1.6 The Profession of Psychology: Past and Present

If ever you find yourself on an airplane with an annoying seatmate who refuses to let you read your magazine, there are two things you can do. First, you can turn to the person and say in a calm and friendly voice, “Did you know that I am covered with strange and angry bacteria?” If that seems a bit extreme, you might instead try saying, “Did you know that I am a psychologist, and I’m forming an evaluation of you as you speak?” as this will usually eliminate the problem without getting you arrested. The truth is that most people don’t really know what psychology is or what psychologists do, but they do have some vague sense that it isn’t wise to talk to one. Now that you’ve been briefly acquainted with psychology’s past, let’s consider its present by looking at psychology as a profession. We’ll look first at the origins of psychology’s professional organizations, next at the contexts in which psychologists tend to work, and finally at the kinds of training required to become a psychologist.

Psychologists Band Together: The American Psychological Association

You’ll recall that when we last saw William James, he was wandering around the greater Boston area, expounding the virtues of the new science of psychology. In July 1892, James and five other psychologists traveled to Clark University to attend a meeting called by G. Stanley Hall. Each worked at a large university where they taught psychology courses, performed research, and wrote textbooks. Although they were too few to make up a jury or even a respectable hockey team, these seven men decided that it was time to form an organization that represented psychology as a profession, and on that day the American Psychological Association (APA) was born. The seven psychologists could scarcely have imagined that today their little club would have more than 150,000 members—approximately the population of a decent-sized city in the United States. Although all of the original members were employed by universities or colleges, today academic psychologists make up only 20% of the membership, whereas nearly 70% of the members work in clinical and health-related settings. Because the APA is no longer as focused on academic psychology as it once was, the American Psychological Society (APS) was formed in 1988 by 450 academic psychologists who wanted an organization that focused specifically on the needs of psychologists carrying out scientific research. The APS, renamed the Association for Psychological Science in 2006, grew quickly, attracting 5,000 members within 6 months; today it numbers nearly 12,000 psychologists.

The Growing Role of Women and Minorities

In 1892, the APA had 31 members, all of whom were White and all of whom were male. Today, about half of all APA members are women, and the percentage of non-White members continues to grow. Surveys of recent PhD recipients reveal a picture of increasing diversification in the field. The proportion of women receiving PhDs in psychology increased from only 15% in 1950 to 70% in 2010, and the proportion of racial minorities receiving PhDs in psychology grew from a very small number to 24% during that same period. Clearly, psychology is increasingly reflecting the diversity of American society.

Mary Whiton Calkins (1863-1930), the first woman elected APA president, suffered from the sex discrimination that was common during her lifetime. Despite academic setbacks (such as Harvard University refusing to grant women an official PhD), Calkins went on to a distinguished career in research and teaching at Wellesley College.

The current involvement of women and minorities in the APA, and psychology more generally, can be traced to early pioneers who blazed a trail that others followed. In 1905, Mary Calkins (1863–1930) became the first woman to serve as president of the APA. Calkins became interested in psychology while teaching Greek at Wellesley College. She studied with William James at Harvard and later became a professor of psychology at Wellesley College, where she worked until retiring in 1929. In her presidential address to the APA, Calkins described her theory of the role of the “self” in psychological function. Arguing against Wundt’s and Titchener’s structuralist ideas that the mind can be dissected into components, Calkins claimed that the self is a single unit that cannot be broken down into individual parts. Calkins wrote four books and published over 100 articles during her illustrious career (Calkins, 1930; Scarborough & Furumoto, 1987; Stevens & Gardner, 1982). Today, women play leading roles in all areas of psychology. Some of the men who formed the APA might have been surprised by the prominence of women in the field today, but we suspect that William James, a strong supporter of Mary Calkins, would not be one of them.

