minimized SPSSI's involvement at the UN throughout the 1960s and 1970s. By the mid‐1980s, NGOs were increasingly a significant force in the UN through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). SPSSI has had NGO status since 1987 and was awarded consultative status in 1991, allowing the Society greater input at the UN. Since that time, SPSSI has continued to bring a research focus to a range of projects at the UN aimed at improving global well‐being.

SPSSI Leaders: Collective Biography and the Dilemma of Value‐Laden Action and Value‐Neutral Research

This study provides a collective biography of Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI)'s most recent cohort of leaders and compares their characteristics with those of previous generations of leaders. Unlike previous collective biographies, I use responses to an e‐mail questionnaire from 90 individuals who have been elected to SPSSI office, most since 1986. I examine the social categories to which individuals belong; educational experiences; the branch of psychology in which they received their PhD; and the role of collegial networks in the recruitment of leaders. I also introduce an historical perspective by comparing data on early and more recent cohorts of SPSSI leaders. Finally, through this study I explore possible links between leaders’ characteristics and their reasons for becoming involved in SPSSI. In particular, I examine relationships between the variables previously discussed and leaders’ reasons for being involved in SPSSI, with special attention to differential views about the role of values in research.

SPSSI and Poverty: Reflections at Seventy‐Five

This article highlights efforts by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) and its members to increase understanding of poverty and social class, and to propose policies to reduce economic inequities. Our review is based on writings about poverty and social class published in SPSSI journals and newsletters, and other activities from SPSSI's beginnings in 1936 to the present. Both strengths and shortcomings in SPSSI's economic justice record are noted. Special attention is given to the 1930s and the 1960s–1970s, periods in which poverty was a salient topic in the United States. SPSSI's role in advocating for institutional change within the American Psychological Association is also considered. We close with a “wish list” for SPSSI's next 75 years.

SPSSI and Peace‐Building: A Participant's Perspective

A culture of peace promotes caring relations among individuals and groups based on full realization of their positive interdependence with each other and their environment—it entails social justice, norms of equity and multicultural sensitivity and social relations conducive to nonviolence, sustainable development, and human well‐being. This is a history of Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI)'s efforts to build such a culture in the United States, especially within and through organized psychology. The perspective taken is primarily my own as a member of SPSSI Council, an SPSSI Representative to the American Psychological Association (APA)'s Council of Representatives, SPSSI's first historian and first Public Policy Fellow at the APA, liaison between Division 9 and Division 48 of the APA, and SPSSI's Representative to the Southern California Regional Council of Organizations. I argue for the importance of applying public interest science to issues of cultural, structural, and direct violence.

Foreground and Background: Environment as Site and Social Issue

To examine how the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) has engaged with environmental issues throughout its 75‐year history, we consulted five SPSSI‐based data sources. Our analysis, attentive to the larger sociopolitical contexts over time, focuses on SPSSI's attention to the physical environment, the places in which social living and interactions occur. In SPSSI's early years, social issues research was often situated within specific locales. Since 1960 and the emergence of environmental psychology and the environmental movement, SPSSI increasing focuses on environment as a social issue in its own right as well part of other social issues. Over time there has been a decline in mentions of the physical environment in SPSSI's methods texts. This historical analysis highlights the specifics of context in SPSSI's environmental research and urges attention to the physical as well as social aspects of environment in research and activism.

“Society Very Definitely Needs Our Aid”: Reflecting on SPSSI in History

The year 2011 marks the 75th anniversary of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). One of the primary reasons SPSSI was established was the desire, on the part of its founders, to use scientific research for social action and to bring the insights of social science into national‐level debates about social issues. This anniversary affords us the opportunity to examine when, where, why, and how SPSSI has been more and less successful in its efforts to impact society. Historical analyses focusing on the long‐standing tension between scientific objectivity and political advocacy are used as a lens through which to examine SPSSI's legacy and to provide a more informed basis for future action.

