Abstract
The discipline of psychology, with its roots in scientific racism, has been complicit with the enactment of racist policies that have significantly harmed the psychological well-being of many minoritized people in colonial societies. The American Psychological Association (APA) has acknowledged and apologized for this racist history and has committed to an antiracist path for the future to right the wrongs. As a part of Dangerous Opportunity special issue, we examine the antecedents to racism in psychology, the racist behaviors of psychology and the APA during its existence, and the harmful consequences contributed by racist policies supported or endorsed by psychologists. Additionally, we provide a listing of required changes we view as necessary for the discipline of psychology and the APA (as its primary professional organization) to enact to prepare the discipline and the Association for antiracist activities and to capably and responsibly support and advance antiracist policies outside of psychology in the public interests. Transformation of the discipline and its associations, institutions, and programs is necessary for psychology to remain locally and globally relevant in a culturally diverse and interdependent. Antiracist activities are essential for this transformation to occur.
“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.” (Mead, 1935, p. 218).”
The policies of the APA have powerful and far-reaching tentacles that don’t just merely support members but also negatively impact members and populations who were not represented among the original founders. The nature of the guild and its policies are protective but unfortunately also hinder the success of students and early career psychologists from different cultural and ethnic groups. This has become a serious problem for the membership of the APA and the people we serve because there are fewer psychologists of color to provide education, research, and psychotherapy for communities of color and their kin (APA, 2017a). The negative outcomes have been documented by numerous authors and call for the review, rewriting, and rebirth of a new set of equitable policies for APA rather than allowing the old policies to sit in the silt of a depleted riverbed (Aiello, et al., 2021; Garcia & Tehee, 2014). In this paper, we will discuss the history surrounding the policy making of APA, how colonialism continues to impact policy and psychologists of color, and finally exact a call to action to transform equitable policies for all human beings.
Mead’s (1935) eloquent quote that begins this paper with its deep meanings draws attention to the many and varied differences one finds in global cultural units across the world and the trove of gifts those differences provide by promoting and fostering the importance of multicultural competence, sensitivity, and of including the strengths of other cultural ways of being. She created a map to guide us in understanding and celebrating the nuance of cultures. Unfortunately, not all have utilized her map for the acceptance and interlacing of cultures to potentially complete a beautiful tapestry of humanity.
This became glaringly apparent in the early 1970s when the term “colonialism” emerged as a description of culturally insensitive psychological constructs, practices, and policies (DeCastro, 2014). As a root term colonialism now has many iterations: neocolonialism, postcolonialism, decolonialism, hegemonic colonialism, and psychological colonialism, among other variations (DeCastro, 2014). These varying colonization constructs refer to a practice or policy of control by one philosophical perspective over other people, often by establishing theoretical approaches and generally with the aim of dominance. In the process of colonization, colonizers often impose their practices, theories, language, and other culturally ethnocentric practices upon the colonized, canceling cultures, dehumanizing peoples, and depriving them of their histories (Boucher, 2019).
“Decolonization” typically refers to rebelling against and dismantling the historical burden of colonialism and colonial mentalities that dominate institutional and organizational thought, practices, and policies. Many community psychologists point out that decolonization is a process of examining and undoing unearned privilege that results from oppressive historical and present-day processes. Psychological colonialism emphasizes that the individual “is the central unit of analysis in ways that overlook people’s social, economic and political contexts” (Kessi, 2019).
Since the 1980s, more politicized forms of psychology have emerged exposing colonial exercises of power and driving efforts to challenge and resist that power (e.g., Simon & Klandermans, 2001). Shose Kessi (2017) reminds us that these include feminist psychologies, postcolonial psychology, and liberation psychology. These strands of the discipline have a more social and critical focus. They investigate relations of power between groups in society. They treat people’s identities as diverse, fluid, and intersecting. People are viewed as “historically historical beings whose minds have been constructed by and through their social, economic, and political environment” (p. 3).
Considerable empirical and anecdotal evidence suggests psychologists in the mainstream have been historically insensitive to the lifeways and thought ways of people from different cultural and ethnic groups (Duran & Duran, 1995). Modern critiques of imperialism, cultural encapsulation, ethnocentrism, parochialism, and scientific racism have been hurled at the field of psychology over the past three decades, including in intelligence and personality testing, counseling and psychotherapy, mental health interpretations and analyses, behavioral analyses of teaching and student effectiveness, as well as racist criminal systems. Although the field of psychology has expanded its acceptance of various research methods and procedures, the full acceptance of culture and ethnicity into the fabric of psychological inquiry has not occurred. This hegemonic science of psychology has contributed to deficits in how the field has addressed public policies impacting people of color historically.
In 2021, the APA acknowledged and apologized for its racist past (APA, 2021a) in the first of a triad of association resolutions. The other two resolutions indicated APA’s desire to transform the association and the discipline of psychology toward an antiracist position (APA, 2021b, 2021c). Despite this commitment to change, concerns have been expressed that such a transformation will not be possible without decolonization of the discipline and its institutions (Aiello et al., 2021; Association of Black Psychologists, 2021; Blume, 2022).
Racist attitudes, behaviors, and their consequences have been infused into the association and the discipline of psychology since its inception (CHP, 2021), although the profession itself was not openly discussing that possibility until the 1970s (Senn & Sawyer, 1971). The discipline and its institutions were implicitly biased by the colonial beliefs and values from which they emerged. To understand the culture of psychology it is important to understand the cultural history from which it was immersed. Just like a cucumber pickled by its immersion in vinegar, psychology and its institutions have absorbed the racist vinegar of colonial cultures in ways that have negatively impacted its ability to defend the psychological interest of the public effectively and advocate for equity in public policy for the psychological well-being of all.
The antecedents of implicit racism began with Eurocentric justifications for colonialism. In 1452, 40 years before the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, Pope Nicholas V issued the Dum Diversas Edict (June 8, 1452) encouraging and divinely sanctioning conquest, enslavement, exploitation, and extermination of groups deemed inferior to the elite of Europe by first codifying a hierarchical belief system that served to justify white religious supremacy as reason enough for colonization. Forty-one years later, Pope Alexander VI reconfirmed those beliefs with the Doctrine of Discovery (1493), divinely sanctioning colonial conquests, encouraging the seizing of lands and other resources, and justifying enslavement and the obliteration of those who were Indigenous to the lands being conquered. These edicts were infused with beliefs in the supremacy of the colonizers from Europe who saw it as their holy duty to overthrow, annihilate, exploit, and subjugate those considered to be inferior (groups other than white European Christians).
