National Conference on Psychology as a Science Acknowledgements No enterprise like a National Conference can succeed without the help of many people. The Co-Chairs gratefully acknowledge the support, encouragement, and assistance of all those individuals and organizations who contributed to helping the Aylmer Conference "move the markers" with respect to the status of Psychology as a Science in Canada. The members of the CPA Board authorized significant financial support for the Conference and encouraged its development for the two years it took to bring it to fruition. The Canadian Council of Departments of Psychology and the Canadian Society of Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Sciences were comparably generous in their support (always attuned to developments that may move the discipline forward on the Canadian scene). The Canadian Council of Professional Psychology Programs, the Canadian Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology and the Council of Provincial Associations of Psychologists also stepped forward with support for the Conference in keeping with their resources, even though the focus of the Conference was on science as opposed to practice. The Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards, an international organization, also provided financial assistance. The Medical Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and, in particular, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council provided generous support and helpful suggestions around the focus of the Conference. Working group leaders Fergus Craik, Keith Dobson, and Patricia Rowe handled the demanding chores of focusing vigorous, occasionally heated discussions and bringing order out of the chaos of creative debate. Group facilitator Gary Latham provided able and cheerful guidance at many points during the Conference, particularly during the plenary sessions. Advisor John Service brought valuable support and helpful assistance before and during the Conference. As one of the Co-Chairs of the Mississauga Conference on Professional Psychology in 1995, Keith Dobson provided expert advice in the planning of the Conference. The members of the Local Organizing Committee, under Jennifer Veitch and Stéphane Bouchard's co-leadership, responded with efficiency and foresight to the needs of the Conference and the delegates. Under the watchful eye of Dr. Mary-Ann Linseman from MRC, Ms. Denise Ross-Siegel from NSERC, and Mrs. Sheena Lee from SSHRC, the delegates tolerated long hours, a frantic pace, and vigorous clashes of opinion with good humour as well as a genuine sense of the importance of the task at hand. Recorders Brenda Baird, Ben Coleman, Fred Lichacz, and Brenda Smith laboured over word processors to create the archival record of the Conference. They were tireless in commitment to their jobs and contributed importantly to the outcome of the Conference. The contributors to the drafting and editing of the final report (John Adair, Ellen Bialystok, Ken Dion, Fergus Craik, Joseph De Koninck, Keith Dobson, Gary Latham, Tony Marley, Pierre Ritchie, Patricia Rowe, Peter Suedfeld, and Richard Tees) provided critical help in translating the working notes of the conferences into a document that captures the essential recommendations that emerged during the Conference and makes these recommendations readily accessible to a broad audience. The staff of the CPA Head Office, particularly Marie-Christine Pearson and Patricia Black, provided able and cheerful assistance to the Conference co-chairs at many points over the years of the Conference's development. Finally, the staff of the Château Cartier Sheraton Hotel went above and beyond the call of duty to be perfect hosts. We sincerely thank all those who contributed to making the Aylmer Conference an important and successful undertaking for Psychology as a science. Janel G. Gauthier and Anthony G. Phillips, Co-Chairs May, 1998 Executive Summary
Psychology as a discipline
Psychology and Society
Enabling Factors
Conclusion
_____________________________________________________________ VISION STATEMENT The goal of psychology, the study of mind, brain, and behaviour, is to create knowledge through research that is inherently valuable and essential for the benefit of the individual and our changing society. __________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION These are not "normal times," and the enormity and the complexity of the nation's problems demand an innovative approach. BACKGROUND TO THE CONFERENCE Origins of the National Conference on Psychology as a Science As a scientific discipline, Psychology is being confronted with new realities that demand a national review if performance and standards of excellence are to be maintained and new challenges surmounted. There has been a tremendous erosion of funding for research and training in psychology. Policies and parameters relating to funding for scientific activities have drastically changed. Yet despite the relative lack of fiscal resources, demands for better scholars and better science are reaching record heights. Pressure to align research and training with pressing social, economic, and environmental goals is enormous. All of the above changes are taking place at a time when the discipline of psychology is undergoing major expansion and is being called upon to assume a greater responsibility in helping to address health and social problems. The problems facing the country are substantial, not to say overwhelming. Be it productivity in the workplace, schooling and literacy, the aging society, drug and alcohol abuse, mental and physical health, HIV/AIDS, or violence in society, each presents, at its base, problems of human behaviour. Each involves questions that will require both basic and applied research and development. When psychologists face such problems, applied research directed at the specific problem is sometimes the best approach. For example, if we need better predictors of job performance, we might focus our attention on making better tests. In other instances, though, the chance of long-range success is greater when the problem is attacked by studying the underlying basic psychological processes. For example, designing the optimal way to teach reading requires us first to discover how the child gains skills, how the reading process builds on spoken language, how to assess the child's awareness of language, how memory and attention work, how peer groups and families influence learning, and even how the eyes move during reading. Or, to take another example, discovering the processes underlying memory and problem-solving has important implications for such practical matters as how best to learn to fly planes or repair them. There is enormous value in supporting basic and applied psychological science. A great many discoveries have been made already, and a large number have found practical applications. For example, we can now assess infants' sensory capabilities with surprising accuracy. It is thus possible to determine very early whether and to what extent babies have abnormal hearing. This permits earlier and more effective intervention. Indications are that certain intellectual abilities also can be assessed at a very early age. Findings from the laboratory have led to other, cost-effective applications in places as varied as the factory floor, the ophthalmologist's office, the airplane cockpit, and the homes of victims of panic attacks. Principles devised in laboratories by psychologists have influenced how X-rays are read and how astronauts and air crews are trained. There is, in fact, a long list of success stories, many of which involve "lives saved" as well as "dollars saved"; and, as is often the case, many of the practical applications were not anticipated when the basic research and theorizing first occurred. A famous social psychologist, Kurt Lewin, once observed, "There is nothing as practical as a good theory." Policy makers legitimately differ on how to tackle the many problems facing Canadian families and individuals today. Each year brings another round in the great social debates about productivity, education, child and elder care, mental illness, dropout prevention, drug-abuse prevention, literacy, crime, group conflict, health care, cognitive function and dysfunction, and other serious issues. These debates typically focus on who will pay for programs, what role the federal government should play, local versus national control, and so on. But such questions, while important, deflect attention from a crucial point frequently ignored: even if we had considerably greater resources to devote to them (which we do not), all too often we simply do not know how best to deal with these challenges. Here, psychological science can be of immense value because nearly every issue mentioned above is, in large part, a problem of how people develop, of how they think, of how to train and motivate them, or of how people relate to one another. These problems all fall into the province of psychology. To develop effective plans to improve our society, we must know more about ourselves. Such knowledge comes from serious research relevant to the most important problems of contemporary society, including basic research that may eventually help remedy many of them. Research in psychology, whether it involves studying brain mechanisms underlying behaviour or finding better ways to deal with group conflict, builds the needed knowledge base. With appropriate knowledge, issues can be not just addressed, but addressed wisely. Because people are our most important natural resource, we must aim for a sustained, national research effort to enhance understanding of human development and behaviour. Research alone will not solve the nation's problems, but we can be certain that they will not be solved without systematic inquiry and painstaking analysis on a far larger scale than ever before. The time is right for basic and applied psychological research and development that strengthens Canada's human capital. Canada benefits greatly from supporting psychological science. However, this is not always apparent as the spinoffs of psychological research are not so much in new products but in new ways of helping people. In other words, they are applications that contribute to the better use of our human resources. Thus, an increased investment in psychological research across the basic-to-applied spectrum will benefit our society enormously. Psychological science is, relatively speaking, inexpensive science. The price of supporting research in psychological science is small; the cost of not doing so is huge. Considering all of the issues discussed above, the Board of Directors of the Canadian Psychological Association approved in principle in 1995 the convening of a National Conference on Psychology as a Science. This Conference, the first of its kind in Canada, was to focus on the development of explicit action plans to advance and strengthen the role of psychology in health, social, and basic biobehavioural science in Canada for the benefit of all Canadians. Goal of the National Conference Essentially, the goal of the National Conference was two-fold: to develop a vision of research and training in