Activism-Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology

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explained, in part, by parental expectations

(Carducci, 2009). Discovering ways to lessen

the negative effects of evaluation apprehension

is an issue for future research and has serious

potential social consequence.

Recent research has revealed the connectionbetween framing and achievement motivation

(Hart & Albarracın, 2009). When primed for

achievement, participants with high levels of

achievement motivation performed worse on

a task when it was framed as fun than did those

with low levels of achievement motivation. When

that same assignment was framed as achievement

oriented, the participants with the higher levels of

achievement motivation performed significantly

better, suggesting that it may be the approach anindividual takes towards a certain task that deter-

mines their likelihood for success (Hart &

Albarracın, 2009). The results of this study relay

an important reality that is to be addressed by the

educational community: conformity to a

one-dimensional approach in teaching may not

be possible, and adaptation towards each individ-

ual will likely yield the best results and levels

of achievement amongst students. Future studies

on achievement might take into account multiplepersonal goals and the contextual factors that

affect achievement (Pintrich et al., 2003).

References

Carducci, B. (2009). The psychology of personality (2nd

ed.). Chichester, England: Wiley-Blackwell.

Dweck, C. S. (1999, Spring). Caution – praise can be dan-

gerous. American Educator , 23(1), 1–5. Retrieved April

3, 2012, from http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/ cali/praisespring99.pdf

Elliot, A. J., & Dweck, C. S. (2005). Competence and

motivation: Competence as the core of achievement

motivation. In A. Elliot & C. Dweck (Eds.), Handbook

of competence and motivation (pp. 3–12). New York,

NY: The Guilford Press.

Hart, W., & Albarracın, D. (2009). The effects of chronic

achievement motivation and achievement primes on

the activation of achievement and fun goals. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 97 (6), 1129–1141.

doi:10.1037/a0017146.

Huang, C. (2011). Achievement goals and achieve-

ment emotions: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 23, 359–388. doi:10.1007/

s10648-011-9155-x.

Mazur, J. (2006). Learning and behavior (6th ed.). Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

McGlone, M. S., & Aronson, J. (2007). Forewarning

and forearming stereotype-threatened students.

Communication Education, 56 (2), 119–133.

Mueller, C. M., & Dweck, C. S. (1998). Praise for

intelligence can undermine children’s motivation andperformance. Journal of Personality and

Social Psychology, 75(1), 33–52. doi:10.1037/0022-

3514.75.1.33.

Pintrich, P. R., Conley, A. M., & Kempler, T. M. (2003).

Current issues in achievement goal theory and

research. International Journal of Educational

Research, 39, 319–337. doi:10.1016/j.

ijer.2004.06.002.

Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal

versus external control of reinforcement. Psychologi-

cal Monographs: General and Applied, 80(1), 1–28.

doi: 10.1037/h0092976

Steele, C. M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypesshape intellectual identity and performance. American

Psychologist, 52(6), 613–629. doi: 10.1037/0003-

066X.52.6.613

Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a self-regulated

learner: An overview. Theory Into Practice, 41, 64–70.

Online Resources

Dwyer, C. (n.d.). Using praise to enhance student

resilience and learning outcomes. American Psycho-

logical Association. Retrieved January 8, 2013, from

http://www.apa.org/education/k12/using-praise.aspx

Locus of Control Online Test. http://www.psych.uncc.edu/pagoolka/LocusofControl-intro.html

Motivation, Power & Achievement Society. http://www.

mpa-society.org/

Activism

Kate Sheese1 and Wen Liu2

1Department of Psychology, York University,

Toronto, ON, Canada2Social Psychology Graduate Center, The City

University of New York, New York, NY, USA

Introduction

The relationship between psychology and activ-

ism has taken many forms. Throughout the

history of the discipline, psychologists have

used psychological research in order to under-stand and address issues of inequality and injus-

tice, to promote social and political change, while

A 20 Activism

http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/cali/praisespring99.pdf



http://www.psych.uncc.edu/pagoolka/LocusofControl-intro.html


http://www.mpa-society.org/











others have taken activism and social movements

as objects of inquiry. Some of the most powerful

and radical activism within psychology has come

from those who have challenged the power struc-

tures and practices of the discipline itself. This rich,

though often omitted, history of activism in psy-chology has informed and inspired an ongoing

tradition of critical activist work in and around

psychology. This work has persisted and flourished

despite implicit and explicit efforts to marginalize

critical, radical voices throughout psychology’s

history (e.g., Deegan, 1988). Currently, the prolif-

eration of such work is threatened and constrained,

even as it is experiencing a resurgence in many

parts of the world, by the expansion of neoliberal

policy and ideology, demanding conservativeshifts in the economics, structure, and purpose of

the academy and higher education.

