why apa is losing members 2012

7/30/2019 Why APA is Losing Members 2012

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psychcentral.com http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/07/13/why-the-apa-is-losing-members/

Why the APA is Losing Members

The American Psychological Association (APA) suffered a 7.6 percentloss of its members from 2010 to 2011 from 91,306 to 84,339.While in recent years, the APA has suffered from smaller membership

declines, this is the first time everin the organizations 120-yearhistory it has suffered such a significant one-year decline in members.

Is this downward trend specific to the American PsychologicalAssociation, or are other professional organizations suffering similarlosses?

And whats to blame for this precipitous loss of members in a singleyear? A few factors come to mind.

The APAs 2011 Loss of Members

The APA is the largest professional association representing psychologists. It is, however, by nomeans the sole voice of psychologists. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there areapproximately 174,000 psychologists in the U.S. which includes masters level professionals. So theAPA represents about 44 percent of psychologists in the U.S. 75,746 of whom are full-fledged APAmembers with doctoral degrees.

When asked to comment about the decline in membership, the APA declined to answer ourquestions.1

Here is some speculation as to the reasons behind the decline:

1. Its the economy. Indeed, one of the first items to go in a tough economy is a personsmembership in different clubs and organizations. However, since professional dues are a taxwrite-off (meaning it helps reduce the professionals tax liability), its unclear how manyprofessionals gave up their membership due to the economy alone. A professional may,however, trim their membership if they are members of a number of professional organizationsand keep only the one or two they truly feel are most beneficial to their career.

2. Lack of perceived benefits. This is something many professional and non-profit organizationsstruggle with. Since all organizations offer virtually the same set of benefits and perks (likediscount magazine subscriptions), you may not keep a membership in an organization where youdont feel like youre getting your moneys worth.

3. Torture. The APA took what seemed like forever to come out and say that torture was wrong andshouldnt be practiced by APA members. They had to keep revising their statementto satisfy theAPAs critics, and it was a PR disaster that just wouldnt die. This may account for some of theinitial downward trend in the late 2000s.

4. The practice assessment controversy.For nearly two decades, the APA has been chargingsome of its members those who are in clinical practice a practice assessment fee. This
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Life-Physical-and-Social-Science/Psychologists.htmhttp://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/08/06/psychologists-wont-let-go-of-torture-debate/http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/07/13/why-the-apa-is-losing-members/#footnote_0_32905http://www.apa.org/about/archives/membership/index.aspxhttp://www.bls.gov/ooh/Life-Physical-and-Social-Science/Psychologists.htmhttp://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/07/13/why-the-apa-is-losing-members/


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fee was thought to be mandatory by most members who paid it, because of the way it wasworded and appeared on a members annual dues statement. It was used to fund a separate,independent political lobbying organization associated with the APA.In 2010, it came out that themandatory practice assessment wasnt mandatory after all. It makes sense that some clinical

members may have been upset about this perceived deception, and spoke with their wallets.2

The American Psychological Association is not alone in this downward trend on membership numbers,however. TheAmerican Psychiatric Association the professional association of U.S. psychiatrists

is also suffering.

APA has experienced a decline in membership over the past few years, from 35,899 total members inJanuary 2009 to 33,387 in January 2012, an approximately 7 percent loss in three years, Susan Kuper

told Psych Central. Kuper is the Directory of Membership for the American Psychiatric Association.3

There are several variables contributing to the membership loss, including an increase in membershipdues in 2010 (the first increase in almost 15 years) as well as the general state of the economy.

TheAssociation for Psychological Science, an organization founded in 1988 largely made up ofresearch psychologists, hasnt seen the same downward trend. In fact, their membership numberskeep going up-up-up: Overall growth since 2007 is 16.3 percent with an average annual growth of justover 4 percent.

2011 23,500

2010 23,300

2009 22,700

2009 22,700

2008 21,500

2007 20,200

We also see huge growth in things like journal submissions, Alan Kraut, Executive Director of theAssociation for Psychological Science, said. I am guessing APA scientists have gotten older andfewer just take a look at the average age of those in Division 1 (General) or 3 (Experimental) whereas our growth is particularly in younger psychologist scientists.

Touting Its Members and Non-Members as The Same

When this article was first researched, it seemed a bit ironic that, for an organization that promotesprofessional ethics, the APA continued to proudly state without any qualifications up until a few days

ago that the APA has more than 150,000 members and 54 divisions in subfields of psychology onits websitesAbout page:

Snapshot of the APA About page oneyear ago,

and similarly up to a few days ago.

After we pointed out thediscrepancy in how the APAdescribes itself and itsmembership numbers, the
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pages wording changed:

Snapshot of the APA About pagetoday.

This is still technicallyinaccurate, since studentaffiliates are not APA

members. And since we didntpoint out that the discrepancyexists throughout APAs website, you can still find it on theAPA Historypage (for the moment):

We think that its incumbentupon the APA to be honest andtransparent about the size of itsorganization, because its sizedenotes representation andunity. Counting student affiliates who are not APA members and have little say in how the APA is run as a part of the representation without clearly delineating the difference is disingenuous.

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The APAs true size today is an organization consisting of84,339 members.4 Thats nothing to beashamed of its a big professional association representing the guild interests of manypsychologists. Its downward decline is not necessarily a sign of a permanent trend but it is adisturbing one that signals the changing times.

With access to social media and other communications modalities not as readily available 20 yearsago, some of the APAs purpose helping like-minded professionals socialize and network with oneanother is going away, replaced by profession-neutral organizations.

The APAs challenge is to repurpose itself, showing that it can adapt to the changes in the profession. Ialso wouldnt hurt it to become more transparent and responsive to its members concerns.

Footnotes:

1. In the past, the APAs Public Affairs office has readily responded to our requests for comment.[]

2. Some members were so upset, they filed a lawsuit against the APA, which was dismissed earliethis year. []

3. The APAs membership numbers reflect a total thats actually higher than the reported number ofpsychiatrists in the U.S. about 23,000 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, probablybecause the statistics dont capture self-employed workers. []

4. Full disclosure: Im still a member of the APA. []

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcherand expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mentalhealth and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and humanbehavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journalCyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networkingand is a founding board memberand treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 13 Jul 2012Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.

APA ReferenceGrohol, J. (2012). Why the APA is Losing Members. Psych Central. Retrieved on July 13, 2012, fromhttp://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/07/13/why-the-apa-is-losing-members/
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