Article archive / August 1, 2012
Originally published: . Volume 3, No. 12. Source pages: 9.
APA Membership Problems Analyzed On Popular PsychCentral Website Average Age of APA Member is 54
In a July article on the popular site “PsychCentral, John Grohol, PsyD, CEO of the cite, examined the reasons for the drop in membership numbers for the American Psychological Association.
The article pointed to a 7.6 percent drop in membership between 2010 and 2011, from 91,306 to 84,339 in 2011. One commenter suggested the change was due to an artifact of how the non-dues paying membership is counted.
Grohol, who is a member of APA, noted several reasons for membership problems, including the economy, lack of perceived benefits, the torture controversy, and the practice assessment controversy.
The PsychCentral report also pointed to a similar drop in the membership of the American Psychiatric Association, from around 35,000 to around 33,000 in the last years.
And, Grohol said that the average age of the APA member was over 54 years.
He pointed out that Association for Psychological Science has seen a steady increase in members, about 4 percent per year, up to 23,500 since 2007’s 20,200.
He also pointed out that APA lists themselves on the site as having 150,000 members but actually have around 84,000 members.
Grohol is on the editorial board of Cyber- psychology, Behavior and Social Networking, as well as the founder of Psych Central. He wrote, “With access to social media and other communications modalities not as readily available 20 years ago, some of APA’s purpose […] is going away, replaced by profession- neutral organizations.”
In a recent APA organizational development report called the “Good Governance Project,” team members listed issues in the culture of APA including: “feel disempowered,” “perception of in-crowd, governance ‘junkies,’” “closed system – secretive, exclusive,” “staff-governance tension,” “cynicism,” and “focused on self- interests of subgroup.”
In 2009, APA prepared its first ever strategic plan, which came 117 years after the organization began in began in 1892.
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