ReclaimingSPSSI's Sociological Past: Marie Jahoda and the Immersion Tradition in Social Psychology

Aspects of the life and work of Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI)'s first female president, Marie Jahoda (1907–2001), are examined to help reclaim social psychology's, and SPSSI's,lost connection to sociology. Throughout her career, Jahoda promoted a nonreductionistic, problem‐focused sociological social psychology that was profoundly influenced by her early interdisciplinary training and by subsequent collaborations with other SPSSI members in New York City in the decade following WWII. Her use of the participant observation method, or immersion approach, was an outgrowth of her sociological sensibility. She used this approach to describe and explain the complex interactions between individuals and social structures in real‐life settings. By placing Jahoda at the center of our analysis, we aim to complicate standard historical narratives about the loss of the sociological tradition within social psychology and re‐assess the relationship between the two social psychologies. We argue that her legacy should be brought to bear on contemporary debates about SPSSI's social relevance and may help re‐envision the disciplinary boundaries of contemporary social psychology.

SPSSI and Racial Research

This review highlights the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI)'s racial research contribution to public policy. Although not an initial focus of SPSSI, racial research has long been a central concern of the organization. Klineberg's work in the 1930s established an example of how social research could have widespread influence on social policy. SPSSI books and the Journal of Social Issues reveal the Society's unswerving interest in such topics as prejudice and authoritarianism. The year 1954 proved a watershed year. Gordon Allport published his agenda‐setting The Nature of Prejudice, and SPSSI played a key role in the momentous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that held racially segregated public schools to be unconstitutional. Due to lack of funds, racial research declined sharply in the 1960s. Later, other concerns—such as an emphasis on cognition and the belated rise of attention to gender discrimination—competed with racial issues. Reactionary Supreme Court justices now often spurn social science evidence. The article closes with an assessment of the Society's racial policy influence in the future.

The SPSSI Task Force on Sexual Orientation, the Nature of Sex, and the Contours of Activist Science

Drawing on published and archival materials, this article charts the history of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI)‐sponsored Task Force on Sexual Orientation (1978–1982). The Task Force offers a lens through which to explore the assumptions about the nature of human sexuality at work in 1970s psychology. The concept of nature does not possess a stable meaning across disciplinary communities. Where for some nature connotes the normalizing sanction of natural laws, others associate the term with artificial claims about the constraints of a deficient biology. As an organization founded by social psychologists, SPSSI projects, such as its members’ work on race relations, tended to emphasize the latter strategy. Responding to conservatives who cast homosexuality as unnatural, a number of Task Force members turned to sociobiology as a normalizing natural science. In this regard, the Task Force was an important episode in defining what might constitute activist‐science.

Feminism and Women Leaders in Spssi

We look at women leaders in the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) as a case study to explore the roots of second wave feminist leadership in psychology and its impact on the acceptance of gender as an important part of the field. Although all psychological organizations excluded many women from leadership until the latter part of the 20th century, the SPSSI, despite the contradiction between its socially activist agenda and exclusionary practices, was unusual because its ideals attracted many accomplished women to become members. In order to provide a richer view of women's professional leadership and its consequences, we conducted a cohort analysis of the personal and professional circumstances of those women elected to office in the SPSSI over the past 70 years. We examine the complex interaction between the internalization of sexist norms, the use of formal and informal social structures (especially those involving collegial networking), political ideology, and social change. Based on our analysis, we suggest that the achievements of individual women appear to be less influential than the development of a critical mass of women leaders with a politically activist agenda and commitment to a social constructionist theoretical frame.