Three hundred years later, the Doctrine of Discovery was cited as precedent by the US Supreme Court to support the rights of colonization and seizure of resources from the first peoples of America (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014; Echo-Hawk, 2013), an idea that had morphed into the Manifest Destiny Policy by the 19th Century. These beliefs laid the foundation for systemic racism favoring white supremacy and exceptionalism. Colonial hierarchical beliefs permitted and sanctioned mistreatment, dehumanization, and social inequity that contributed to extensive, intergenerational psychological harm (Duran & Duran, 1995). The beliefs of hierarchy and supremacy created a culture in which social inequities were justified as natural and inevitable, and little concern was expressed about violations of human rights or worsening inequities within the social order over time (Blume, 2020; 2022; Blume et al., 2020; Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014; US Constitution, Article 1, Section 2). As an interesting sidenote, 530 years later, Pope Francis rescinded the Doctrine of Discovery (Winfield, March 30, 2023), suggesting diminished support for the orthodoxy of social hierarchy.
Colonial hierarchy and white supremacy enabled enslavement of others. White supremacy was so firmly rooted in American culture that it was believed that resistance to enslavement was indicative of mental illness (Cartwright, 1858). This example highlights how American’s hierarchical belief system influenced psychology as a discipline and the birth and development of the APA. Understanding the cultural history from which psychology emerged is important when considering an antiracist transformation of psychology and its institutions.
American psychology emerged during a time when the assumptions of the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny were deeply infused into the cultural psyche of the American mainstream, and psychology was birthed within a culture that continued to embrace enforced separation of the races through hypodescent biases and Jim Crow legislation (Hollinger, 2005; Smedley & Smedley, 2005; US National Archives, 2022). The founding of the APA in 1892 occurred only 27 years after the end of the American Civil War, 15 years after federal troops were withdrawn from the former Confederate States, 13 years after the first residential boarding schools opened to intern Indigenous children, and 2 years after the massacre at Wounded Knee. The founding of American psychology occurred early in an era of significant xenophobia toward immigrant populations in the US (Young, 2017), racialized violence and massacres of people of color (Carrigan & Webb, 2003; Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014; Mason, 2021; Seguin & Rigby, 2019), and amidst the roots of eugenics (Burke & Castaneda, 2007; CHP, 2021; Yakushko. 2019). The association’s all white founders (CHP, 2021) could not help but be influenced by the implicit and explicit biases of their zeitgeist. Eventually, many early APA presidents would be associated in some way with eugenics organizations as evidence of the implicit and explicit racial biases at work within the Association (Yakushko, 2019). For example, although G. Stanley Hall sympathized with colonized people’s plight in his classic book Adolescence (1904), he also argued for genetic psychology that was heavily influenced by eugenics at the time as an important underpinning for the understanding of adolescent development.
Psychology and its institutions have consistently reflected the hierarchical biases of the racialized culture from which it emerged. The following section will review how racism heavily influences the behavior of the APA from its formative period to the modern era, and how those behaviors impacted US public policy in important areas impacting psychological well-being.
Colonialism and Decolonialism: A Discourse on Cultural, Ethnic, and Racial Policies in Psychology
The APA was founded in 1892 (APA, 2023a). Its first president, G. Stanley Hall, and the 26 inaugural members were white males. In the proceedings of the initial meeting of interest at Clark University, an organizing committee of seven was selected to develop an organizational framework of the APA (Cattell, 1894). Dr. Hall also presided over the First Annual Meeting of APA in Philadelphia, on December 27 and 28, 1892. There the members described the general framework for the emerging organization. The framework presented a format with an executive committee and a governing council, which was accepted. At the Second Annual Meeting, presided over by G.T. Ladd in New York on December 27 and 28, 1893, a committee consisting of the executive committee and council was charged with writing a constitution (Cattell, 1894). At the third annual meeting presided over by William James, the constitution was presented and accepted. The completed constitution was published in 1895 (Cattell, 1895). Much of the spirit of the original framework and subsequent constitution continue to exist within the Association in some form today. In his Presidential address, Dr. Ladd discussed the association and notes: “...it is, of course, well known that many workmen in other lines of scientific endeavor, and even some of the most notable and helpful among ourselves, still deny that psychology is entitled to be called a ' science.' On the other hand, it is not unbecoming pride which leads us to maintain that no similar organization is more hopeful, more disposed to be creditably aggressive, than are we. For few, if any, of the most firmly established and highly accredited scientific associations can rely upon a more devoted and well-trained membership, or upon more interest—both popular and permanent—in the results of their researches and speculations, than can those formed for the cultivation, in the use of modern methods, of the science of psychology,“ (p.1).
His statement reflected a vision of APA as a guild organization meant to protect the emerging self-interests of its insular group of scientists. A guild organization is defined as an association: “…of craftsmen and merchants formed to promote the economic interests of their members as well as to provide protection and mutual aid” (Bosshardt & Lopus, 2013) and “…for the furtherance of their professional interests” (Encyclopedia Britannica, February 3, 2023)
The first recorded APA constitution in 1894 was more directed to the craft rather than the craft participants. It stated, “the object of the Association is the advancement of Psychology as a science” (Cattell, 1895). Thus, the founders directed very little of their scientific or pedagogic efforts to informing and protecting the public regarding psychology.
Many may argue that little has changed in APA although the current mission statement has added a major addendum to the 1917 version. APA’s 2022 mission is “to promote the advancement, communication, and application of psychological science and knowledge to benefit society and improve lives” (APA, 2023b). However, even with this change of heart, many of the examples that follow do not reflect interest in public welfare broadly or any consideration of different cultural belief systems.
The question of why any psychologist or student of psychology should be interested in and concerned about achieving cultural competence and cultural sensitivity is key. For 100+ years psychology all but ignored the surface and deep meanings and implications of culture, ethnicity, and race. The mission statement of the APA provides a partial explanation. Simply stated, the APA maintains the objective of the Association shall be to advance psychology as a science and profession and as a means of promoting health and human welfare. Until approximately 1970, the mission appeared to be restricted to a limited population. The Association of Black Psychologists attempted to bring awareness of these exclusionary practices to the attention of the APA during their 1968 (Williams, 2008) and 1969 conventions (Nelson, 1969) to no avail. References to African Americans, Asian Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives, Hispanics/Latine, Pacific Islanders, and Puerto Ricans were almost absent from the psychological literature; in fact, the words culture and ethnic were rarely used in psychological textbooks of the time (see Trimble, 1990, 1995, 2013).
