Editing Psychology (section)

== Disciplinary organizations ==

=== Institutions ===
{{See also|List of psychology organizations}}
In 1920, [[Édouard Claparède]] and [[Pierre Bovet]] created a new applied psychology organization called the International Congress of Psychotechnics Applied to Vocational Guidance, later called the International Congress of Psychotechnics and then the [[International Association of Applied Psychology]].<ref name=BenjaminBaker /> The IAAP is considered the oldest international psychology association.<ref name=PickrenFowler>Wade Pickren & Raymond D. Fowler, "Professional Organizations", in Weiner (ed.), ''Handbook of Psychology'' (2003), Volume 1: ''History of Psychology''.</ref> Today, at least 65 international groups deal with specialized aspects of psychology.<ref name=PickrenFowler /> In response to male predominance in the field, female psychologists in the U.S. formed the National Council of Women Psychologists in 1941. This organization became the International Council of Women Psychologists after World War II and the International Council of Psychologists in 1959. Several associations including the [[Association of Black Psychologists]] and the Asian American Psychological Association have arisen to promote the inclusion of non-European racial groups in the profession.<ref name=PickrenFowler />

The [[International Union of Psychological Science]] (IUPsyS) is the world federation of national psychological societies. The IUPsyS was founded in 1951 under the auspices of the [[UNESCO|United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO)]].<ref name=BenjaminBaker /><ref name=Staeuble>Irmingard Staeuble, "Psychology in the Eurocentric Order of the Social Sciences: Colonial Constitution, Cultural Imperialist Expansion, Postcolonial Critique" in Brock (ed.), ''Internationalizing the History of Psychology'' (2006).</ref> Psychology departments have since proliferated around the world, based primarily on the Euro-American model.<ref name=Paranjpe /><ref name=Staeuble /> Since 1966, the Union has published the ''International Journal of Psychology''.<ref name=BenjaminBaker /> IAAP and IUPsyS agreed in 1976 each to hold a congress every four years, on a staggered basis.<ref name=PickrenFowler />

IUPsyS recognizes 66 national psychology associations and at least 15 others exist.<ref name=PickrenFowler /> The American Psychological Association is the oldest and largest.<ref name=PickrenFowler /> Its membership has increased from 5,000 in 1945 to 100,000 in the present day.<ref name=Goodwin>C. James Goodwin, "United States", in Baker (ed.), ''Oxford Handbook of the History of Psychology'' (2012).</ref> The APA includes [[Divisions of the American Psychological Association|54 divisions]], which since 1960 have steadily proliferated to include more specialties. Some of these divisions, such as the [[Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues]] and the [[American Psychology–Law Society]], began as autonomous groups.<ref name=PickrenFowler />

The [[Interamerican Psychological Society]], founded in 1951, aspires to promote psychology across the Western Hemisphere. It holds the Interamerican Congress of Psychology and had 1,000 members in year 2000. The European Federation of Professional Psychology Associations, founded in 1981, represents 30 national associations with a total of 100,000 individual members. At least 30 other international organizations represent psychologists in different regions.<ref name=PickrenFowler />

In some places, governments legally regulate who can provide psychological services or represent themselves as a "psychologist."<ref>For example, see [https://archive.today/20150406055541/https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/lawsstatutes/2013ors675.html Oregon State Law, Chapter 675 (2013 edition)] at [http://www.oregon.gov/obpe/Pages/laws_rules.aspx Statutes & Rules Relating to the Practice of Psychology] {{Webarchive|url=http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20160521020000/http://www.oregon.gov/obpe/Pages/laws_rules.aspx |date=21 May 2016 }}.</ref> The APA defines a psychologist as someone with a doctoral degree in psychology.<ref name=HallHurley>Judy E. Hall and George Hurley, "North American Perspectives on Education, Training, Licensing, and Credentialing", in Weiner (ed.), ''Handbook of Psychology'' (2003), Volume 8: ''Clinical Psychology''.</ref>