A Tribute to Allport: Surveying the Last 50 Years of Research on Prejudice

There is no debate that Gordon W. Allport's (1954/1979) The Nature of Prejudice is the foundational work for the social psychology of We wholeheart edly agree with this opening sentence (p. 1) of On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years After Allport, edited by John Dovidio, Peter Glick, and Laurie Rudman. Gordon Allport's seminal work did indeed guide much of the social psychological research on prejudice throughout the last 50 years. And in a fitting tribute to Allport's con tributions, this follow-up volume aims to review that substantial body of research and outline an agenda for the future of research on prejudice. On the 50th anniversary of Allport's original text, the editors of this book as sembled an impressive collection of scholars to reflect on the history of the social psychological study of prejudice, speculate on the future of the field, and contem plate Allport's contributions. The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) is the official sponsor of the book, with its royalties going toward SPSSI's educational and scientific programs, a detail that we strongly applaud. Although intended to celebrate Allport's insights, this book is not a blatant dis play of adulation. Rather, the editors and authors examine his assertions through a critical-but fair-lens, applauding his hits without sugarcoating his misses. This is clearly an asset of the volume, leaving the reader with an accurate impression of the theoretical foundations laid by Allport, the areas where empirical research has failed to support his analysis, and his hypotheses that remain yet untested. The book's editors intended it to serve as a companion to Allport's text. We think the current volume would indeed benefit from being teamed with the original work because there is an implicit assumption that the reader has at least a passing familiarity with Allport's analysis of prejudice. To facilitate the pairing of these books, the editors have followed the same sequence of topics and chapters as in Allport's work, with each team of authors tackling its own specialty. This explicit substantive parallel between the original and subsequent works was certainly a wise decision. Just as the original work did, this book covers a lot of ground on the topic of prejudice, from social cognitive to motivational to sociocultural processes. Howev er, the current volume is necessarily terser than the original, because these authors aim to cover Allport's perspective, developments since that original analysis, and projected topics for future discovery. In an attempt to unify the large number of chapters, each written by a different research team, the editors chose a common expository structure to frame each chapter: a summary of Allport's analysis on the focal topic, a description of theoretical and empirical developments since Allport, a description of new conceptual frameworks for the relevant topic, an examina tion of extant support for Allport's analysis, and suggestions for fruitful future directions. We think most readers will find this consistency very helpful. However, because this volume covers so much ground in a cursory way, our general sense is that the most appropriate audience includes graduate students and beyond.

Editor's Forward to the Article “Psychologists and the Use of Torture in Interrogations” and Invited Comments about That Article

In early 2006, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI), the society that produces Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy (ASAP), charged a task force with examining the research on interrogations and drafting a statement for Council review. During the Council discussion of the proposed statement, President Shinn raised a fundamental general issue to consider, asking, “To what extent do we want to say that torture shouldn’t be done because there is research that says so, and to what extent will we say so based on an ethical point of view?” The task force report was shared with the Council at its June 2006 meeting. The report, focused on research on interrogation and confessions, was presented by task force chair Mark Costanzo, and its other members, Ellen Gerrity and M. Brinton Lykes. The report and its recommendations were endorsed by the SPSSI Council at that same meeting. The article that appears here, co-authored by Costanzo, Gerrity, and Lykes, is a revision of the task force report. Even though it is not exactly the document endorsed by the Council, it is substantively consistent with what was endorsed. Although the SPSSI Council seemed largely of one mind in support of this perspective, it has not been so for all psychologists. As a result, ASAP invited

The Timeliness of Time for Blacks and Whites: An Introduction of Professor James M. Jones, Winner of SPSSI's 2001 Lewin Award

The Timeliness of Time for Blacks and Whites: An Introduction of Professor James M. Jones, Winner of SPSSI's 2001 Lewin Award