This long absence of culture in psychological inquiry did not go unnoticed. In the 1960s ethnic minority and international psychologists began questioning what APA meant by “human” and to whom the vast body of psychological knowledge applied. America’s ethnic minority psychologists and those from other countries, as well as a small handful of North American psychologists argued that American psychology was not globally inclusive, that findings were biased—limited to studies involving college and university students and laboratory animals—and therefore not generalizable to all humans. Arnett (2008) noted that most published research that was conducted worked with white, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) who were not psychologically representative of the world’s population. A later study suggests that the WEIRD population represented a mere 11% of the world’s people (Thalmayer et al., 2021). An important question becomes how can public policy be well served when considering the limits of the external validity of this limited body of psychological evidence informing education, practice, and science? Will psychologists be able to conduct culturally resonant research into the lifeways and thought ways of culturally unique populations globally? Will changing demographics move the field toward full consideration of diversity in ways that are inclusive and truly reflect current population projections (Hall, 1997)?
Culture complexities influence affect, behavior, and cognition implicitly and explicitly. All cultures and ethnic groups identify unique and distinctive values, attitudes, beliefs, languages, and corresponding behaviors that are psychologically important. Given the depth of the influences of cultures on these important psychological constructs, psychologists cannot behave in a professional manner and ignore culture’s contributions to the human condition and the extraordinary cultural variability that exists globally.
Psychology has been historically selective in the study and characterization of populations, significantly overgeneralizing its theories and practices. Early findings from psychological researchers occurred in a cultural vacuum generally limited to North America. Critics point out that the findings could only be generalized to whites or Euro-Americans, as they were the major source of researchers’ data. Robert Guthrie’s (1976) book, Even the Rat Was White reveals a good part of the reason early psychology was scientifically racist. Similarly, beginning in the late 1960s, counseling and clinical psychologists were accused of being culturally encapsulated because their theories and approaches were limited to certain ethnocultural groups—ones that valued talking about their problems with professionals based on the hope their problems could be solved or cured by talking. At that time and continuing to the present, many international ethnic minority and cross-cultural psychologists argued that culture and ethnicity should be central to psychology rather than an outlier or object for exotic study.
During the emerging interest in culture in the 1960s, many psychologists were not at all interested in cultural explanations or explorations of varying human affect, behavior, and cognition. In fact, most psychologists then firmly believed “all humans are alike,” thus the need to identify and study cultural correlates wasn’t necessary to understand the sum of the conscious and unconscious events that make up an individual’s life. In word and deed and from its beginnings psychology ignored the robustness and salience of culture and ethnicity. Some hold firmly to these beliefs today, arguing that the study of culture clearly belongs within the field of social anthropology. Some critics add that deep cultural influences are not likely to influence outcomes. Such attitudes and beliefs are ethnocentric and without merit. Even a cursive review of the scientific literature in cultural, cross-cultural, and ethnic minority psychology indicates culture and ethnic lifeways and thought ways contribute immensely to the social and psychological character of human beings.
Thus, prior to anyone applying conventional psychological principles and theories to an ethnic or cultural group, they first must understand that group’s unique lifeways and thought ways. Gustav Jahoda (1979) agreed with this point and added, “It is by no means self-evident that a concept embodied in a theory that has its origins within a particular culture can necessarily be operationalized into a conceptual equivalent in a different culture” (p. 143). On the absence of cultural explanations in social psychology, Jahoda (1984) accused “mainstream social psychology of being guilty of suggestio falsi (as the field’s) textbooks and articles commonly imply universality without seeking to provide any grounds for their implicit claims” (p. 93).The notion of universality has permitted psychologists to impose their personal or culturally bound view of white normativity on others. This view then incorrectly identifies these things based on their own culturally bound world view and the lens through which their gaze distorts other behaviors, thoughts, or beliefs. For example, in a tribal health office, a visiting health care provider may note that a person is shuffling along and seemingly talking to themselves and wonders aloud if the person has a psychosis. An Elder sitting nearby responds, “That happens sometimes when a person gets older. He’ll be alright.”
Culture matters, but it did not seem to matter enough in the history of the development of psychology. In truth, culture matters so pervasively in the enculturation process that it begs for attention and recognition. It is this necessary attention that the field of racial and ethnic minority psychology is now giving to the cultural construct. Culture does matter, so much so that psychologists who fail to spend considerable time in culturally understanding learning the cultural lifeways and thought ways of others cannot understand how those deep elements might contribute to the social and psychological needs of others, making it impossible to advance appropriate policies in the public interests of all. Once that is understood, the investigator may be able to apply conventional and traditional psychological principles to their understanding. We say “may” because the collection of the information will undoubtedly influence the nature of the research and data collection procedures and measures, which introduces a whole new set of methodological considerations to better inform policies impacting psychological well-being of the public.
The long absence of culture in the web of psychological inquiry has not gone unnoticed.
In the 1970s and 1980s, ethnic psychological associations and divisions within APA (e.g., Division 45—The Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues) began to emerge. Bertha Garrett Holiday and Angela L. Homes (2005) maintained: “The content, timing, and significance of many events in the history of ethnic minority psychology are in response to a major nemesis: psychology’s involvement in scientific racism and resulting implications for the development of ethnic minority communities and peoples. Scientific racism is derived from 19th-century theories of evolution, genetics, and heredity. These theories support the cardinal assumption that differences, such as intelligence or creativity, among the world’s peoples reflect differences in evolutionary development and that these differences can be viewed hierarchically and valued differentially,” (pp. 15–16).
There are several definitions of ethnic psychology, but most agree the field is “the study of similarities and differences in individual psychological functioning in various cultural and ethnic groups, of the relationships between psychological variables and sociocultural, ecological, and biological variables, and of current changes in these variables” (Berry et al., 1992, p. 2). Despite a growing and compelling body of work that argues against a universal approach to the study of human behavior, too many graduate programs, scholars, and researchers carry out their affairs as though a universal approach is appropriate.
We must work to liberate psychology from the oppressive yokes of the past and move the field to become more inclusive of cultural lifeways and thought ways. Lillian Comas-Dias (2020) reminds us: “A central goal in liberation psychotherapy is the promotion of social justice action through the integration of Indigenous cultural healing and emancipatory approaches into mainstream psychotherapy. This orientation promotes an understanding of historical, socioeconomic, and political contexts as factors affecting psycho-logical experience. Liberation psychotherapists help clients become protagonists, instead of spectators, in their lives by addressing the intersection of clients’ personal, public, and contextual realities. Liberation psychotherapists believe that when they work with an individual, they are potentially helping groups of people” (p. 169).
The challenge for psychology is to recognize we cannot fully understand the human condition without viewing it from a cross-cultural, culturally specific, and ethnic perspective. What was learned about the human condition in the past can be reframed and tested with a new set of approaches and procedures in contexts not considered previously. Specific thought ways and lifeways of ethnocultural groups have extraordinary value for psychology and greatly assist to improve our understanding of all humans and the settings in which we live.