Definition

Activism refers to actions that are directed

toward effecting sociopolitical change on

a number of potential dimensions including pre-

cisely articulated policy reforms to broader dis-ruptions of hegemonic values and practices.

Activism is rooted in political ideologies and

can often be historically situated in broader social

and political movements. Critical psychology

conceptualizes activism as being specifically

concerned with systems of domination and

inequality such as capitalism, patriarchy, white

supremacy, settler colonialism, heteronor-

mativity, and ableism. Conceptually, activism

can take a multitude of forms, within and acrossa spectrum of collective, individual, deliberate,

and spontaneous actions. Some common

approaches to activism include public demonstra-

tion, civil disobedience, community building,

economic boycott, lobbying, propaganda, riots,

critical consciousness raising, and strike action.

Keywords

Feminism; liberation psychology; social move-

ment; oppression; injustice; social change

History

Activism has a rich, though often forgotten, his-

tory in psychology. While the discipline of psy-

chology is itself embedded within sociopolitical

systems that create and reproduce structuralinequalities, there are enduring traditions of

using psychological theories and methods to

challenge injustice. The relationship between

psychology and activism has taken a number of

different, sometimes overlapping, forms includ-

ing using psychological research as a way of

enacting activism, as a way of understanding or

conceptualizing activism, or as a way of

documenting critical sociopolitical struggles,

movements, and/or counternarratives, as well aspolitical organizing by psychologists to challenge

injustice within and beyond the discipline.

Research as Activism

One of the field’s earliest examples of psycholog-

ical research as activism is Leta Hollingworth’s

(1886–1939) feminist work on sex discrimination

and women’s employment. Hollingworth was

a founding member of the Feminist Alliance,

a group dedicated primarily to fighting sex dis-crimination in women’s access to employment

(Rutherford, Marecek, & Sheese, 2012). As chair

of the Alliance’s Committee on the Biologic Sta-

tus of Women, Hollingworth collaborated with

Robert Lowie, a former student of cultural anthro-

pologist Franz Boas, on an article for The Scien-

tific Monthly entitled, “Science and Feminism.”

In their article, Hollingworth and Lowie

(1917) argued that empirical data should be used

to justify feminist objectives, reviewing anthropo-logical, anthropomorphic, and psychological

research that would support “the alleged unfitness

of women to undertake certain forms of activity”

(p. 277). Following her review of evidence regard-

ing women’s intellectual inferiority, Hollingworth

noted that beliefs about female inferiority were

unfounded (Rutherford et al., 2012).

More explicitly addressing issues of power and

oppression and rejecting the apolitical stance of

mainstream psychology in North America duringthe Cold War, the work of Ignacio Martın-Baro

demonstrates the effort to develop psychological

Activism 21 A

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research methods and theories directed toward

social justice and liberation. As a psychologist

and Jesuit priest engaged in political struggles in

El Salvador, Martın-Baro was concerned specifi-

cally with the psychological dimensions of political

repression. Through his work, the pathologizationof the bodies and minds of everyday people was

shifted instead to conditions of oppression and

state-sponsored violence. His work not only broad-

ened the psychological conceptualization of issues

such as trauma and depression but demonstrated

the urgent need for social scientists engage politi-

cally in order to develop theories and practices that

responded to the local sociopolitical realities facing

oppressed communities.

In the United States, one of the earliest orga-nized psychological bodies to reject the apolitical

stance of mainstream psychology was the Society

for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

(SPSSI). Formed in 1936, SPSSI’s generated

a wealth of studies, employing diverse research

methods, on a wide range of social and political

issues, including racial injustice (e.g., Clark &

Clark, 1939), academic freedom, poverty, unem-

ployment, and sexual orientation (see: Pettit,

2011). SPSSI’s engagement with diverseresearch methods, such as the adoption of Marie

Jahoda’s immersion approach (see: Rutherford,

Unger, & Cherry, 2011), the use of community

self-surveys (see: Torre & Fine, 2011), reflects

not only the organization’s conviction that social

change could be enacted through social inquiry,

but also its epistemological commitment in

expanding the field of expertise.

These early theoretical and methodological

contributions informed contemporary criticalpsychological research aimed at social and polit-

ical action on a wide range of issues including the

criminalization of youth (e.g., Fox & Fine, 2012);

trauma, human rights, and war (e.g., Lykes &

Coquillon, 2009; Reisner, 2003); and gender,

incarceration, and structural violence (Fine &

Torre, 2006).

