Some Factors in the Experience of African Americans in Psychology
The Association of Black Psychologists
Asian-American Contributions to Psychology
The Asian American Psychological Association (AAPA)
Hispanic American Contributions
In this chapter, we discuss the issue of ethical diversity in psychology. Embracing diversity has been a long-standing challenge in psychology just as it has been for the larger cultural context. To describe fully all of the social and cultural forces contributing to the problem of racial intolerance as well as the issues that arise from a failure to embrace diversity is a task far beyond the scope of this chapter. Although our experience of racism is very real, in the simplest sense, the concept of race is a product of what sociologists call the “social construction” of reality (Johnson, 2001). We have further limited the scope of this chapter to American psychology. Our discussion includes an examination of the experiences and contributions of some key minority figures in American psychology.
We begin by presenting an overview of the unique challenges faced by African Americans in psychology and highlighting the contributions of four prominent black psychologists: Kenneth B. Clark (1914–2005), Francis Cecil Sumner (1895–1954), Dalmas A. Taylor (1933–1998), and Norman Anderson (1955–). We then discuss briefly the contributions of Asian-American, Hispanic American, and Native American individuals within psychology, highlighting challenges and barriers that are unique to each respective group. Some of the individuals whose contributions are discussed include: Stanley Sue (1944–), Richard Suinn; Martha Bernal (1931–2001), and Carolyn Attneave (1920–1992).
We conclude with a discussion of the present state of American psychology as it relates to diversity. Given the increasingly diverse population in the United States, undergraduate- and graduate-level programs will need to take an active role in recruiting more individuals from minority groups and to enhance our awareness of the need to be culturally sensitive in all areas of psychological practice, in both clinical and research settings.
When you finish studying this chapter, you will be prepared to:
Throughout this text we have discussed the innumerable accomplishments of psychologists around the globe. But a complete history of psychology must include its failings as well as its successes; its challenges as well as its accomplishments. A particular challenge that psychology has faced throughout its history is the development of unified theories while at the same time remaining open to diversity. As a science focused on understanding human behavior, it would be easy to assume that psychology should stand as a shining example of inclusiveness and tolerance. But an honest examination of the history of psychology reveals the restrictiveness and intolerance that has often been perpetuated in the field. As Graham Richards (1997) so aptly states, “Psychology is never separate from its host culture, the psychological concerns of which it shares, articulates, and reflects” (p. 153).
Sociologist Allan Johnson (2001) has stated that the trouble around diversity “is produced by a world organized in ways that encourage people to use difference to include or exclude, reward or punish, credit or discredit, elevate or oppress, value or devalue, leave alone or harass.” Whether an individual differs from the majority on the characteristic of ethnicity, gender, physical ability, age, or even sexual orientation, cultural systems often function in ways that inhibit the full realization of an individual’s potential.
In Chapter 14, “Women in Psychology,” we examined the role sexism has played in the history of psychology. In this chapter, we attempt a limited examination of the role played within American psychology by yet another “-ism,” racism, by highlighting the experiences and accomplishments of a few key African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic American, and Native American psychologists.
African-American psychologists have faced a twofold burden of discrimination in trying to combat racially biased theories proposed and promoted by psychology that have led to discriminatory practices in society as a whole, and numerous academic and employment barriers within the profession. Some outstanding African-American psychologists have played a pivotal role in revealing the fallacy and harmfulness of such theories and practices, thereby enhancing the profession as well as society.
In the early days of African-American involvement in psychology during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, African Americans were only beginning to gain access to higher education and frequently found their opportunities limited to the black colleges and universities located predominantly in the southern states. But even within such institutions, opportunities in psychology were limited; as of 1940, only four black colleges in the United States offered undergraduate programs in psychology. Compared with all-white colleges, such institutions were smaller and tended to have limited facilities, staffing, and funds. The majority of these colleges and universities provided only undergraduate-level programs. Fortunately, a few northern universities such as Clark University in Massachusetts accepted and even encouraged enrollment of black students seeking graduate degrees. However, policies at even such liberal institutions frequently required graduates from black colleges to complete an extra year of undergraduate training to earn a second degree at the white university before accepting their enrollment to graduate studies (Guthrie, 1996). As a further barrier, in the 1930s and 1940s many predominantly white schools did not allow black students to live on campus.
Black applicants frequently faced more severe financial barriers than their white peers and had fewer resources for financial support. This often led to a significant delay in graduate training while potential black graduate students worked to acquire sufficient funds. As late as the 1950s, the median age of black graduate students was 10 to 15 years higher than their white counterparts (Guthrie, 1996). Ultimately, this contributed to a significant decrease in career length for blacks with graduate-level degrees, thus hampering overall career advancement potential. Despite such barriers, between 1920 and 1950, 32 African Americans earned doctoral degrees in psychology. Although this represented a significant achievement, a sobering sense of perspective is gained from contrasting this low number with the fact that between 1920 and 1966 more than 3,700 doctoral degrees were granted in psychology in the United States (Guthrie, 1996; Russo & Denmark, 1987).
After surmounting barriers to graduate-level education, black psychologists then found themselves facing significant professional and employment challenges. Options were limited for those individuals seeking a career in academia since few universities hired African Americans as faculty members. Black colleges and universities were often the only option for employment; however, the limited resources and heavy teaching loads within these institutions limited the chances of achieving professional recognition. A. P. Davis, a professor at one black college, described the atmosphere at these institutions in 1936:
[The black college professor] is criminally underpaid … if he is fortunate enough to get a position, he can look forward to an average salary of less than two thousand dollars a year…. He teaches from eighteen to twenty-one hours a week…. Lack of money, over-work and other unpleasant factors make it practically impossible for him to do anything outstanding in the field of pure scholarship. He cannot buy books on a large scale himself, and he cannot get them at his school libraries, because there are no really adequate libraries in the Negro schools. Probably the worst handicap of all is the lack of a scholarly atmosphere about him. There is no incentive, and, of course, no money for research in most schools.
(Davis, 1936, pp. 103–104)
According to Benjamin and Crouse (2002), many Americans, including psychologists, began to reexamine their views on race as a result of their experiences of World War II and revelations concerning the horrific consequences of Adolf Hitler’s vision of a master race. The American Psychological Association (APA) also began to engage in a deeper examination of its own policies and practices. For example, upon becoming aware that African-American members of APA were being discriminated against in convention hotels, APA’s Council of Representatives adopted a policy in 1950 of not meeting at hotels or venues where minority members would face discrimination (Benjamin & Crouse, 2002).
The year 1968 was a tumultuous one for race relations in the United States and this was true also for relations within the APA. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated on April 4, 1968, and one month later the Poor People’s March on Washington, DC, which had been organized by King prior to his death, took place. On August 26–29 of that same year, protestors and other crowd members were brutally beaten by police at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. At the APA’s annual convention in San Francisco, held only a day later, the APA’s Council of Representatives voted not to hold their 1969 convention in Chicago as a sign of their outrage over the events in Chicago (Pickren & Tomes, 2002).
A number of African-American psychologists present at this same 1968 convention voiced their protest of APA’s failure to adequately address black issues. Their frustration led to the formation of the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi) on September 1, 1968, with approximately 200 original members. On September 2, representatives of ABPsi presented the APA Board of Directors with an agenda for change (Pickren & Tomes, 2002). A petition submitted a month later by the ABPsi to APA’s Council of Representatives included the following demands: (1) APA should endorse the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, which cited white racism as the major cause of social and racial unrest in the United States; (2) APA should investigate the use and misuse of psychological tests with minority populations; (3) black psychologists should be included in the development of all APA policies of relevance to the black community; (4) APA should refuse to do business with vendors who engaged in racially discriminatory employment practices; (5) APA should create a Central Office staff position to deal with social problems; and (6) psychology graduate programs should begin to aggressively recruit African-American faculty and students (Pickren & Tomes, 2002).
APA’s gradual movement to address the concerns raised by the ABPsi marked a change in the APA’s stance regarding its role in social issues. Previously, APA leaders had endorsed a very limited role for psychology in social concerns, indeed, arguing that psychology and psychologists should not be concerned with social problems. As a sign of APA’s increasing recognition of the need for more active involvement in social problems, it created the Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology (BSERP), which later evolved into the current Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest.
One African-American psychologist who played a key role in APA’s changing attitude regarding its social and ethical responsibilities was Kenneth B. Clark. Together with his wife Mamie Phipps Clark (1917–1983), whose accomplishments are described in Chapter 14, Kenneth Clark had a significant impact on the world of American psychology and on the face of American education.
Black psychologists averaged 4% of the total number of active psychologists in the United States according to 2013 U.S. Census Bureau statistics (See Table 2.2 Number and Percentage of Active Psychologists in the United States, Chapter 2), and 1.3% of APA members identified their race as Black (see Table 2.1 American Psychological Association 2016 in Chapter 2). In 2013 black female psychologists outnumbered black male psychologists 6 to 1 (see Chapter 2, Table 2.3 Estimate Number and Percentage of Active Psychologists by Gender & Ethnicity).
Kenneth B. Clark (1914–2005) was born in the Panama Canal Zone, the son of Arthur and Miriam Clark. He first came to the United States at the age of seven and was educated in the public school system in New York City. In 1929, Clark enrolled at Howard University where he received his BS degree in psychology in 1935 and his MS degree just one year later. It was during his years at Howard that Clark first met Mamie Phipps, who later became his wife as well as his colleague and frequent collaborator. Together in 1946, the pair established the Northside Center for Child Development in New York City.
For his graduate studies, Clark enrolled at Columbia University where he was awarded the PhD in psychology in 1940. He subsequently found employment teaching in New York at Queens College and as professor of psychology at City College. As an educator, Clark was able to exert widespread influence on a generation of students through his activities as a visiting professor at Columbia University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Harvard University, as well as through his membership on the New York State Board of Regents and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago.
Clark is perhaps best known for his role in unmasking the harmful effects of segregation. The U.S. Supreme Court cited Clark’s work in its 1954 decision, Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, which struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine of the Plessy v Ferguson decision of 1896 that was the foundation of school segregation in 17 states and the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court cited a summary, written by Clark, of psychological theories concerning the effect of prejudice and discrimination on personality development. Brown v Board of Education has been described as arguably the most important Supreme Court decision of the 20th century in terms of its influence on American history (Benjamin & Crouse, 2002).
In addition to influencing the American system of education, the Brown decision represented a milestone in the relationship between psychology and the legal system, since this was the first time that psychological research played a significant role in a Supreme Court decision (Benjamin & Crouse, 2002). As argued by Richards (1997) “while, in point of fact, the Supreme Court … stressed that its decision was taken on purely legal and moral grounds, not scientific ones, the prominence given to the involvement in the case of psychologists and sociologists overshadowed this” (p. 245).
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Clark sought to reach a broader audience than his peers in academia through his book Prejudice and Your Child (1955), in which he presented a summary of psychological research on the relationship between prejudice and personality development (Keppel, 2002). The message Clark conveyed in this book was that “children learn prejudice in the course of observing and being influenced by the existence of patterns in the culture in which they live” (Clark, 1989, p. 17). The evidence Clark used to support his conclusion included the results of the now famous “Doll Studies” conducted by Clark and his wife.
During the Doll Studies, a group of more than 200 early school age black children were presented with four dolls, two black in appearance and the other two white, but otherwise identical. The children were then asked first to identify which doll they liked best or would prefer to play with and then to select which doll resembled the child most. Kenneth and Mamie Clark discovered that the majority of the children indicated a preference for the white doll. As Clark poignantly described the reaction of one participant: “one little girl … had shown a clear preference for the white doll and … described the brown doll as ugly and dirty” (Clark, 1989, p. 45). When the investigator responded by pointing out to the child that she herself was brown, she “broke into a torrent of tears” (Clark, 1989, p. 45). Clark concluded that such responses indicated that rigid racial segregation caused these children to accept “as normal the fact of [their] inferior social status…. Such an acceptance is not symptomatic of a healthy personality” (Clark, 1989, p. 45).
Prejudice and Your Child presented an overall optimistic view that significant social change could be accomplished if individuals in the general public were made sufficiently aware of the information already well known to social scientists concerning the facts of prejudice as a learned, not innate, behavior. In his later works, including the books Dark Ghetto (1965) and Pathos of Power (1974), Clark evidenced an increasingly pessimistic tone in his assessment of the willingness and ability of the American public to confront its own racism (Keppel, 2002).
Clark achieved prominence within the community of his peers and from 1970 to 1971 served as the first African American to hold the office of president of the American Psychological Association. The APA also honored Clark with the association’s Gold Medal Award. He served as president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, the same organization that awarded him the Kurt Lewin Memorial Award in 1966. He was also recognized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for his work on behalf of civil rights when they awarded him the Spingarn Medal in 1961.
Francis Sumner (1895–1954) is often acknowledged as one of the leading African-American figures in the history of psychology. In fact, R. V. Guthrie, in his groundbreaking book, Even the Rat Was White (1976), referred to Sumner as the “Father of Black American Psychologists.”
Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Francis Sumner received his early education in Norfolk, Virginia, and later in Plainfield, New Jersey. He did not receive a formal high school education since secondary education for blacks was a rarity in the early 1900s. Sumner’s father was also apparently dissatisfied with the quality of secondary education then available to black youth and Sumner’s application form for employment at Howard simply states, “Private instruction in secondary subjects by father” (Bayton, 1975).
After passing a written examination, Sumner was accepted at the age of 15 as a freshman at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, an all-black institution founded in 1854. Although his parents worked hard to contribute financially to their son’s education, Sumner himself had to work at a variety of part-time jobs to help pay for his tuition.
Despite his financial struggles, Sumner graduated as valedictorian from Lincoln in 1915 and expressed an interest in becoming a writer. If his dream of being a writer was to become a reality, Sumner knew that in the meantime he would have to support himself financially through some other endeavor such as teaching or government employment. Since employment opportunities were limited for black college graduates, even at the doctoral level, financial issues remained a constant concern and barrier to participation in the academic setting, even after graduation.
In 1915, Sumner enrolled at Clark University where he took a number of courses in English as well as electives in foreign languages and psychology (Guthrie, 1996). He graduated from Clark in 1916 with a BA in English.
Sumner returned to Lincoln University in 1916 as a graduate student and instructor of psychology and German. Recognizing the need to further his own studies, he began exploring his options. He initially leaned toward graduate studies in German since that seemed to offer more chances of financial assistance than would graduate studies in psychology. He first applied to American University and the University of Illinois but was not accepted at either institution. With the encouragement of his mentor Hall as well as James Porter, the dean of Clark University, Sumner began graduate studies in psychology at Clark University in 1917.
At the time he was beginning his graduate studies at Clark, the United States had just entered World War I. Knowing that the potential existed for him to be drafted into military service at any moment, Sumner dove headlong into his studies. But his own experience of racism within the United States led him to have a different perspective on American involvement in the war in Europe and he wrote several letters to the local newspaper. His opinions proved very unpopular with many of the leading citizens of Worcester, Massachusetts.
In one of these letters, Sumner wrote at length criticizing claims that the United States was “a self-appointed paragon of virtue” and making an interesting psychoanalytic analysis of racism in the United States (Guthrie, 1996). This letter prompted an intense negative reaction from local citizens, who felt Sumner’s words were traitorous and an attack on American ideals. Sumner formally apologized in a letter to the newspaper.
By the end of the semester, the controversy had died down considerably, allowing Sumner to focus his attention on his studies. At this point he completed a study titled “Psychoanalysis of Freud and Adler,” which he was attempting to publish. He also wrote Hall, asking him to consider the piece as a potential doctoral dissertation. Before Hall could respond, Sumner was drafted into military service.
Sumner served in the military until the fall of 1919, and upon his discharge he returned to Clark University. On June 14, 1920, Francis Cecil Sumner successfully completed his studies, thereby becoming the first African American to earn a PhD in psychology. Over the next two years, he went on to teach philosophy and psychology, first at Wilberforce University and later at Southern University in Louisiana. In the fall of 1921, Sumner accepted a position at West Virginia Collegiate Institute (WVCI) where he remained for seven years. During this time, he wrote a number of controversial articles criticizing colleges and universities for their treatment of African Americans and endorsing the views of W. E. B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington.
Sumner resigned from WVCI in 1928 to become acting chairman of the Department of Psychology at Howard University where he remained for the rest of his career. While at Howard, Sumner breathed new life into the psychology department, turning it into the premier African-American institute for the study of psychology. His students included Kenneth B. Clark. Throughout his career, Sumner’s primary areas of interest were in psychological topics dealing with race and religion. His career came to an untimely end when he died of a heart attack while shoveling snow outside of his home in Washington, DC, on January 12, 1954.
At the time of Taylor’s death in 1998, his longtime friend James M. Jones described Taylor as someone “who was always trying to get people involved in things, to make a difference” (Jones, 1998, p. 1). One of the many ways in which Taylor made a difference for psychology was by founding the Minority Fellowship Program at APA in 1965.
Originally from Detroit, Michigan, Dalmas Taylor (1933–1998) served in the U.S. Army before going on to complete a BS degree in chemistry at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1959. He then attended Howard University where he earned his master’s degree in psychology in 1961 before completing doctoral training in psychology at the University of Delaware. It was while he was at Howard University that Taylor first began his research activities in the area of race and social justice (Jones, 2000).
Over the course of his career Taylor worked in a variety of settings including the Naval Medical Research Institute, the University of the District of Columbia, the University of Maryland, Wayne State University, the University of Vermont, the University of Texas at Arlington, and Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, but no matter where he traveled, his interest in racism and social justice remained constant.
As founding director of the Minority Fellowship Program at APA, Taylor was instrumental in assuring that departments of psychology should respond to the problem of underrepresentation of ethnic minorities within the discipline (Jones, 2000). He also opened the APA to the inclusion of ethnic minority psychologists in a number of ways. With the help of colleagues including James M. Jones, Taylor created a Summit of Ethnic Minority Psychologists in 1978. This summit, which became known as the Dulles conference, paved the way for the later establishment of APA’s office of Ethnic Minority Affairs, Board of Ethnic Minority Affairs, and Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues—Division 45 (Jones, 2000).
Before his untimely death following a brief illness, Taylor published six books along with a number of journal articles and book chapters, including his early work on the subject of self-disclosure (Altman & Taylor, Social Penetration: The Development of Interpersonal Relationships, 1973). With collaborator Phyllis Katz, Taylor edited Eliminating Racism: Profiles in Controversy (1988); this text has been described by Jones (2000, p. 341) as including “the best scientific and social policy perspectives on race relations in recent times.” When he became ill, Taylor was working on a book about affirmative action, which he asked his daughter, Monique Taylor, an assistant professor of sociology at Occidental College in California, to complete after his death.
While African Americans have made significant strides in overcoming academic and professional barriers within psychology (thanks in part to the work of individuals like Clark, Sumner, and Taylor), an examination of current demographics within the profession in the United States reveals the remaining presence of barriers. For example, looking at the demographics within APA in the year 2000, data indicate that the number of minority participants as a whole remains far below being representative of the minority population in the United States. APA members identifying their ethnicity as black represent only 1.7% of the total membership of APA (APA Research Office, 2000). In addition, African Americans, as well as other ethnic minority psychologists, have found it difficult to breach the upper-leadership levels within the profession. In the current generation of American psychologists, Norman B. Anderson is another African-American psychologist who has succeeded despite remaining barriers within the profession and society at large.
Norman B. Anderson is a distinguished teacher-scholar and national leader for the promotion of Psychology essential to enhancing the personal resources of individuals and groups. Dr. Anderson joined APA in 1985, and ascended quickly to leadership roles in APA. He was the youngest member of the APA Board of Directors and the first African American to serve as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the American Psychological Association.
He has held faculty appointments at Duke University School of Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health. He is well-known for his research and writings on health disparities and health behavior. As CEO, he created the first strategic plan for APA. He advocated for the inclusion of integrated care, health promotion and disease prevention, and mental health care in health-care legislation. He is well known for his research and writings on health disparities and health behavior. Dr. Anderson was the founding Associate Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in charge of behavioral and social science, and was the first Director of the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR). At NIH, he was charged with facilitating behavioral and social sciences research across all of the Institutes and Centers of the National Institutes of Health. Under his purview was behavioral and social research in such areas as cancer, heart disease, child health, mental health, diabetes, aging, and oral health.
In 2005 and 2006 APA officials changed the traditional ethic of “do no harm” to “assess the harm being done.” This change in ethics allowed the APA to be the only professional organization whose members would provide the needed legal support for the CIA’s torture program. As indicated in the earlier treatment of the Hoffman Report the APA Leadership resigned. In 2016 Anderson retired as APA CEO.
Asian-American psychologists, like their African-American peers, have faced a variety of barriers to their full participation in the discipline; however, the exact nature of the barriers experienced has been quite different. In examining the barriers faced by Asian-American psychologists one of the first hurdles to be addressed is to develop an understanding of the diversity of Asian Americans, which include a third-generation American of Chinese descent, the child of Japanese Americans subjected to forcible internment in relocation camps during World War II, or a Vietnamese refugee.
Applying a term like Asian-American implies a common shared experience, but this would be far removed from reality since the label “Asian-American” is applied to a widely diverse and growing population containing as many as 32 distinct cultural groups. Asian-Americans of different national origins have different histories of immigration and acculturation (Dana, 1993; Kitano & Daniels, 1988).
The Asian American Psychological Association (AAPA) was founded in December of 1972 by a group of Asian-American psychologists and mental health professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area. At the time of its founding, the few Asian-Americans working in the field of psychology had very few mentors available to help them navigate within the profession. By 2002, AAPA included nearly 500 members (APA, 2002b).
The primary goals of the AAPA have always been to advance understanding and knowledge within the profession of psychology concerning Asian-American psychology and mental health issues, to increase training and education opportunities for Asian-American mental health professionals, and to function as a resource for peer collaboration and networking. Throughout the course of its existence, the AAPA has been at the forefront of advancing understanding of the need for cultural competence within all arenas of psychology, including research, training, and service. Two of AAPA’s earliest members, Stanley Sue and Richard Suinn, have succeeded in achieving high levels of influence within American psychology.
Asian psychologists averaged 4% of the total number of active psychologists in the United States according to 2013 U.S. Census Bureau statistics (See Table 2.2 Number and Percentage of Active Psychologists in the United States, Chapter 2), and only 1.8% of APA members identified their race as Asian (see Table 2.1 American Psychological Association, 2016 in Chapter 2). The ratio of Asian women to Asian men psychologists in the workforce was 2 to 1 (see Chapter 2, Table 2.3 Estimate Number and Percentage of Active Psychologists by Gender & Ethnicity).
Stanley Sue (1944–) was born in 1944 in Portland, Oregon, where he was raised. His father was a Chinese immigrant and his mother was an American-born person of Chinese descent. As Sue amusingly recalled in an autobiographical account, his early childhood goal was to become a television repairman (Sue, 1994). Fortunately for the discipline, when he was in high school Sue decided to explore the field of psychology instead. He was joined in this pursuit by three of his brothers.
In his autobiography, Sue discussed one interesting barrier to the participation of Asian-Americans in psychology, and that is the relative invisibility of the profession to many Asian-Americans. When Sue first told his parents of his intention to become a clinical psychologist his father, who was born in China, had no concept of what the profession of psychology entailed (Sue, 1994). Sue (1994) attributed this reaction to the general lack of familiarity with psychology of many Chinese and other Asian-Americans that was due in part to the under-utilization of psychological services by this population.
Stanley Sue completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Oregon and then attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where he earned his master’s in 1967 and his PhD in 1971. Although Sue initially prepared himself primarily for a career as a clinical therapist, his interests changed after gaining exposure to research and teaching (American Psychological Association, 1997). For his dissertation research, he investigated processes involved in the reduction of cognitive dissonance.
During the 1960s, Sue developed an interest in ethnic research as a consequence of his exposure to the turmoil present across many university campuses related to the issues of civil rights and American involvement in the Vietnam War. He began to realize the general absence of knowledge within psychology concerning ethnic research on such relevant topics as socialization, culture, cultural bias, and effective intervention and prevention efforts with respect to ethnically diverse populations (American Psychological Association, 1997).
After earning his PhD, Sue joined the faculty of the psychology department at the University of Washington where he spent ten years before returning to his alma mater, UCLA, as a professor of psychology. He remained at UCLA until 1996, at which time he assumed a position as professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of California in the Asian American Studies Program.
Included among his many accomplishments are his establishments of both the Asian American Psychological Association in 1972, in association with his brother Derald, and the National Research Center on Asian American Mental Health in 1988. Through these and other endeavors, Sue has been at the cutting edge of research on ethnicity and mental health. In recognition of his accomplishments, he has received numerous awards, including the 1986 Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest from APA, the 1990 Distinguished Contributions Award for Research on Ethnic Minorities from APA-Division 45, and the 1990 Distinguished Contributions Award from the Asian American Psychological Association.
In the early days of the AAPA, Stanley Sue was joined by fellow Asian-American psychologist Richard Suinn. In 1999, Suinn became the first Asian-American to be elected president of the American Psychological Association (APA). At the time, Suinn was only the third ethnic minority individual to hold this position in the history of APA.
Suinn was born in Hawaii and received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Ohio State University. He completed both his master’s and PhD degrees in clinical psychology at Stanford University. Suinn’s primary area of interest within psychology is the field of sports psychology and he has authored eight books and numerous articles on such topics as sports psychology, peak performance, and anxiety management.
Suinn has had a number of unusual and varied experiences during the course of his career as a psychologist, including serving as team psychologist for four Olympic teams and as mayor of Fort Collins, Colorado, in the 1970s. He was the first sports psychologist to be included in the Olympic sports medicine team. His research activities include a case study Suinn conducted concerning the use of mental imagery to enhance performance. Suinn pioneered the use of visualization techniques.
Included among his more traditional accomplishments within psychology, