Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both conscious and unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feelings, and motives. Psychology is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Biological psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.
The American Psychological Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychologists in the United States, and the largest psychological association in the world. It has over 157,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It has 54 divisions, which function as interest groups for different subspecialties of psychology or topical areas. The APA has an annual budget of around $125 million.
Community psychology is concerned with the community as the unit of study. This contrasts with most psychology, which focuses on the individual. Community psychology also studies the community as a context for the individuals within it, and the relationships of the individual to communities and society. Community psychologists seek to understand the functioning of the community, including the quality of life of persons within groups, organizations and institutions, communities, and society. They aim to enhance the quality of life through collaborative research and action.
John M. Darley was an American social psychologist and professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University. Darley is best known, in collaboration with Bibb Latané, for developing theories that aim to explain why people might not intervene at the scene of an emergency when others are present; this phenomenon is known as the bystander effect and the accompanying diffusion of responsibility effect. This work stemmed from the tragic case of Kitty Genovese, a New Yorker who was murdered in March 1964 while 38 people either witnessed or heard her struggling with the assailant. Darley also studied the effect of assessment on performance and proposed Darley's Law, which states that “The more any quantitative performance measure is used to determine an individual’s rewards, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more it will distort the action and thought patterns of those it is intended to monitor.”
Lisa Feldman Barrett is a Canadian-American psychologist. She is a University Distinguished Professor of psychology at Northeastern University, where she focuses on affective science and co-directs the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory. She has received both of the highest scientific honors in the field of psychology, the William James Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science for 2025, and the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions from the American Psychological Association for 2021. Along with James Russell, she is the founding editor-in-chief of the journal Emotion Review. Along with James Gross, she founded the Society for Affective Science.
Mahzarin Rustum Banaji FBA is an American psychologist of Indian origin at Harvard University, known for her work popularizing the concept of implicit bias in regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, and other factors.
John Terrence Cacioppo was the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He founded the University of Chicago Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience and was the director of the Arete Initiative of the Office of the Vice President for Research and National Laboratories at the University of Chicago. He co-founded the field of social neuroscience and was member of the department of psychology, department of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience, and the college until his death in March 2018.
Bertram Gawronski is a social psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is known for his research in the areas of attitudes, social cognition, decision making, and moral psychology.
The Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP) is a scientific organization of social scientists founded in 1965 with the goal of advancing and communicating theories in social psychology. Its first chairperson was Edwin P. Hollander. To expand the knowledge of social psychology, Edwin P. Hollander and his colleague Edgar Vinacke wrote 35 other social psychologists in the interest of a research-oriented social and personal psychology society. This focus was to develop a smaller group of research-oriented scientists with similar interests within the field of social psychology. The society meets annually for discussions that vary in topic. These topics usually include its membership, content of the society, and research interests among its members. To become a member, one must be a social psychologist, show evidence of contribution to social psychology, receive a nomination, and complete an application. SESP publishes the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Teresa M. Amabile is an American academic who is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School.
The European Association of Social Psychology (EASP), formerly the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology (EAESP) is a scientific professional organization of social psychologists. EASP currently has over 1200 members worldwide and aims to promote excellence in European research in the field of social psychology. For this purpose, it organizes a variety of research activities and is responsible for a range of journals that report significant research contributions. Through these activities it encourages scientific communication among European social psychologists and connects European scholars to the community of social psychologists in the world at large.
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).
Michele J. Gelfand is an American cultural psychologist. She is both a professor of organizational behavior and the John H. Scully professor of cross-cultural management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and – by courtesy – a professor of psychology at the School of Humanities and Sciences of Stanford University. She has published research on tightness–looseness theory.
Kay Deaux is an American social psychologist known for her pioneering research on immigration and feminist identity. Deaux is Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Department of Psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). According to Brenda Major, Deaux's work centers on the question of how social categories affect one's psychological makeup, social behavior, and life outcomes, while emphasizing the subjectivity of people's identities and experiences and the larger social context.
The Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP) is Division 2 of the American Psychological Association. It is an academic society that promotes effective pedagogy while providing supports for teachers of psychology at all levels. Although it is one of the divisions of the American Psychological Association, it does not require its members to join the APA. The STP provides access to peer-reviewed teaching resources, such as course syllabi and e-books, free of charge to the general public through its website. Some sections of the website require STP membership to gain access.
Aurelio José Figueredo is an American evolutionary psychologist. He is a professor of psychology, Family Studies and Human Development at the University of Arizona, where he is also the director of the Ethology and Evolutionary Psychology Laboratory. He is also a member of the interdisciplinary Center for Insect Science at the University of Arizona. His major areas of research interest are the evolutionary psychology and behavioral development of life history strategy, cognition, sex, and violence in human and nonhuman animals, and the quantitative ethology and social development of insects, birds, and primates. He is known for his research on personality, such as a 1997 study in which he and James E. King developed the Chimpanzee Personality Questionnaire to measure the Big Five personality traits in chimpanzees.
Batja Mesquita is a Dutch social psychologist, a cultural psychologist and an affective scientist. She is a professor of psychology at the University of Leuven, Belgium, where she studies the role of culture in emotions, and of emotions in culture and society. She is director of the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology in Leuven.
Monica R. Biernat is a social psychologist known for her research on social judgment, stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. She is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Kansas.
Heejung Kim is a South Korean psychologist and a professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on how culture influences humans' thought process. She is co-editor of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review.
Nickola Christine Overall is a New Zealand academic, and is a professor of psychology at the University of Auckland, specialising in relationship, family and couples psychology. She is especially interested in communication strategies to overcome conflict.