Research on Activism

The critical tradition of psychology has alwaysemphasized the importance of studying

individuals in social contexts. Hardley Cantril,

a British psychologist, was among the first to

systematically theorize social movements from

a psychological perspective while paying

detailed attention to the individual mental con-

text. In The Psychology of Social Movements,Cantril (1941 / 2002) provided a framework to

understand individuals as active agents in their

engagement with politics in the decades of world

wars, the Nazi’s rise to power, and racist vio-

lence. During the 1960s, a time of vibrant activ-

ism in the United States brought about through

the energy of the Civil Rights Movement,

scholars turned their attention to understanding

the behavior, motivation, and aspects of person-

ality development implicated in this emergentmass youth-led movement. Frederic Solomon

and Jacob Fishman’s (1964) analyses of political

activism cut across social, cultural, and individ-

ual levels. Through observations and interviews

with youth at peace demonstrations in Washing-

ton D.C., they examined not only youth’s percep-

tions and responses to the general uncertainty in

the broader social and political terrain, but also

the ideological contestation around the notion of

“nonviolence” in the movement. Since therepressive regime of McCarthyism in the 1950s

and the emergence of the Cold War, Solomon

and Fishman’s work represents an attempt to

employ psychological research methods to

reconceptualize the phenomenon of mass move-

ment previously understood as pathological

and created a theoretical basis for later research

on activism.

Challenging Injustice Within and Beyondthe Discipline

Some of the strongest activist challenges to the

discipline of psychology itself have come from

feminist psychologists whose critical examina-

tions of psychological research and clinical prac-

tices led to the elaboration of more fundamental

critiques of the discipline’s epistemological foun-

dations (Rutherford et al., 2012). Many second

wave feminist psychologists’ activism drew on

personal experiences discrimination, exclusion,and harassment and from their participation in

A 22 Activism



political movements of the 1960s. These psychol-

ogists began to form organizations that would

support the development of feminist research,

practice, and activism. At the 1969 APA conven-

tion, a number of unofficial, independently orga-

nized symposia, paper sessions, and workshopson women’s issues drew hundreds of attendees.

A number of petitions were circulated during

these sessions, including one demanding that the

APA examine and address sexist discrimination

in the organization and in psychology depart-

ments and another calling for an APA resolution

recognizing abortion as a civil right of pregnant

women (Rutherford et al.). These activities fos-

tered ongoing political discussion and organizing

and eventually led to the formation of the Asso-ciation for Women in Psychology (AWP), an

organization whose primary focus continues to

be on feminist activism. The AWP, along with

other organizations such as the Feminist Therapy

Institute, established in 1983, worked to chal-

lenge a wide range of concerns within the disci-

pline, including existing codes of ethics in

clinical psychology, gender bias in psychiatric

diagnosis, and assumptions about the psycholog-

ical natures of women and men. Feminist psy-chologists have also organized to address a broad

range of social issues beyond the discipline itself,

including reproductive justice, violence against

women, and intersecting systems of oppression

such as racism, classism, and ableism.

In more recent history, during the height of

Bush’s “War on Terror,” a group of psychologists

formed an organization, Coalition for an Ethical

Psychology, to challenge American Psychologi-

cal Association’s (APA) continual involvementwith the interrogation and torture of political

prisoners. The coalition called to annul the 2005

Report of the Presidential Task Force on Psycho-

logical Ethics and National Security (the PENS

Report) which suggested that psychologists

played a critical role in keeping interrogations

“safe, legal, ethical, and effective.” The coalition

argues that this stance contradicts the interna-

tional human rights’ as well as psychologist pro-

fessional ethical standards and thus must beannulled and discontinued to be held as

professional practice guide. Today the coalition

continues to work on reforming APA’s policies

with broader social justice movements.

On a different note, right-wing activism has

influenced the discipline’s research and practice.

At times, conservative political forces are able tolimit research on urgent social issues under the

guise of maintaining “scientific neutrality.” The

recent Connecticut gun violence tragedy, for

instance, has instigated a wave of psychological

organizations such as the APA and Psychologists

for Social Responsibility calling to lift the

20-year federal ban on funding research on

gun violence.

Critical Debates

One of the major tensions in the relationship

between psychology and activism is the interac-

tion of theory and practice. Ian Parker is one of

the psychologists who has called attention to the

problem of depoliticization of the discipline and

the need to synthesize psychological knowledge

in activist work. In Revolution In Psychology:

Alienation to Emancipation, Parker (2007)argues that psychology has become an alienating

science in which it either appropriates common

knowledge as disciplinary expertise or flattens

useful knowledge into readily consumable com-

modities. The result in either case is that people

are alienated from knowledge. Parker proposes

a set of transitional demands that would shift the

discipline away from its present operation as

a technology of social control toward

a becoming tool of emancipation. For Parker,this transformation cannot be realized through

mere internal reform nor separated from other

social movements. To attempt meaningful trans-

formation of the discipline in such a way would

simply bolster psychology’s operation as an

alienating science by further professionalizing

knowledge to be guarded within a narrow pool

of scholars.