=== Boundaries ===

Early practitioners of experimental psychology distinguished themselves from [[parapsychology]], which in the late nineteenth century enjoyed popularity (including the interest of scholars such as William James). Some people considered parapsychology to be part of "psychology". Parapsychology, [[Hypnosis|hypnotism]], and [[Psychic|psychism]] were major topics at the early International Congresses. But students of these fields were eventually ostracized, and more or less banished from the Congress in 1900–1905.<ref name=BenjaminBaker /> Parapsychology persisted for a time at Imperial University in Japan, with publications such as ''Clairvoyance and Thoughtography'' by Tomokichi Fukurai, but it was mostly shunned by 1913.<ref name=Takasuna />

As a discipline, psychology has long sought to fend off accusations that it is a [[Soft science|"soft" science]]. Philosopher of science [[Thomas Kuhn]]'s 1962 critique implied psychology overall was in a pre-paradigm state, lacking agreement on the type of overarching theory found in mature hard sciences such as chemistry and physics.<ref>T.S. Kuhn, ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'', 1st. ed., Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1962.</ref> Because some areas of psychology rely on research methods such as [[Self-report study|self-reports]] in surveys and questionnaires, critics asserted that psychology is not an [[Objectivity and subjectivity|objective]] science. Skeptics have suggested that personality, thinking, and emotion cannot be directly measured and are often inferred from subjective self-reports, which may be problematic. Experimental psychologists have devised a variety of ways to indirectly measure these elusive phenomenological entities.<ref name="Beveridge_subj">{{cite journal |doi=10.1192/pb.26.3.101 |title=Time to abandon the subjective–objective divide? |journal=Psychiatric Bulletin |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=101–103 |year=2002 |last1=Beveridge |first1=Allan |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Peterson_subj">Peterson, C. (23 May 2009). [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-good-life/200905/subjective-and-objective-research-in-positive-psychology "Subjective and objective research in positive psychology: A biological characteristic is linked to well-being"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730080401/https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-good-life/200905/subjective-and-objective-research-in-positive-psychology |date=30 July 2022 }}. ''Psychology Today''. Retrieved 20 April 2010.</ref><ref name="Panksepp_AN">[[Jaak Panksepp|Panksepp, J.]] (1998). [https://books.google.com/books?id=n0W2QQuZ7IEC ''Affective neuroscience: The foundations of human and animal emotions''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150918223340/https://books.google.com/books?id=n0W2QQuZ7IEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s |date=18 September 2015 }}. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 9.</ref>

Divisions still exist within the field, with some psychologists more oriented towards the unique experiences of individual humans, which cannot be understood only as data points within a larger population. Critics inside and outside the field have argued that mainstream psychology has become increasingly dominated by a "cult of empiricism", which limits the scope of research because investigators restrict themselves to methods derived from the physical sciences.{{r|Teo 2005|pp=36-7|q=Methodologism means that the method dominates the problem, problems are chosen in subordination to the respected method, and psychology has to adopt without question, the methods of the natural sciences. ... From an epistemological and ontological-critical as well as from a human-scientific perspective the experiment in psychology has limited value (for example, only for basic psychological processes), given the nature of the psychological subject matter, and the reality of persons and their capabilities.}} Feminist critiques have argued that claims to scientific objectivity obscure the values and agenda of (historically) mostly male researchers.<ref name=Tomes2008 /> Jean Grimshaw, for example, argues that mainstream psychological research has advanced a [[patriarchal]] agenda through its efforts to control behavior.{{r|Teo 2005|p=120|q=Pervasive in feminist critiques of science, with the exception of feminist empiricism, is the rejection of positivist assumptions, including the assumption of value-neutrality or that research can only be objective if subjectivity and emotional dimensions are excluded, when in fact culture, personality, and institutions play significant roles (see Longino, 1990; Longino & Doell, 1983). For psychology, Grimshaw (1986) discussed behaviorism's goals of modification, suggesting that behaviorist principles reinforced a hierarchical position between controller and controlled and that behaviorism was in principle an antidemocratic program.}}