The Historical Chronology: A Window into Racist Behavior Patterns in Psychology
Racism has broadly impacted psychology as a discipline and the APA as an institution of that discipline. The APA since its inception has continued this tradition with perpetuated racist behaviors in several key areas of broad impact on US public policy. An evaluation of the Historical Chronology was created by the University of Akron Cummings Center on the History of Psychology (CHP, 2021) with assistance from a consultant team of psychologists. The chronology has suggested four repeated patterns of scientific racism by the APA through much of its history have impacted public policies, educational policies, ethical policies, and other social policies within psychology and in communities.
Scientific racism emerged from colonial hierarchical assumptions that emphasized white supremacy under the assumption of the inferiority of other races and ethnicities. In a bit of circular logic, the assumption of white supremacy was used as the foundation for a science that would be used to provide evidence for that supremacy, thus providing fallacious support for the existence of the hierarchies from which the discipline had emerged. As a new discipline, psychology took great pains to differentiate itself as a discipline from other social and life sciences, and in so doing, may have fully embraced scientific racism to appear to be a credible science in a racist society to justify its early existence and separation from other disciplines. In his seminal Presidential address, G. T. Ladd, the third president of APA, noted “the race” rather than simply “race” or “races” numerous times, which laid the groundwork for a clear understanding of a single normative race (Ladd, 1894). This understanding enabled the process of determining the “otherness” of those who are not of “the race.” Scientific racism has also been used consistently to advance mainstream cultural norms of white normativity in public policies informed by psychological science. The normativity advanced through scientific racism contributed to a colonial psychology that advanced beliefs in culture-free psychology meant to diminish the importance of diversity and culture to psychological well-being. In its scientific racism, the APA and psychology as an emerging discipline perpetuated the hierarchical understandings in American society that only one superior homogenous belief system (white normativity) should inform the development of the new emerging discipline, and then exported that belief system in its scientific endeavors as evidence for the continuation or extension of racist policies in the US (CHP, 2021).
In his APA Presidential address Ladd also defended psychology as a legitimate science, arguing that the most noted and established sciences could not exhibit “a more devoted and well-trained membership, or upon more interest—both popular and permanent—in the results of their researches and speculations, than can those formed for the cultivation, in the use of modern methods, of the science of psychology” (1894, p.1). Later he discussed education as one of the areas that would assist in the goal of the recognition of psychology as a science. He also argued that “...there can be no science of that which is individual merely. But in psychology more, by far, than in the physical sciences, the observation and skilled interpretation of the facts of individual experience are likely to lead directly to what is true and valuable for the entire species” (p.7). This is similar to what Hall, the first president of APA, described in his discussion of genetic psychology as the precursor to eugenics (Hall, 1904). Clearly, psychological science was used to justify racist policies and make them seem rational and palatable.
Psychology was heavily influenced by eugenics in its development with 31 presidents of the APA publicly identified as leaders of American eugenic societies before 1950 (CHP, 2021; McDougall, 1914; Turiel, 2020; Yakushko, 2019). Many psychologists were responsible for disseminating fallacious evidence in support of eugenics throughout their careers, even into the modern era, and sometimes were honored for their efforts. In addition, key psychologists were responsible for advancing scientific racism in defense of what was essentially a continuation of hypodescent beliefs used to support segregation in the provision of healthcare, in schools, and in support of miscegenation laws segregating marriages and partnerships (CHP, 2021; Smedley & Smedley, 2005). The APA did not speak against the segregation of whole groups of people for much of its history (CHP, 2021), ignoring the segregation of Indigenous peoples on isolated reservations and residential schools away from the “civilized” sectors of American society, of Black, Latine, and Indigenous Americans abused under Jim Crow laws, and of Japanese Americans during World War II who were “relocated” to internment camps—three of which were located on segregated Indigenous reservation land (Estes, n. d).
Scientific racism was also used to perpetuate white normativity concerning physical and mental health. Scientific racism defined intelligence as a construct, which perpetuated racist stereotypes suggesting the inferiority of intellectual, physical, and mental health of people of color by comparison (CHP, 2021). Psychologists contributed to the problems of physical health and mental health inequity seen today through acts of scientific racism suggesting that racialized hierarchies of society were natural and, in many respects, preordained, promoting intergenerational abuse, neglect, and disinterest that generated intergenerational harm. The scientific racism of psychology had direct impacts on policies associated with sterilization by contributing to discussions about racialized euthanasia in service of eugenics (CHP, 2021). Psychological tests were developed as tools of white normativity that served to advance both white supremacy and exceptionalism. As a result, testing was used to support policies that harmed people of color for many years (CHP, 2021).
Scientific racism in psychology has contributed to publication biases over the years, with many groups neglected and stereotyped in the research literature (CHP, 2021). Furthermore, scientific racism left as its legacy a largely homogenous field that continues to advance a perspective of mainstream normativity in its acceptance and publication of research being reviewed mostly by mainstream reviewers. Most editorial boards of APA journals continue to be mostly white (APA, 2021c; CHP, 2021). The connectivity of psychological science remains largely anchored by white normative research from a history biased by scientific racism, and the convergence of evidence reflects white normativity in the field (Blume, 2020).
The second key area of impact is the use of psychology used to advance educational racism in US public policies. Numerous examples are documented in the Historical Chronology of how psychology and its psychologists for decades supported US policies to use education as a tool to assimilate and segregate students of color, choosing to overlook any harm associated with Residential and Day Schools and with separate but unequal segregation policies that existed well into the modern era (CHP, 2021). Often these educational policies were described as “civilizing,” hardly veiling their intentions toward assimilation and biases favoring white normativity. Psychologists and their racialized understanding of intelligence as hierarchical was used to track innumerable students of color into special education due to assumptions of white normativity in testing and the intellectual inferiority of people of color. Those stereotypes persisted, resulting in many psychologists opposing compensatory educational strategies such as the Head Start program, likely due to fallacious assumptions that inherent intellectual inferiority could not be overcome.
Furthermore, the inherent cultural testing biases, including the assumptions of white normativity, resulted in invalid and misinterpreted testing results for non-white students that were first elevated to awareness by the development of the Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity that was first presented to the APA at their convention in Honolulu (Williams, September, 1972). Testing biases had the effect of reinforcing existing stereotypes and supporting racialized hierarchical beliefs concerning low education potential for students of color. Many educational deficits created by racism resulted in unequitable educational resources available to students of color. The acts of educational racism that psychologists supported helped to perpetuate pre-existing inequities in education, including with resources, while proving to be barriers for changes to advance equity in educational resources in the modern era. Unfortunately, because of that history, many educational institutions serving students of color remained under-resourced to adequately provide quality education, especially during a national emergency such as COVID-19 (Blume, 2022).