Just as there were no women at the first meeting of the APA, there weren’t any non-White people either. The first member of a minority group to become president of the APA was Kenneth Clark (1914–2005), who was elected in 1970. Clark worked extensively on the self-image of African American children and argued that segregation of the races creates great psychological harm. Clark’s conclusions had a large influence on public policy, and his research contributed to the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling (Brown v. Board of Education to outlaw segregation in public schools (Guthrie, 2000). Clark’s interest in psychology was sparked as an undergraduate at Howard University when he took a course from Francis Cecil Sumner (1895–1954), who was the first African American to receive a PhD in psychology (from Clark University in 1920). Sumner’s main interest focused on the education of African American youth (Sawyer, 2000).

What Psychologists Do: Research Careers

Kenneth B. Clark (1914–2005) studied the developmental effects of prejudice, discrimination, and segregation on children. In one classic study from the 1950s, he found that African American preschoolers preferred White dolls to Black ones. Clark’s research was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in its decision for the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case that ended school segregation.

WILLIAM E. SAURO/NEW YOR K TIMES CO./GETTY IMAGES

Before describing what psychologists do, it should be noted that most people who major in psychology do not go on to become psychologists. Psychology has become a major academic, scientific, and professional discipline with links to many other disciplines and career paths (see the Hot Science box). That being said, what should you do if you do want to become a psychologist, and what should you fail to do if you desperately want to avoid it? You can become “a psychologist” by a variety of routes, and the people who call themselves psychologists may hold a variety of different degrees. Typically students finish college and enter graduate school in order to obtain a PhD (or doctor of philosophy) degree in some particular area of psychology (e.g., social, cognitive, developmental). During graduate school, students generally gain exposure to the field by taking classes and learn to conduct research by collaborating with their professors. Although William James was able to master every area of psychology because the areas were so small during his lifetime, today a student can spend the better part of a decade mastering just one.

After receiving a PhD, you can go on for more specialized research training by pursuing a postdoctoral fellowship under the supervision of an established researcher in his or her area, or apply for a faculty position at a college or university or a research position in government or industry. Academic careers usually involve a combination of teaching and research, whereas careers in government or industry are typically dedicated to research alone.

The Variety of Career Paths

Figure 1.3: The Major Subfields in Psychology Psychologists are drawn to many different subfields in psychology. Here are the percentages of people receiving PhDs in various subfields. Clinical psychology makes up almost half of the doctorates awarded in psychology.

Source: 2004 Graduate Study in Psychology. Compiled by APA Research Office.

As you saw earlier, research is not the only career option for a psychologist. Most people who call themselves psychologists neither teach nor do research, but rather, they assess or treat people with psychological problems. Most of these clinical psychologists work in private practice, often in partnerships with other psychologists or with psychiatrists (who have earned an MD, or medical degree, and are allowed to prescribe medication). Other clinical psychologists work in hospitals or medical schools, some have faculty positions at universities or colleges, and some combine private practice with an academic job. Many clinical psychologists focus on specific problems or disorders, such as depression or anxiety, whereas others focus on specific populations such as children, ethnic minority groups, or older adults (see FIGURE 1.3). Just over 10% of APA members are counseling psychologists, who assist people in dealing with work or career issues and changes or help people deal with common crises such as divorce, the loss of a job, or the death of a loved one. Counseling psychologists may have a PhD or an MA (master’s degree) in counseling psychology or an MSW (Master of Social Work).

Psychologists are also quite active in educational settings. About 5% of APA members are school psychologists, who offer guidance to students, parents, and teachers. A similar proportion of APA members, known as industrial/organizational psychologists, focus on issues in the workplace. These psychologists typically work in business or industry and may be involved in assessing potential employees, finding ways to improve productivity, or helping staff and management to develop effective planning strategies for coping with change or anticipated future developments. Of course, this brief list doesn’t begin to cover all the different career paths that someone with training in psychology might take. For instance, sports psychologists help athletes improve their performance, forensic psychologists assist attorneys and courts, and consumer psychologists help companies develop and advertise new products. Indeed, we can’t think of any major enterprise that doesn’t employ psychologists.