Inventing Social Justice: SSSP and the Twenty-First Century

I would like to start with a question that I have borrowed from colleagues in the Humanities who are interested in the history of science (de Santillana 1959). What was Galileo’s crime? Most responses to this question would focus on his revolutionary discoveries about the movement of the planets around the sun. Another view of his crime, however, was that he chose to communicate his Žndings about the earth and the sun, not in Latin, the medium of the educated elite, but in Italian, the public vernacular, parola del popolo. My address today is a call to the Society for the Study of Social Problems to build on its legacy and move toward committing Galileo’s crime. I will examine different approaches to making the knowledge generated by scholars in SSSP available to a public outside of the academy and our professional community. I believe that a search for this new direction has beneŽts not only for inventing social justice, but also for reinventing and energizing the sociological enterprise. Let us begin with a brief look backward. As we all know, the founding of SSSP in 1951 was grounded in its opposition to the American Sociological Society’s commitment to a “pure science” model of sociology, and the belief that sociology had lost sight of humanistic goals (Galliher and Galliher 1995; Skura 1976). The early opposition to ASS was often grounded in personal animosities, but there was also the concern that ASS was not democratic and was dominated by an “Eastern establishment” not very open to the aspirations of younger sociologists. But SSSP was not alone in its emergence as an alternative or oppositional movement. At least a decade before the founding of SSSP, some of the newest generation of professional psychologists were concerned about the narrow professionalism of their Želd and in 1936, they formed the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). These early opposition movements looked like attempts to reform the larger and more dominant professional associations of their disciplines. It was not until the early 1960s that SSSP set in motion the beginnings of a critique of mainstream sociology that went to core issues of epistemology and methodology—How do we know what we know? And what is the role of the sociologist in the process of creating new knowledge? In 1961, Alvin Gouldner’s presidential address to SSSP examined the doctrine of a value-free sociology and judged it to be a group myth that, among other things, served to marginalize the role of sociologist as critical intellectual and to elevate to center stage the sociologist as value-free professional.

The Perils of a Public Intellectual

In 1939 George W. Hartmann was Chairman of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) and a prominent activist‐scholar. By the end of World War II, his teaching career and psychological health lay in ruin, and he never reestablished his influence as a psychopolitical expert. This article traces the rise and fall of Hartmann's career and its unique mixture of Gestalt psychology, socialism, and anti‐Communism. Unpublished correspondence, family papers, and files from the FBI and other intelligence agencies are used to recreate Hartmann's political personae—including Socialist electoral candidate, chairman of Peace Now, and leader of the War Resisters League. His life as a public intellectual is used to reflect upon the nature of psychological expertise at midcentury.

“The Approved Bureaucratic Torpor”: Goodwin Watson, Critical Psychology, and the Dilemmas of Expertise, 1930–1945

The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) played an important role in expanding the mandate and influence of American psychology. This article examines the nature of that role through a consideration of the early career of SPSSI's first president, Goodwin Watson. During the Depression, Watson encouraged psychologists to abandon value neutrality and political disinterestedness in favor of politically committed activist science. Government service and political persecution during World War II prompted Watson to conclude that his Depression‐era views had neglected the problematic interface between psychological expertise and policy formation. Responding to these concerns, Watson adopted a professional model that emphasized psychology's neutrality and objectivity. The article also considers the implications of his experience for contemporary debates on psychology's professional orientation.

The politics of scientific social reform, 1936–1960: Goodwin Watson and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

This paper explores the development and subsequent transformation of a “radical” professional model in American psychology. Its focal point is Goodwin Watson and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI), an organization Watson helped found in 1936. During the Depression, he and many of his SPSSI colleagues called upon psychologists to abandon value neutrality and political disinterestedness in favor of an explicit set of social democratic goals and left-wing political alliances. Government service and political persecution during World War II led Watson to conclude that his Depression-era calls for sweeping change in psychology had neglected a number of significant political dimensions. Of particular importance was the problematic interface between psychological expertise and policy formation. In response to this concern, Watson encouraged the development of the now familiar model of the psychologist as a disinterested purveyor of value-neutral expertise. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Women, Psychology, and Social Issues Research

This article reviews the history of women psychologists' contributions to social issues research. The first part describes the work of a few remarkable women in the early part of the century whose scientific participation and feminist orientations were equally unusual. It then focuses on the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI), which was founded in 1937, and traces the various stages of women's participation in it, beginning with its essentially all male leadership for over 20 years (with a few notable exceptions), through the flurry of short-lived feminist concerns after World War II, to the dramatic upsurge of female leadership and scholarship of the past two decades. Some potential reasons for the 20-year hiatus between postwar feminist interests and similar concerns in the late 1960s are discussed.