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131 Engaged Scholarship: Perspectives from Psychology Jill N. Reich and Paul D. Nelson Psychology as a Discipline As the science of mind and behavior, having evolved from such disparate disciplines as philosophy, physiology, and physics (James, 1890), psychology has had a predominant focus on the individual or certain characteristics of the individual as its primary unit of analysis. When this focus includes relationships with others, of course, the units of analysis can range from dyads, through small groups, to larger organization or community contexts. In whatever context psychologists have worked, the discipline’s predominant methodological paradigms have been described as experimental and correlational (Cronbach, 1957) and its predominant cultures as scientific and humanistic (Kimble, 1984). These epistemological differences among the orientations of psychologists have been evident in more than intellectual approaches to the study of mind and behavior; they also have had consequences for the organization of academic departments of psychology in universities (Capshew, 1999). Another historical schism among psychologists has been between those whose predominant goal is to advance theory and knowledge in the discipline and those whose predominant goal is to apply this theory and knowledge to problems in society. The history of the American Psychological Association (APA) itself is marked by perceived disenfranchisement by one or another of these groups, initially in the late 1930s by those who formed a separate society for applied psychologists and, following reunification and fifty years, by those who formed a separate society primarily to advance the science of psychology. Yet, as it has been historically and remains today, the APA is the largest and most diverse organization of psychologists , the current mission of which is to advance the creation, communication, and J I L L N . R E I C H A N D P A U L D . N E L S O N 132 application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives (American Psychological Association, 2008). This mission statement is significant in the context of the present chapter and the volume of which it is a part. It speaks to the very nature of engaged scholarship, quite in contrast to the purpose of the APA a century ago to advance psychology as a science (Davis, 1907) without reference to the societal or personal context for which it may be important. In fairness to the founding generations of American psychologists in the first half of the last century, however, there were those among the early leaders whose thinking reflected the importance of the social context in understanding human thought and behavior, a context that cannot always be reduced to the controls of a laboratory experiment (Allport, 1940; Dewey, 1900). Moreover, in writing about psychology in the public interest from a psychologist historian perspective, Morawski (2002, p. 500) offers, with support of some case histories , the following commentary: Conventional or purely intellectual histories of psychology obscure some fundamental issues of the past: the role of psychology and the psychologist in society, the confrontation with ethical problems, and the relation of psychology to the humanities and other sciences, and the dissemination of psychological knowledge to the public. ... Furthermore, because more comprehensive and critical studies require scrutiny not merely of dusty texts and journals but also of personal papers, institutional records, unpublished manuscripts, and forgotten publications, they attend to the “human” context in which psychological knowledge is created. In offering this perspective, Morawski does not only provide a vital context for understanding the history of psychology and the work of psychologists. She also advances a fundamental principle of engaged scholarship, that is, the importance of the human context in which knowledge is created, communicated, and applied. Her commentary reinforces for psychology Boyer’s (1996) concept of engaged scholarship as a connection of the academy and its disciplines with the social, civic, and ethical problems of society. During the past century, other than for the two world wars in which psychologists were engaged in myriad professional roles in support of national defense, there are perhaps three periods during which psychology’s engagement with society and social issues not only was prominent, but led to institutional change within the culture and organization of psychologists , and more specifically resulting in academic departments of psychology becoming engaged in social, civic, and ethical problems of society. These periods of time, thirty years apart, were the 1930s, 1960s, and 1990s. The 1930s and Following Years In the context of societal problems posed by the Great Depression and the threat to democratic institutions posed by the...

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