Founded in 1936, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) is a group of 3,000 scientists from psychology and related fields who share a common interest in research on the psychological aspects of important social and policy issues. In various ways, SPSSI seeks to bring theory and practice into focus on human problems of the group, the community, and nations, as well as on the increasingly important problems that have no national boundaries. SPSSI affords social and behavioral scientists opportunities to apply their knowledge and insights to the critical problems of today's world. SPSSI fosters and funds research on social issues through annual awards and programs of small research grants and disseminates research findings through its scholarly journals, sponsored books, specialized conferences, and its convention programs. SPSSI encourages public education and social activism on social issues and facilitates information exchange through its newsletter, social media, and electronic discussion groups. With headquarters in Washington, DC, the Society influences public policy through its publications, congressional briefings, and the advocacy efforts of its members, fellows, and staff. The Society's mission is extended to the global arena by a team of representatives who cover developments at UN headquarters in New York and Geneva. SPSSI has been represented at the United Nations as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) since 1987. SPSSI serves as consultant to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). An independent society, SPSSI is also Division 9 of the American Psychological Association (APA) and an organizational affiliate of the American Psychological Society (APS).
History of SPSSI
The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) was formally established during the height of the Great Depression, on September 1, 1936, at the annual APA convention at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Over 100 psychologists attended the meeting where the decision to institute SPSSI was made, in response to a widely felt need to bring the insights of psychological science to bear on contemporary social problems. From the beginning, SPSSI had two primary goals: (1) to encourage research upon those psychological problems most vitally related to modern social, economic and political policies, and (2) to help the public and its representatives understand and use contributions from the scientific investigation of human behavior in the formation of social policies. A guiding spirit was the psychologist Kurt Lewin, a recent German immigrant committed to conducting experiments in real-life conditions in order to capture the interdependence between individuals and what he called their total “life-space.” He championed the concept of “action research” in which the central goal is social change, stating, “Research that produces nothing but books will not suffice.” His spirit of using rigorous social science for social action continues to guide SPSSI and its members.
The organization's interest in both social issues and politics has meant that it is frequently the subject of controversy. In 1942, and subsequently throughout the late 1940s and 1950s, members of SPSSI were investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee for "subversive activity" based on their political affiliations and areas of research. SPSSI members have also faced episodic attacks on their academic freedom both for their political views and for opposing the imposition of loyalty oaths on university professors.
In 1937, SPSSI inaugurated a tradition of speaking publicly on matters of contemporary politics, when it issued an Armistice Day statement decrying what it saw as a dangerous push toward war. There is “no fighting instinct in man,” it said. Between November 1939 and March 1940, SPSSI issued a total of nine press releases refuting the inevitability of war and highlighting the social psychological processes producing warlike attitudes and the success of propaganda. However, once the U.S. entered the war, SPSSI members engaged in a variety of research and service activities supporting the war-effort. It focused on promoting a scientific understanding of morale, and offered empirical support for the superiority of democracy over totalitarianism.
In 1944, SPSSI issued a statement in support of the work of Ruth Benedict and Gene Weltfish, anthropologists at Columbia University, who wrote a booklet refuting the then-common idea that there are innate racial differences in intelligence. SPSSI commended the booklet's central thesis, “That there is no real evidence for the belief in the innate superiority of any one race over any other, and that racism is therefore superstition.” It was one of SPSSI's first statements against hereditarianism in race science, a cause it has embraced throughout its history. Later that year, SPSSI issued a report that called for a radical restructuring of conventional gender roles in the postwar reconstruction, so that men and women could participate equally in the world of work. The following year, in April 1945, it issued a statement, signed by over 2,000 psychologists, declaring that war is not inherent to human nature.
SPSSI's political activism continued after the war. In 1954, in Brown v Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregation by race was no longer permissible in US schools. In the lower court decisions leading up to the Supreme Court case, many SPSSI members testified as expert witnesses on the side of desegregation. They also prepared an appendix to a legal brief—the Social Science Statement—that summarized the social science evidence in favor of desegregation. Chief Justice Earl Warren referred to this body of evidence as influential in the Court's decision. Not only is Brown v Board considered one of the most important cases in the history of the Supreme Court, it marked one of the first times that the Court considered social science evidence in its deliberations. In 1956, in 1969, and again in 1976, as it first had in 1944, SPSSI published statements opposing the theory of innate racial differences in intelligence. The 1956 statement was signed by 18 prominent social scientists. Its 1969 statement was signed by the entire SPSSI council. It continued episodically through the years to insist that race is a socially constructed category with no significant biological basis, least of all in intelligence. Kenneth B. Clark, whose research with his wife Mamie Phipps Clark on the psychological impact of segregation was essential to the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown decision, served as president of SPSSI in 1959.
In 1966, under the presidency of Jerome Frank (who would become a founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility), SPSSI issued a statement condemning the use of torture by US ally South Vietnam. Frank argued that American indifference to their ally's use of torture was due to “our strong emotional resistance to full perception of facts that are profoundly contradictory to our conception of what American stands for.” He highlighted the “clear finding” that torture served no military purpose, and was in fact counter-productive. Unfortunately, over 40 years later SPSSI would have to revisit the torture issue. In 2007, during the US war in Iraq, SPSSI issued a statement condemning in unequivocal terms America's use of torture and the participation of American psychologists in America's torture program.
The Society continued its work supporting the rights of various groups of minorities with its publication of a special volume of the Journal of Social Issues devoted to women's perspectives in 1972. The volume focused not only on questioning female stereotypes and traditional roles, but also on developing feminist principles which it said “raised fundamental questions regarding present institutions like the family... peace, racism, population, and the environment.” In 1977 it established a Task Force on Sexual Orientation to review the latest social scientific research on homosexuality. The Task Force was a response to what it decried as “a well-financed, conservative backlash against gays and lesbians.”
SPSSI observed its 50th anniversary in 1986 with a celebration in Washington, DC attended by many SPSSI founders and notables and the publication of a two-volume special edition of the Journal of Social Issues devoted to SPSSI's history. The Society became a UN-NGO with observer status in 1987, appointing a representative to the UN whose responsibilities were to report on major international issues to SPSSI and expose UN staff to relevant social science, a mandate that continues to this day. SPSSI gained Consultative status at the UN in 1991, positioning it to author and submit reports directly to the UN's Economic and Social Council, to gain direct access to UN committees, and to have more informal contact with the UN delegates. These activities increase the possibility that the UN will incorporate social and psychological data into its agenda.
The tradition of presenting expert evidence on psychological research regarding stereotyping continued in 1989, when Susan Fiske and other SPSSI members testified in a gender discrimination case. That testimony that was influential at all levels of the case, from the trial and appeal courts to the Supreme Court review.
SPSSI continues to issue statements regarding the major social issues of the day. Recent statements have addressed such issues as the death penalty; global climate change; the psychological effects of unemployment; immigration reform; gay, lesbian bisexual and transgender issues; interpersonal violence; same sex adoption; marriage equality; psychological outcomes of children of same-sex parents; and racial profiling.
SPSSI Current Policy Initiatives
Bringing empirically sound research findings to bear on public policy is at the core of SPSSI's mission. This goal is furthered in many ways, including active engagement in the scientific study of human behavior in critical social situations, sharing the results of that research in scholarly settings, and providing relevant research findings to those engaged in developing public policy. SPSSI members are concerned with both U.S. and international issues, and SPSSI has been affiliated with the United Nations as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) since 1987. While SPSSI has focused primarily on U.S. policy in the past, its international membership is constantly growing and international issues have become a larger part of its work.
SPSSI writes policy briefs, sponsors advocacy days, and trains its members on connecting research to policy. In addition, SPSSI operates a Congressional Lunch Seminar series. The meetings equip staffers and lawmakers with the necessary psychological knowledge to provide scientific, empirically supported arguments on social issues. Each seminar has featured a prominent, nationally renowned psychological researcher with particular expertise on a topic of interest. The 2015 topics included Psychological Findings on Sexual Violence on Campus; The Psychology of Immigration in the United States; Engaging the Public in Climate Change Action: Help From the Social and Behavioral Sciences; and Biased Policing: Causes and Consequences. Other congressional briefings, produced by SPSSI's Policy Committee in conjunction with leading researchers, have focused on same-sex marriage, the psychological effects of unemployment, and media violence.