Kurt Pawlik, Chair, IUPsyS Standing Committee On Communication And Publications, 1996-2000
During the report period 1996-2000 the Standing Committee on Communication and Publications was overseeing the following activities and initiatives:
Website: On-line access to continuously up-dated information about the IUPsyS, its members and activities has been given priority attention. Deputy Secretary-General Merry Bullock continued as the Union’s “webmaster”, continuously maintaining and up-dating website entries. By the time of this reporting (June 2000) the IUPsyS website provides information on: the IUPsyS as such, its Executive Committee and Officers, its National Members and affiliated organizations, recent Annual Reports on activities of the Union, the Statutes and Rules of Procedure governing the operation of the IUPsyS, and links to IUPsyS publications and an extensive international meeting calendar. Special entries connect to current IUPsyS projects and activities and to documentary material on procedures to be followed in applying for membership in the IUPsyS as well as guidelines for hosting an International Congress of Psychology.
Already the IUPsyS website has become an indispensable platform of information and exchange in international psychology.
International Journal of Psychology (IJP): Publication of the IJP was continued successfully during the report period. Several special issues could be published, including a first double special issue (on short-term/working memory) in 1999. Just before the XXVIIth International Congress of Psychology in Stockholm, another special issue, on diplomacy in psychology, was published (Issue 2/2000). It included 11 articles from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom and USA concentrating on this important topic in bringing psychology to bear on broad issues of international life. Finally, the abstracts of the XXVIIth International Congress of Psychology are published in Issues 3 and 4 of Volume 2000.
In its last meeting 1999 in Durban/South Africa, the IUPsyS Executive Committee decided that beginning with the first issue of Volume 2002, the IJP will be monolingual English with abstracts in three languages (English, French, Spanish). At the same Executive Committee meeting, preparatory steps were taken to advertise the appointment of a new Editor of the IJP to resume work in 2001/2002.
The Standing Committee and the Executive Committee express special thanks to François Doré, current Editor of the IJP, for his outstanding achievements in further developing the journal. According to the Journal Citation Report (Social Science Edition), the impact factor of the IJP is 0.725 and its cited half-life is 9.4. In this way the IJP ranks 40 out of 109 journals in its category. It continuous to receive contributions from a broad international authorship.
The International Platform Section of the IJP, under the editorship of Secretary-General Pierre Ritchie and Deputy Secretary-General Merry Bullock, was continued to serve international psychology as a ready-to-access showcase on developments in global psychology.
CD-Rom Resource File “Psychology: IUPsyS Global Resource”: Edited by Judith A. and J. Bruce Overmier, this new resource tool comprises a series of electronic data bases, in this way also replacing earlier editions in the IUPsyS-series of International Directory of Psychology. By the time of this writing the CD-Rom data base includes a directory of major research institutes and departments of psychology around the world, a directory of national contacts in psychology, a selected bibliography informing about national and international developments in psychology (for the years 1974 – 1995) and a number of working and reference documents (Directory of institutes of research and applied work on the young child and the family in developing countries and Eastern Europe; Directory of international psychological associations and related organizations; historical record of international congresses of psychology and Presiding Officers; etc.).
Numerous organizational and other problems had to be overcome in the preparation of this novel electronic resource file product on international psychology, which will be marketed by Psychology Press in conjunction with the International Journal of Psychology. The Union is most grateful to the Editors and staff officers at the Publisher’s for their never-tiring initiative in making the compilation of this data base possible.
History of the International Union of Psychological Science: This new publication under the aegis of the IUPsyS by Mark R. Rosenzweig, Wayne H. Holtzman, Michel Sabourin and David Bélanger offers a concise history of international psychology as mirrored in the history of the IUPsyS. Starting from the origins of scientific organizations in psychology and the 1st International Congress of Psychology, the history of these international congresses is documented up to the creation of the IUPsyS in 1952 and from there through the formative and, later on, consolidating years the Union’s development until its present state and profile. In a concluding chapter, by Pierre Ritchie, on historic strengths and new ventures, prospects of future developments of the IUPsyS are caught. A series of appendices provide information on membership in the International Congress of Psychology Committees (1889-1951), the Officers of the IUPsyS (since 1951), Statutes and Rules of Procedure of the Union, and reference data on all previous International Congresses of Psychology. Appendix E informs about the years in which National Members were elected to the IUPsyS.
The book aims to trace the development of the International Union of Psychological Science, going back to first seminal ideas presented in 1881 when the notion of an international congress and an international association of psychological societies was first put forward. To portray this history, the authors had to consult the published proceedings of each and every International Congress of Psychology to date and to conduct an extensive archival search of minutes of the Assemblies and meetings of the Executive Committee of the IUPsyS. The book brings together much information that has previously been unavailable to the public. The IUPsyS is grateful to the authors for making it possible that this important volume can be published at the eve of 2001, when the IUPsyS will celebrate its 50th anniversary.
International Handbook of Psychology: This publication is the outgrowth of several years of editorial planning. For the first time, a medium-level introductory handbook of psychology is published under the auspices of the IUPsyS, presenting the discipline in an international perspective. Edited by Kurt Pawlik and Mark R. Rosenzweig, both past presidents of the IUPsyS, the Handbook is an authoritative resource covering of all main areas of psychological science, including applied and cross-disciplinary aspects. Supervised by an International Editorial Advisory Board of 13 eminent psychologists, the Handbook brings together contributions by 55 authors from 20 countries around the world. The 31 chapters are organized in 5 Parts: foundations and methods of psychology; information processing and human behavior; social processes and behavioral development; applied psychological science; psychology in trans-disciplinary contexts. The Handbook is written at a level suitable to advanced undergraduates and to graduate students and academics in psychology, but it should also prove of interest to students of education, sociology, political science, humanities, philosophy, informatics, cognitive science, neuroscience, legal sciences and criminology. Written at a level comparable to the Scientific American, it should serve as a general resource reference text presenting psychology as approached from different regional and cultural perspectives.
Issues of primary research data archiving: Like other social and behavioral sciences, psychology has not yet installed a principle of data handling which has become so common in all natural sciences: to make available primary research data (for re-analysis, meta-analysis etc.) following publication of an empirical research study, thus archiving them as “common good”. (See also K. Pawlik’s 1996 Presidential Report to the IUPsyS Assembly in Montreal, subsequently published in the International Platform Section of the IJP.) Following preparatory work in the IUPsyS Executive Committee and the Standing Committee on Communication and Publications, cooperation was sought with respective initiatives under the aegis of the American Psychological Association (Dave Johnson), within the Committee on Data (CODATA) of the International Council of Science (ICSU, by Michel Sabourin) and – through Kurt Pawlik in his capacity as President of the International Social Science Council – with UNESCO and the Social Science Research Council, New York/USA. A first round-table conference on issues of primary research data archiving will be convened by Kurt Pawlik and Dave Johnson in conjunction with the XXVIIth International Congress of Psychology in July 2000 in Stockholm.
Book project “Conceptual history of psychology”: Plans have been developed for a book (to be edited by Kurt Pawlik and Gery d’Ydewalle) on the conceptual history of psychology from an international perspective. In this book selected key conceptual contexts (for example, intelligence, personality, or even a concept as basic as “behavior”) will be studied in an international-historical approach. Following first editorial preparations a consultative meeting is planned to take place in Paris, France, in November 2000 (in conjunction with the next session of the Assembly of the International Social Science Council).