Formative tensions within organized psychology in the United States: A comparison of conflicting perspectives in 1904 and 1988

Psychologists are serving in increasingly diverse occupational roles. This study lays the groundwork for understanding how these differing roles made psychologists subject to dissimilar environmental pressures. I propose that it was these differing needs combined with the stresses that difference placed on the American Psychological Association (APA) which led to a split in organized psychology and resulted in the formation of the American Psychological Society (APS).;Specifically, this dissertation compares the founding of two psychological organizations, the Experimentalists in 1904 and the American Psychological Society in 1988. Both of these groups were created ostensibly to be havens where psychologists more interested in empirical ("scientific") research could meet to discuss their specific interests apart from the inclusive conclaves of APA. Analyzing published documents drawn from contemporary sources, oral history interviews of psychologists who were members of the Group On Restructuring APA in 1987-1988, and secondary sources about the Experimentalists, the dissertation concludes that the main similarities between Experimentalists and the APS were their attitudes toward science and their use of rhetoric about these beliefs to obtain social as well as scientific goals. Yet, the main difference between the Experimentalists and the APS was that the former clearly served a supplemental role to the larger APA. The APS, however, is functioning as both a supplement and an alternative to APA. Because psychologists in 1904 fulfilled similar occupational roles, they remained in agreement about the functions APA should serve and were relatively satisfied with the organization in spite of their widely disparate theoretical views. By 1988, however, psychologists had come to serve in dramatically different social and occupational roles. The differing roles produced new environmental pressures and psychologists required different things from their national organization to meet these demands. Some psychologists were not satisfied with the changes APA made to meet these needs and founded the new organization, APS. Thus, the founding of the Experimentalists was primarily in response to theoretical and philosophical issues while the founding of APS was based more on sociological and environmental factors.