Ethics are third key area of impact with the discipline and the Association reinforcing and advancing racialized professional conduct and ethics racism in psychology. What is notable in the Historical Chronology is the absence of sanctions of members for acts of racism by the APA (CHP, 2021). In fact, there was at least one high profile event in the modern era in which the Association was on the verge of awarding a high honor to a psychologist who had consistently advocated for scientific racism and its policies until public outrage won out (CHP, 2021). Many APA past presidents escaped scrutiny for their racist professional activities until the formal apology process for racism ensued (APA, 2021a).
Lastly, the Historical Chronology (CHP, 2021) documents several examples of how racist acts by psychologists and the Association either advanced or neglected to address other important social policy issues until more recent times. Utilizing and advancing white normativity through scientific biases and racism have been associated with serious national consequences, including the perpetuation of health and mental health disparities through inadequate research and assessment methods, as well as a history of inadequate care as a result of racially methods (APA, 2021a, 2021c; CHP, 2021; Smedley & Smedley, 2005). Racialized norms also set the stage for perpetuating significantly lowered expectations for what should be normative outcomes for people of color if economic and health equity were to be advanced and ideal access to appropriate education granted. The field was exceedingly slow to respond to address systemic racism and societal hierarchies—too slow—likely delaying disciplinary responses to address the psychological consequences of intergenerational inequities (including poverty) as a result.
Two other social policy issues emerged from a review of the Historical Chronology (CHP, 2021) that illustrate how the activities of psychology may have perpetuated psychological harm on people of color into the present. The first has to do with policies concerning immigration and refugees into the US. Although psychology has advocated in support of the psychological well-being of immigrants and refugees in the modern era (e.g., The APA Presidential Task Force on Immigration, 2012), the collective and long-term impact of the Association’s racist history has likely perpetuated or slowed a transformation away from xenophobic attitudes in the US. The second policy implication has been associated with the likely loss of the psychological strengths of cultures of color in the US through supporting or overlooking assimilation efforts over time. Pursuits of “culture-free” psychology thwarted serious efforts to understand and appreciate the psychological strengths of alternative cultural worldviews and the unique contributions to psychology in their beliefs, values, and practices. Acts of assimilation meant to destroy cultures and their psychological strengths, such as the tribal termination policies (and land grabs), acts of involuntary sterilization, and hegemonic elimination of languages (e.g., Asian, Indigenous, and Latine) were ignored by psychology and the APA.
The neglect of acting in the broad public interest has contributed to the APA’s long history of invisibility of people of color when it comes to defending the psychological well-being of the nation it was meant to serve. Well into the civil rights era, the APA was still debating whether it should speak to inequitable and racialized public policies and did not make a visible commitment to doing so until the formation of the Board of Ethical and Social Responsibility in the early 1970s (Pickren & Tomes, 2002). The neglect in responding to historical circumstances of racism has been extended to many historical events, some recent and others more distal, some already mentioned but others not yet discussed. These include (but not meant to be an exhaustive list) the failure to challenge artificial hierarchies in society, the failure to address racism and its consequences in society including overwhelming inequities and disparities, the failure to engage in understanding and advancing psychological wellness among minoritized peoples, the failure to welcome diverse groups and their voices into psychology as an emerging discipline, the failure to speak out against racialized violence and massacres, the failure to condemn the racialized injustices of the criminal justice system more quickly, the failure to speak against racist hate and antisemitism earlier in the Association’s history, and the failure to make invisible people visible even today. Due to historical inactivity and passivity, issues relevant to advancing psychology in the public interest for minoritized groups have lagged as an APA priority until more recent times.
The Consequences of Intergenerational Racism in Psychology
The policies of the APA have contributed to harmful consequences to others due to the innate racial biases of its founders and leaders. It is impossible for an organization, founded on racist principles, not to have racist policies with far reaching consequences that ultimately support the old guard and the status quo of psychology.
Psychology as a discipline and the APA as its largest professional association could have been logical advocates for public policies to advance psychological wellness of all citizens. However, as discussed in the last section, for many years psychologists acted, sometimes with intent, in racially exclusionary ways that prevented advancing psychological wellness for many, including people of color. Consequently, the APA and psychology share some responsibility in the persistence of societal inequities we face today that have prevented advances in wellness due to racialized beliefs and behaviors (CHP, 2021). Instead, psychologists had a hand in creating scientific misperceptions that have been used to perpetuate racialized policies, and those policies have had collective and cumulative consequences over time. Today, the history of inferiority stereotypes, low expectations, and separate and unequal educational systems supported by scientific racism in psychology have contributed to significant education disparities for minoritized groups, including those studying the discipline of psychology. Although almost every racial-ethnic group experienced increases in graduates with doctoral degrees in psychology between 2008 and 2017, significant disparities remain, such as notable decreases in degrees awarded to American Indians and Alaska Natives over the same period (APA, 2019; Lin et al., 2022).
Neglect, invisibility, indifference, low expectations, and inequitable treatment supported by the biased and fallacious evidence provided by racist psychologists have been instrumental in contributing to vast and sometimes intergenerational physical and mental health disparities that exist today (APA, 2021a, 2021c). Research concerning the health and mental health needs of minoritized people continue to be neglected or are less of a priority to be investigated or disseminated (Adams & Miller, 2022; Buchanan et al., 2021; Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Psychology and Health Equity, 2023). The consequences of education, health, and mental health inequities have also been instrumental to contributing to the extensive disparities of people of color who are incarcerated in the US (Healthy People, 2023, 2030). Perceptions of racial inferiority supported by scientific racism from psychologists also likely contributed to longstanding efforts to challenge voting rights through the suggestion that voters of color are not capable of making well-reasoned decisions.
Another consequence of the racist history of psychology has been workforce disparities in the field (APA, 2020a; Lin et al., 2022). Exclusionary practices over time have created a psychological workforce that does not appropriately represent the demographic diversity of the citizens that psychologists serve. Although diversity in the U.S. psychology workforce has shown signs of improving (Lin et al., 2018), the APA has not been as racially and ethnically diverse in its membership as would be suggested by those demographic changes (APA, 2017a). Invisibility of people of color continues to be a lingering problem in psychology as a discipline (Lin et al., 2022) and for the APA (APA, 2017a). That invisibility has led to the practice of classifying certain demographic groups by the APA as “other” because of small sample sizes (e.g., APA, 2020a), a scientifically meaningless classification that perpetuates further invisibility of people of color through “othering,” despite being asked multiple times not to do so by psychologists of color. Invisibility creates a psychological culture of neglect and forgetfulness about certain demographic groups who are out of sight and out of mind when policy decisions are being made. Some of the invisibility may be a function of a hegemonic disciplinary paradigm that assumes a worldview of reductionism, proximity, and “small psychology” that tends to miss or overlook the broad, holistic landscape of multiculturalism (Blume, 2020).
Even with the recent diversification of membership that still does not mirror the US demographics, most psychologists continue to report greater knowledge in working with White clients than with other racial-ethnic demographic groups (APA, 2022; Stamm et al., October 27, 2022), which is totally understandable if the training and education models reflect white normativity. The lagging diversity of psychologists in the workforce and the continued deficits in cultural competence in working with clients of color does not hold great promise for advancing physical and mental health equity anytime soon. White normativity in education and training policies that continue to reflect the hierarchical vestiges of colonialism will not be helpful for increasing the attractiveness of psychology to potential students of color or their commitment or persistence to become a psychologist. Lack of representativeness in the field only makes it more likely that racial neglect and invisibility will continue to be an inherent functional weakness in advancing racially just policies in psychology and in the public interest.
Hierarchical behavior and white normativity and supremacy in psychology have also created longstanding tensions with the Ethnic Psychological Associations (EPAs) that represent significant numbers of psychologists of color, organizations that typically developed because of the exclusionary and neglectful tactics of psychology and the APA (Holliday, 2009; Leong & Okazaki, 2009; Padilla & Olmedo, 2009; Trimble & Clearing-Sky, 2009). For many years, the APA acted in ways that suggested its perception of superiority to the EPAs (often paternally). This perception negatively impacted the APA’s ability to rapidly and appropriately respond in a culturally responsible way to racist public policies impacting the people of color. The APA does not have the wealth of knowledge and understanding of ethnic psychology of the EPAs, and therefore should always collaborate with the EPAs to address racist public policies. Anger over the continued neglect and superiority by the APA led to resistance by EPAs. As an example, when APA offered its apology for its acts of hierarchy and racism (APA, 2021a), the Association of Black Psychologists refused to accept the apology (Association of Black Psychologists, 2021). Until APA demonstrates a clear sense of its parity rather than superiority with the sovereign EPAs, those relationships will not improve.
Requirements for Psychology’s Transformation to Advance Antiracist Policies
The APA has a history of advancing liberal aspirational recommendations emphasizing individual freedom and choice, rather than emphasizing the importance of social responsibility in the context of a racist past. Unfortunately as discussed throughout this paper, aspirational goals have not been enough to overcome a racist history. To become an antiracist organization, the APA must avoid the temptation to offer strong words and little action. Here, we take the position that advancing requirements will be more fruitful that suggesting aspirational recommendations to address this racist history. Our review highlights the importance of both requiring internal and external transformations in how the APA engages in policy activities to fully transform itself into an antiracist organization. First, we discuss the required changes internal to psychology and the APA, followed by required changes in how the APA engages externally.
Required Changes to Internal Policy
Engage in Policies That Challenge and Transform Hierarchical, Hegemonic, and Supremacist Assumptions, Attitudes, and Processes That Promote and Favor White Normativity Within the APA and Discipline of Psychology
Acknowledging systemic racism in psychology and the Association are only the first step to change. The APA has publicly admitted to dysfunctional behavior through its 2021 apology to communities of color (APA, 2021a), but the sentiment has not been unanimous. History teaches us that to move forward without unanimous acceptance, the APA will likely need to require its members to comply—that aspirational goals are insufficient to change the culture of scientific racism. The APA must enact policies that significantly raise the standards of cultural competency in the field, changing those expectations from recommended (aspirational) to required. The APA must ensure that psychological scientists, teachers, and practitioners no longer wittingly or unwittingly contribute to public harm due to racism, utilizing future iterations of the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct to encode antiracist expectations for the behavior of psychologists and to enforce sanctions for violations of those expectations.
An old clinical adage suggests the need for broad transformation, “If one always does what they have always done, then they always get what they have always gotten.” The APA and the field of psychology will be required to take palpable steps to correct and overcorrect the racist activities of the past. The APA must internally align its policies to identify, challenge, and transform the historic roots of racism in hierarchical, hegemonic, and supremacist assumptions, attitude, and processes infused into the association and the discipline. With consultation from those who have lived the consequences of systemic racism, the Association must identify and discard/transform all internal policies that contribute to colonial biases, colorblindness and culture-free aspirations, hierarchies, oppression, paternalism, privilege, supremacy, and universalist perspectives of psychology. We propose an Association advisory group representative of diverse cultural perspectives to consult with leadership and governance entities of the APA during this process.
The APA, in order to fulfill its current mission to use psychological science “to benefit society and improve lives” (APA, 2023b), must decolonize hierarchical attitudes implicit in policies concerning the APA and professional psychology. The APA Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Framework (April 8, 2021) represents a step toward antiracism. However, the framework emerges from an ecological model that assumes western cultural hierarchy, reductionism, and individualism and therefore does not reflect a holistic and egalitarian cultural perspective commonly held by the global majority. An examination of existing policies by experts in identifying hierarchy would be an excellent first step, and an evaluation of hierarchical impact of any subsequent policy change would become a routine part of the governance process. Policies must also be evaluated by their capacity to respect the histories and cultures of people who have been historically invisible, excluded, and forgotten to psychology.
Purging Scientific Racism From the APA and the Discipline of Psychology to Promote Antiracist Public Policy and to Prevent Future Appeal to Scientific Racism
Psychological scientists cannot reasonably advocate for colorblind, culture free, or other homogenous scientific approaches given the significant body of historical evidence of racial biases in the APA antiracist resolutions and Historical Chronology (APA, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c; CHP, 2021). Colorblind, culture free, and homogenous forms of psychological science emerged from a very narrow view of psychology that was an artifact of colonialism and its scientific racism and white normativity and not representative of diverse cultural perspectives. White normativity in psychological science made it easy to make comparisons, typically unfavorable, between non-representative samples of minoritized groups with the oversampled white mainstream majority. To decolonize psychological science and pursue antiracist approaches into the future, psychological science must commit to policies to abandon racial and ethnic comparisons in research studies that reference white cultural normativity.
The APA and psychology have used scientific racism and its assumptions of hierarchy, supremacy, and exceptionalism to assert dominance in the field over minoritized perspectives through its policies (CHP, 2021). These policies had the effect of silencing and discounting alternative cultural perspectives of psychology. Paradigmatic parity of diverse cultural worldviews in psychology is not only required to challenge the history of scientific racism but also to broaden and strengthen the reach and cultural relevance of the APA and psychology to serve the public interests of all. Establishing collectivistic and holistic models as co-equal with mainstream perspectives for understanding psychology is necessary to overcome the weaknesses and limitations inherent in a homogenous psychology with a reductionistic worldview. Commitment to antiracism requires that the APA and the field of psychology closely examine its existing policies for hierarchical, supremacy, and exceptionalism biases, and transform those policies to advance parity and equity.
Antiracism policies must retire the practice of group comparisons that assume group hierarchies and reinforce white normativity and stereotypes. Study methods immersed in white normativity have also resulted in poor sampling representation that de-values underrepresented groups or contributes to group invisibility, as mentioned earlier, through “othering,” a methodological flaw long used to cover over and justify small subsample sizes by collapsing demographic groups. Policies must be enacted to forbid these practices of white normativity that have extended scientific racism into the modern era.
The APA must advance the field toward a normative understanding that cultural convergence of evidence that is imperative to promote ethical and evidence based research benefitting minoritized peoples (Blume, 2020), a step beyond the current norm that suggests convergence of scientific evidence within mainstream research is sufficient to support listing a professional product as empirically supported or valid. This additional step will link paradigmatic parity with the process of ascertaining empirically supported practices and require scientists to seek convergence of evidence in populations typically understudied and often ignored, decreasing the need for caveats that indicate the results do not apply to understudied minoritized populations.
Enforcing Parity in APA Publications
Scientific racism has significantly impacted the production and dissemination of scholarship in psychology, profoundly and negatively impacting public policy as discussed earlier. Publications have been a primary method of the dissemination of scientific racism, but they can also serve to broadly disseminate antiracism as well. However, the structure and processes of publication and peer review remains mired in a system that protects the status quo. White normativity has guided the activities of non-representative editorial boards and peer reviewers for much of the history of psychology. Editors and peer reviewers serve as gatekeepers for the field and will be required to change their traditional methods in order to promote antiracism (e.g., APA, 2021c). Aspirational goals for diversifying editorial boards and peer reviewing have been advanced, but required changes in policies are necessary to ensure diversification and to promote health and mental health equity in publications. Inherent biases toward mainstream methods and sampling should no longer drive priorities for publication, and mainstream perceptions of impact must no longer guide editorial decisions and peer review. A recent change to the APA publication guidelines requiring a lay-person’s summary of the public significance of the research to aid individuals, agencies, and organizations that help communities that would benefit from this information is a step in the right direction toward a non-hierarchical approach to publication (APA, 2023c).
An important strategy in advancing antiracism is the use of antiracist language in the products of professional psychology. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2020b), in referencing the APA Multicultural Guidelines (2017b), has outlined guidelines devoted to reducing bias in language by avoiding reference to white normativity and stereotyping, false hierarchies, and discouraging unhelpful comparisons of groups by ability, age, gender, racial and ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality. Use of those standards must be mandatory across the field of psychology. In fact, we recommend that all APA guidelines adhere to the Multicultural Guidelines. The process for approving APA Guidelines should also include review by diverse individuals, boards, committees and ethnic psychology associations who understand the harm of unethical racial practices of psychology. Adherence to these guidelines must be enforced within the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.
Policies must be required to prevent “othering” practices in APA publications, including Association documents and scholarly materials. Approaches might range from rejection of papers that employ the use of the “other” category in describing sample characteristics to flagging that inappropriate “othering” methods were used.
Transforming Policies That Serve as Internal Barriers to Diversifying the Field
Racist barriers that have prevented appropriate representation in the field must be identified and dismantled. One barrier discussed extensively in the Historical Chronology (CHP, 2021) has been the use of psychological testing to marginalize certain groups of people. Stronger ethical standards are required to hold those accountable who create and profit from test development. In addition, antiracist policies are needed that de-emphasize culturally biased testing as a screening and selection tool from the field. The APA should advocate for alternative admission standards that circumvent the use of testing for admission into psychology and other academic programs. The report on the apology to First Peoples (APA, 2023d) suggests a template for changing university admissions policies to benefit all minoritized students and diversify the field.
Academic climate has also represented a barrier to the recruitment and retention of diverse students into the field of psychology. The APA can advance policies intended to transform hierarchical academic culture to culturally welcoming, which was promised in the report on the apology offered to First Peoples (APA, 2023d) and can be easily extended to benefit other students of color. Promoting paradigmatic parity in the instruction of psychology will also broaden the appeal to students who would not find psychology cultural relevant otherwise. Additionally, the APA Committee on Accreditation must strongly and transparently enforce its own standards associated with diversifying the curriculum, faculty, and students in psychology programs.
Policies That Promote an Egalitarian Model of Leadership and Governance
The leadership and governance model of the APA very much reflects a hierarchical colonial model and must be changed to promote antiracism within the Association and to model antiracism in its policies impacting the interests of the public (Aiello et al., 2021). Governance policies and rules must be examined to ascertain if they promote and maintain social hierarchies inside the association. Hierarchical policies and rules must be transformed in order for the association to be truly liberated from its racist, colonizing past. Leaders and those in governance must commit to the to the Association’s new mission of equity and antiracism in order to serve.
Paradigmatic parity provides the opportunity for the APA to examine other cultural models of leadership that might be more oriented toward egalitarianism and social justice in the public interest and less protective of the interests of the status quo. Those diverse models of leadership might be leveraged to develop creative new policies for governance of the APA that might serve as templates for antiracism throughout the discipline of psychology.
Required Changes to Impacting External Policy
Enacted Policies to Undo the Disseminated Harm Associated With Scientific Racism
The APA must also acknowledge publicly how scientific racism in psychology has been used to support public policy harmful to minoritized populations. The Historical Chronology (CHP, 2021) and other relevant resources, such as the Warrior’s Path Task Force report (Aiello et al., 2021) and the report on the APA apology to First Peoples in the United States (APA, 2023d), may be used to develop a dedicated website to explicit discussion of how scientific racism in psychology contributed to policies that were ultimately harmful to minoritized peoples. The webpage should be easily accessible to the public in terms of location and language. The APA must also rapidly respond to new attempts to use the body of scientific racism generated by psychologists in ways that harm the public good, informing the public of the historical fallacy of those beliefs to debunk new efforts to manipulate the public.
Preventive antiracism policies are required that will prevent the emergence of new consequences from both implicit and explicit acts of scientific racism into the future. First, psychological testing and assessment need to evolve from a “culture free” to a culturally informed perspective. Rather than insisting on a model of standardized universalism in testing and a reliance on white normativity (to include English language normativity), policies should be enacted to promote testing that is foundationally rooted in the cultural perspectives of those being served to avoid repeating the substantial harm of psychological testing detailed in the APA antiracist racist resolutions (APA, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c; CHP, 2021). Advancing antiracism in psychology requires that tests become more diverse rather than more uniform. Intelligence is presently defined by white American standards, but intelligence has many forms that must be acknowledged, honored and lauded.