psychology that is appropriate for these changing times, and to identify how Psychology as a discipline could make a meaningful contribution to the national research agenda within the context of the recommendations made by the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology in a recent report submitted to the Prime Minister of Canada and entitled Healthy, Wealthy and Wise: A Framework for an Integrated Federal Science and Technology Strategy and the government's policy response as set out in the document entitled Science and Technology for the New Century: A Federal Strategy. In other words, the aim of the Conference was to determine how psychology as a science could best adapt to the new realities of research and training in Canada and how best to respond to the new demands that research and training be aligned with pressing social, economic, and environmental goals. Being a discipline that spans the cognitive sciences, neurosciences, health sciences, and social sciences, Psychology is uniquely positioned to examine the full continuum of human behaviour and the areas of confluence, and to generate systematic knowledge and information that will bear on the health and well-being of Canadians and the country's ability to create sustainable employment and economic growth. The conference was to be seen as the first step in what is intended to become a continuing process of bringing systematic research to bear on problems of national concerns. Conference Planning Co-Chairs The National Conference on Psychology as a Science was chaired by Dr. Janel G. Gauthier in collaboration with Dr. Anthony G. Phillips. Dr. Gauthier is the President the Canadian Psychological Association and Dr. Phillips is the Head of the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia and a member of the Canadian Council of Departments of Psychology, a major partner in the National Conference. Furthermore, Dr. Gauthier is a scientist-practitioner from Laval University with long-standing research and practice interests in health and social sciences, whereas Dr. Phillips is a neuroscientist who has distinguished himself through outstanding research in basic biobehavioural science. Conference Content A Delphi polling procedure (Linstone & Turoff, 1989) was used to identify the areas of paramount importance for the discipline and to identify, within each area, the critical issues and questions to be addressed during the Conference. A description of the polling procedure and a summary of the data can be found in Appendix A. Essentially, following a preliminary survey, 297 psychology experts from across Canada responded to a questionnaire distributed in English and French at the end of 1995. The Delphi poll revealed that the most highly endorsed topics for the conference centered on: a) Psychology as a science (i.e., its place in science and its relationship to other disciplines); b) Funding for research/training; c) Education and training for research; and d) Advocacy/lobbying for psychology as a science. Based on the responses, and given the fact that they were so unequivocal, the delegates invited to the Conference were given the task to address funding, training, and advocacy. Beforehand, however, they were asked to address Psychology as a science. Sponsors All the major national organizations of psychology in Canada, regardless of whether they were mainly practice or research-oriented, received letters informing them of the plan for a National Conference on Psychology as a Science and inviting their sponsorship of the Conference. At the same time, requests for financial support of the Conference were submitted to the federal research granting councils. Ultimately, the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards, the Canadian Council of Professional Psychology Programs, the Canadian Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology, the Canadian Society of Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Sciences, the Council of Canadian Departments of Psychology, and the Council of Provincial Associations of Psychologists, joined the Canadian Psychological Association as co-sponsors of the Conference. As well, the Medical Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council provided generous support to the Conference. All organizations who were invited to participate expressed support for convening the Conference despite budget considerations that precluded their sponsorship. Delegates All the sponsoring national organizations of psychology in Canada were invited to nominate delegates to the Conference to provide a core of expertise in research, training and funding policy, as well as to reflect the interests of the principal stakeholder groups in psychology as a science. A preliminary list of delegates was selected from all the nominations received. The list was later expanded as more funding became guaranteed. At all times, every effort was made to establish a balance of core expertise, geographical representation, years of experience, gender, language, etc. As well, three Canadian graduate students were invited by peer nomination to provide input from the next generation of researchers into the decision-making processes of the National Conference. This was particularly important when it came to decisions on how their own needs were to be met in the future. To ensure a balance between needs for representation and concerns for working group processes, the total number of delegates was set at 45. A list of the delegates who attended the conference appears in Appendix B. The delegates were assigned, based on their area of core expertise, to one of three working groups: health, social, and basic biobehavioural sciences. There were 15 delegates per group. The coordinators of the working groups were selected among the delegates. In selecting the working group coordinators, once again every effort was made to establish a balance between core expertise, geographical representation, years of experience, gender, language, etc. Experience at leading working groups was a fundamental selection criterion. Prior to the Conference, leaders received a briefing and a specific set of instructions to guide them in their job as group coordinators. Observers Each of the sponsoring research granting councils was invited to send a representative as an observer at the Conference. Dr. Mary-Ann Linseman from MRC, Ms. Denise Ross-Siegel from NSERC, and Mrs. Sheena Lee from SSHRC served as observers for the councils. Each representative was assigned to the working group corresponding to her area of interests. Programme The National Conference on Psychology as a Science convened at the Château Cartier Sheraton Hotel in Aylmer, Québec, on May 8, 1997. It continued over two full days until May 11. An initial plenary session oriented delegates to the tasks of the Conference, after which delegates retired to their respective working groups. Each working group had a Leader whose task was to facilitate the discussion and decision making of the group and a Recorder who tracked the proceedings of the group. Appendix C presents the schedule for the conference. On the first day, working group activities focused on articulating a new, unifying, forward-looking vision for Psychology as a science. Each working group reported in plenary session on the vision statement that it had developed. The full group debated, modified, and ultimately voted approval of the vision statement of the three groups. In all instances in the plenary sessions, under the special rules in place for these proceedings, votes to amend or approve working group documents required a two-thirds majority for passage. In the afternoon, each working group developed a series of goals to support the vision. To be approved, a goal had to be specific, measurable, attainable, and relevant to the vision. The goals were then submitted to the full group meeting in plenary session, where they were again debated, modified, and voted upon. On the second day, each working group identified examples of achievements (i.e., issues to which psychology has contributed a great deal) and challenges (i.e., issues about which psychology has the potential to contribute a great deal as well) that would help politicians and decision makers in the public and private sector to understand better that there is a two-way path from basic research to significant human issues. The examples were then submitted to the full group meeting in plenary session for approval. At the end of the day, the working group activities focused on relapse prevention (i.e., on anticipating obstacles to meeting the challenges and working out solutions to ensure success). Again, these came to the full assembly for discussion, debate, and approval. During the Conference, important concerns were voiced and openly discussed. This allowed delegates to learn a great deal from one another. As a result, mutual respect and understanding between the sub-disciplines were greatly enhanced. The Conference also helped to foster a co-operative spirit within the discipline. At the end, delegates were thinking more collectively. They had realized that we can be cohesive and unified in our diversity, and that we can build bridges and consensus without losing our sub-disciplinary identity. Proceedings The proceedings for the Working Groups can be found in Appendix D. As to the Working Notes of the Conference, they have been edited into a document entitled the "Integrated Notes of the Aylmer Conference on Psychology as a Science." They are available upon request from the CPA Head Office in Ottawa (1-888-472-0657 or cpa@cpa.ca). Final Report The final report is written in a format that captures the essential recommendations that emerged during the Aylmer Conference and presents this information in a way that should make it readily accessible to a broad audience, including the Granting Councils, senior University Administrators and most importantly our colleagues in the field of Psychology throughout Canada. The decision to adopt the present format was taken after extensive consultation by those charged with the task of editing the proceedings, and it was seen as the most rational approach to an otherwise daunting task. Like the National Conference itself, this document is to be seen as just one part of a very important process, one that brings wide-scale collaboration among psychologists across Canada to bear on issues of common concern. The next step will be for each psychology organization to discuss the report and endorse it to provide the discipline with strong, unified, and unequivocal support. A briefer and snappier version of this document will try to capture the vision, goals, achievements, challenges, and needs of psychology as a science to fulfil its mission in the 21st Century. It will be widely disseminated outside the discipline to increase the awareness among the public of the exciting intellectual contributions of scientific psychology, to increase the sense of concern among the general public for the importance of an empirical basis of these findings, and to dispel widespread misconceptions about the workings of the human mind and human behaviour in social contexts. [Chapter One] [National Conference on Psychology as a Science Homepage] |