A person earning a PhD in psychology can go on to a wide range of fields, like these three: a practicing clinical psychologist in New York City, a science and health journalist for a major news outlet, and a behavioral scientist for an international affairs consulting firm.

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COURTESY DIPTI KAPANIA
COURTESY CONSTANCE STEVENS

HOT SCIENCE: Psychology as a Hub Science

This chapter describes how psychology emerged as a field of study, and the Other Voices box illustrates some of the ways in which psychology is indeed a scientific field of study. But where does psychology stand in relation to other areas of science? That is, how big a field is it? What links does it have to other scientific disciplines? What fields (if any) are influenced by psychological science? With recent advances in computing and electronic record keeping, researchers are now able to answer these questions by literally creating maps of science. Information about scientific articles, the journals in which they are published, and the frequency and patterns with which articles in one field are cited by articles in another field, is now fully electronic and available online (in the Science Citation and Social Science Citation Indexes). Researchers can use this information to learn about the interconnectedness of different scientific disciplines.

As an example, in an article called “Mapping the Backbone of Science,” Kevin Boyack and his colleagues (2005) used data from more than 1 million articles, with more than 23 million references, published in more than 7,000 journals to create a map showing the similarities and interconnectedness of different areas of science based on how frequently journal articles from different disciplines cite each other. The results are fascinating. As shown in the figure, seven major fields, or “hub sciences,” that link with and influence smaller subfields emerged in the data: math, physics, chemistry, earth sciences, medicine, psychology, and social science. The organization of the hubs is interesting to note. As you can see in the figure, psychology sits between medicine and social studies, whereas physics sits between math and chemistry. The location of subfields also matches with what you might expect: public health and neurology fall between psychology and medicine, statistics between psychology and math, and economics between social science and math.

Studies like this one provide an informative picture of how different areas of science relate to each other historically (i.e., the citations in that study dated back many years). But science is dynamic and constantly changing and so an important question is: What does the science look like right now (while you are in school and deciding which classes to take and what career path to follow)? Another study used data from more than 6 million citations, found in more than 6,000 journals to create a map of citation patterns focusing only on citations to articles published in a recent 5-year period (in this case from 2000–2004; Rosvall & Bergstrom, 2008). In that analysis, psychology again emerged as a major scientific hub (see the figure on the right). The largest scientific fields, in order, are molecular and cell biology, medicine, physics, neuroscience, ecology and evolution, economics, geosciences, psychology, and chemistry. Psychological research has strong links (based on the frequency of citations of work in journals in each field) with neuroscience, psychiatry, education, sociology, business and marketing, medicine, and ecology and evolution. More recent and larger studies continue to support the overall structure of these maps of science (Börner et al., 2012).

BOYACK, KEVIN W., KLAVANS, RICHARD, AND BORNER, KATY, MAPPING THE BACKBONE OF SCIENCE. SCIENTOMETRICS, VOL.64, NO.3 (2005) 351–374. ©2005, SPRINGER-VERLAG/AKADEMIAI DIADO

Studies like these are useful to university administrators, funding agencies, and also to students to help them understand the relationships between different academic departments and how the scientific work of one field relates to the scientific field more broadly. They also show the reach of psychology to other disciplines and support the idea that knowledge about psychology has relevance for many related disciplines and career paths. Good thing you are taking this class!

ROSVALL, MARTIN AND BERGSTROM, CARL T., MAPS OF RANDOM WALKS ON COMPLEX NETWORKS REVEAL COMMUNITY STRUCTURE. PNAS, JAN.29, 2008, VOL.105, NO.2, PP.1118

Even this brief and incomplete survey of the APA membership provides a sense of the wide variety of contexts in which psychologists operate. You can think of psychology as an international community of professionals devoted to advancing scientific knowledge; assisting people with psychological problems and disorders; and trying to enhance the quality of life in work, school, and other everyday settings.