While the field of critical psychology is

emerging and consolidating, there is also a riskof it becoming merely a new commodity that

Activism 23 A

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supplements the rapidly privatizing education

and the further marketization of academic work.

Parker (2009) argues that “critical psychology”

has become a technology of recuperation that

support reforms to the “old psychology” in

order for it survive in the current period of capi-talist expansion. That is, those who claim to be

“critical psychologists” often stop at being “crit-

ical” of psychology without crafting new para-

digms aimed toward radical social change. The

political economy of psychology as a bulk of

knowledge and as an academic institution, there-

fore, needs to be examined within the broader

context of capitalist development. That is, as

Fine and Burns (2003) argue, the transformation

of education and knowledge requires not only theanalysis of ideology but also of institutions in

how they structure classed-based privileges and

disadvantages.

Indeed a meaningful and sustainable transfor-

mation of the discipline requires that students of

psychology, graduate students in particular, be

offered real opportunities to bring together activ-

ist and academic work. However, such opportu-

nities are scarce given the vast and ongoing shifts

in the economics, structure, and purpose of higher education that have accompanied the expansion

of neoliberal policy and ideology in North Amer-

ica. As universities struggle to secure revenue,

there is increasing pressure on departments and

academics themselves to produce research that is

easily marketable. The increasing commerciali-

zation of research products and the commodifi-

cation of knowledge and expertise powerfully

limit graduate students’ opportunities to engage

in radical activist work within psychology.A critical psychology of activism, therefore,

needs not to examine activist practices or social

movements as an external object but to funda-

mentally challenge the practices and power struc-

tures within the academic institution and the

professional practice itself.

References

Cantril, H. (1941/2002). The psychology of social move-

ments. NJ: Rutgers.

Clark, K. B., & Clark, M. K. (1939). The development of

consciousness of self and the emergence of racial

identification in Negro preschool children. Journal of

Social Psychology, 10(4), 591–599.

Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. (2011). Background

statement on annulment of the APA’s PENS report.

Retrieved from http://www.ethicalpsychology.org/ materials/PENS_Annulment_Background_Statement.

pdf.

Deegan, M. (1988). W.E.B. Du Bois and the women of

hull-house, 1895–1899. The American Sociologist,

19(4), 301–311.

Fine, M., & Burns, A. (2003). Class notes: Toward

a critical psychology of class and schooling. Journal

of Social Issues, 59(4), 841–860.

Fine, M., & Torre, M. E. (2006). Intimate details: Partic-

ipatory action research in prison. Action Research,

4(3), 253–269.

Fox, M., & Fine, M. (2012). Circulating critical research:

Reflections on performance and moving inquiry intoaction. In G. Cannela & S. Steinberg (Eds.), Critical

qualitative research reader (pp. 153–165). New York:

Peter Lang.

Hollingworth, L. (1914). Variability as related to sex

differences in achievement. American Journal of

Sociology, 19, 510–530.

Lykes, M. B., & Coquillon, E. D. (2009). Psychosocial

trauma, poverty, and human rights in communities

emerging from war. In D. Fox, I. Prilleltensky, & S.

Austin (Eds.), Critical psychology II (pp. 285–299).

London: Sage.

Parker, I. (2007). Revolution in psychology: Alienation toemancipation. London: Pluto Press.

Parker, I. (2009). Critical psychology and revolution

Marxism. Theory & Psychology, 19(1), 71–92.

Pettit, M. (2011). The SPSSI task force on

sexual orientation, the nature of sex, and the

contours of activist science. Journal of Social Issues,

67 , 92–105.

Reisner. (2003). Psychic trauma and the seductions of

a painful past. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 4(3),

263–286.

Rutherford, A., Marecek, J., & Sheese, K. (2012).

Psychology of women and gender. In D. K.

Freedheim & I. Weiner (Eds.), Handbook of psychol-ogy: History of psychology (pp. 279–301). Hoboken,

NJ: Wiley.

Rutherford, A., Unger, R., & Cherry, F. (2011).

Reclaiming SPSSI’s sociological past: Marie Jahoda

and the immersion tradition in social psychology.

Journal of Social Issues, 67 (1), 42–58.

Solomon, F., & Fishman, J. R. (1964). Youth and peace:

A psychosocial study of student peace demonstrators

in Washington, DC. Journal of Social Issues, 20(4),

54–73.

Torre, M. E., & Fine, M. (2011). A wrinkle in time:

Tracing a legacy of public science through community

self-surveys and participatory action research. Journal

of Social Issues, 67 (1), 106–121.

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Activism-Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology