Journal of Social Issues

doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1986.tb00200.xpmid: N/A

Harris, Benjamin

doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1986.tb00201.xpmid: N/A

In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI), selected histories of psychology are reviewed for information on SPSSI and the social context of its early development. Differences in method and perspective in the historical literature are noted. Contradictions in SPSSI's political, professional, and scientific character are attributed to its purpose of supplying scientific expertise in the service of social reform.

Finison, Lorenz J.

doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1986.tb00202.xpmid: N/A

The materials for this paper come from extensive archival research and oral histories conducted from 1973 to 1985. The materials are used to show how and why the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) and related organizations developed as they did. I argue that these organizations developed in four principal contexts: first, the employment crises of social scientists during the thirties; second, the central contradiction between social scientists' self‐perception as “value free” and their perceived responsibility to respond to the economic and cultural crises of the period; third, the relative positions of various leftist political groups of the time, their sectarian strife, and the influence of the Popular Front; and fourth, connections to power elites during World War II.

Stagner, Ross

doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1986.tb00203.xpmid: N/A

Widespread unemployment in the United States and the rise of fascism in Europe provided a stimulus for young social psychologists to form a support group within which ideas could be exchanged, and which would also try to protect academic freedom and opportunities to do research on social movements and institutions. The experiences of the SPSSI Committee on Peace and War are used to document the thesis that social psychologists bring their attitudes and value systems into such studies.

Sargent, S. Stansfeld; Harris, Benjamin

doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1986.tb00204.xpmid: N/A

An implicit goal of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) at its founding was the protection of members who investigated controversial social issues. This essay reviews SPSSI's work in defense of academic and intellectual freedom from 1936 to 1970, using committee records, private correspondence, and published documents. Cases reviewed are those of Ellis Freeman, David Krech, George Hartmann, Goodwin Watson, Gardner Murphy, Ralph Gundlach, Bernard Riess, Harry Steinmetz, and Lawrence Northwood. Also reviewed is SPSSI's involvement in the University of California loyalty oath dispute and in Health, Education and Welfare's (HEW) blacklisting of scientific consultants. While its efforts cannot be said to have achieved notably successful outcomes, the Society's moral and financial support was helpful to those under attack. Overall, SPSSI's efforts were an important positive contribution with implications for the present and future.

Cook, Stuart W.

doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1986.tb00205.xpmid: N/A

In their paper, “Academic Freedom, Civil Liberties, and SPSSI,” S. Stansfeld Sargent and Benjamin Harris (1986) give an account of the threat to individual liberties that characterized SPSSI's early years. Based to some extent on my personal experience during the post‐World War II peak of this threat (i.e., the era of Senator Joseph McCarthy), I add a brief supplement to Sargent's and Harris's account. I provide a description of initial attempts by SPSSI members to discover the social psychological principles that help to understand the erosion of individual rights and freedoms that took place in those years.

Capshew, James H.

doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1986.tb00206.xpmid: N/A

This article presents a two‐part quantitative analysis of the presidents of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) during its first half century. A collective biography of the successive incumbents of SPSSI's highest office reveals centers of education and employment, and distinct demographic trends. A content analysis of available presidential addresses suggests enduring themes in the rhetoric of SPSSI leaders. The influence of significant individuals and events in fostering networks among members of the presidential cohort is explored, along with the role of SPSSI leaders in the development of social psychology. Biographical and other data are presented in tabular as well as summary form.

Hilgard, Ernest R.

doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1986.tb00207.xpmid: N/A

The prosopography by James Capshew (1986) I find very interesting, well conceived and carried out, and genuinely thought provoking. My comments are more like free associations than a formal essay, but they represent my reflections on the past presidents of SPSSI.

Morawski, J. G.

doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1986.tb00208.xpmid: N/A

The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) has been a prominent conduit for American psychologists' involvement in political and social affairs. For years SPSSI has stood as the center of political activism in American psychology. An examination of SPSSI and several other professional organizations founded during the period between the two world wars indicates that, despite its activism, SPSSI shared with the others a set of conventional assumptions about the irrationality of human nature, an unstable social order, and the preference for scientific judgment. Early SPSSI documents also contain more radical aspirations: critical self‐reflection about the scientific enterprise, candid culture criticism, and political activism. However, these did not remain dominant in the organization. While being an occasion for celebration, the 50th anniversary of SPSSI also offers occasion to reevaluate these mixed commitments.

Miller, Doris K.

doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1986.tb00209.xpmid: N/A

My own perspective on the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) differs from Morawski's (1986). Whereas other professional organizations may have shared SPSSI's assumptions about the importance of “science” in the solution of societal problems, they operated far more in the mainstream of the professionally acceptable and the commercially remunerative. I think that the members of most other contemporary organizations incurred little professional risk and also contributed little to broadening the horizons of the psychological establishment.