Second, policies must be enacted to ensure that research and scholarship prioritize interests in the public good above the self-interests of the scholar. Policies must be used to transform the colonial hierarchical understanding of a self-interested science that justifies a libertarian view of research for research’s sake (rather than research for the public interest). Research for research’s sake has permitted both ethical violations and violations of human rights among communities of color. The APA has the ability to provide policy directives for promoting non-hierarchical research methods and prioritizing social responsibility in research to its members through the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (APA, 2017c). Likewise, policies can be enacted to transform methods of research to promote appropriate ethical conduct in diverse cultural settings informed by the APA Multicultural Guidelines (2017b) and other resources (e.g., Santiago-Rivera et al., 1998), as well as policies to promote equity in psychological research. A commitment to paradigmatic parity will aid in developing and committing to these policies.
Educating and Advocating for Scientific Cultural Parity Outside of Psychology
Since the discipline of psychology and the APA were key players in promoting scientific racism, it also stands to reason that those entities be responsible for correcting those errors by becoming strong public advocates of antiracism perspectives in science today. First, APA policy must prioritize advocating to federal and state governments to promote parity in education, health, and mental health targeted grant funding, and second, to prioritize and promote parity in funding educational, health, and mental health resources and services for minoritized groups. Third, the APA must prioritize education and advocacy for antiracist changes in federal research policies that impacts the public good. The report of an offer of apology to First Peoples promises to advocate for the federal government to fund a range of culturally competent research methodologies (APA, 2023d), and this idea can be applied broadly to benefit other people of color. Additionally, the APA would simultaneously educate other disciplines and the public about alternative cultural paradigms for research to advance the public interests of all people rather than simply the interests of the mainstream.
Policies to Advance Psychology in the Public Interests of All
The APA must move beyond policies limited to disciplinary and national self-interests, as well as libertarian concerns. The APA must embrace holistic and culturally humble approaches to policy to advance the global public interest. A symbolic step to acknowledging psychology’s role in scientific racism is for the APA to publicly support monetary reparations or reparations in kind (e.g., free healthcare or tuition) by federal, state, and local governmental entities for minoritized peoples.
Next, the APA must realign its funding priorities to advance psychology in the public interest of all people. One policy signaling an external commitment to advancing antiracism would be to substantially increase the public interest directorate budget to parity with other Association directorates. Another policy would be to set a goal to balance the level of expenditures that benefit the Association internally to match external expenditures that positively impact the psychological wellness of the public. Association policies would then enable the ability to prioritize equity, diversity, and inclusion investments toward advancing the public interest (e.g., defending critical race theory, challenging racist policing, and defending affirmative action). In addition, the APA would have the resources to marshal communications infrastructure for public service announcements and educational campaigns advancing antiracism psychology in the public interest and participate with a coalition of organizations advancing antiracism to benefit the health and wellness of society. Policies exporting antiracist psychology to the public would have broad impact in decolonizing society. The APA must become the eminent authority in advocating for the health and welfare of the public to policymakers.
The APA must also prioritize the psychological needs of the most vulnerable rather than the mainstream, and those new priorities must be reflected in the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (APA, 2017c). The APA must also use its considerable influence to advance these priorities within state and territorial associations.
Pursue Policies That Embrace Global Interdependence in an Effort to Advance Whole Planet Wellness
The APA requires a vision for policies that embrace the realities of an interdependent world where hierarchies and artificial boundaries represent barriers to global psychological well-being. The policies of the APA must reflect a model of interdependence that emphasize whole planetary and intergenerational psychological wellness. The APA can determine priorities and strategies by use of a question, “How is this policy positively impacting the wellness of the planet?” We propose the need to ask new questions like this, to offer new paradigms, and to identify new dimensions in the study of global policy formulation and implementation that advance intergenerational social and environmental responsibilities. The APA must fully commit its public interest advocacy to grassroot, professional, and scientific coalitions of organizations engaged in movements to dismantle hierarchy and racism, and advance public wellness, safety, and interests globally.
Advancing Courageous Policies to Identify and Confront Hierarchy, Supremacy, and Exceptionalism Publicly When it Occurs
The APA must assume the role as protector of the most vulnerable (Aiello et al., 2021) by identify threats and taking strong stands against opponents of equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives and education at every level. As part of the process of prioritizing the most vulnerable, the APA must anticipate the need for timely statements against racist policies and activities in society and be prepared to immediately respond with official statements against those threats that risk harm to the most vulnerable of society. The APA must support the importance of teaching a holistic view of history and Critical Race Theory (CRT) at a developmentally appropriate age. The APA must be in the forefront of advocating for the public good.
Conclusion
Psychology and the APA arose amidst a history of colonial hierarchy, superiority, exceptionalism, and racism. The APA and psychology leaned into scientific racism to define its identity and justify its existence as a discipline with significant intergenerational negative psychological consequences to minoritized peoples. Our review of the antecedents, behaviors, and consequences of racism in psychology led us to the conclusion that the APA must engage in required internal antiracist policy changes to transform the Association into an institution of antiracism. The APA must have the capability to nimbly engage in required external antiracist policy changes to advance the psychological well-being of all people.
Hall (1997) stated that psychology risks becoming obsolete and will cease to exist as a relevant field if ethics and compassion do not drive the field. Despite its history, psychology as a discipline has much to contribute to our understanding of how racism manifests and is maintained from broad sectors and systems to individuals. The APA should be at the forefront of assisting these movements for racial justice to educate audiences, raise policymaker awareness, and apply this knowledge to the creation of truly egalitarian, non-racist policies. To our knowledge, the APA has not meaningfully leveraged its resources to promote such movements with its work to address racism typically limited to lackluster public statements. Psychology, as a hub science (Boyack et al., 2005), theoretically should have great positive impact advancing antiracism across the sciences and the larger society.
We must continue to hold the APA accountable for the transformational commitment it has made. This manuscript is not merely as an intellectual exercise but a record of a call to action as specified in the Warrior’s Path Task Force report: “In Exacting a Call, we are delineating critical areas, which require significant, immediate action… These are not prescriptive. They do not release people of their complicity through the completion of various tasks; although examples of tasks are suggested, they function as a starting point. They do not transform systems that have perpetuated epistemic violence for far too long by settling for incremental changes within a system that has itself been an oppressive tool. Exacting a Call implies both a demand and the expectation of that demand being met (Aiello et al., 2021, p. 27).”
The APA must now take the courageous step forward to lead psychology to become a global force for antiracism.
Footnotes
Author Contributions
Authors contributed equally to the development and writing of this manuscript and the authorship designation is meant to promote a non-hierarchical approach for establishing authorship order in the spirit of the decolonization of the discipline.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.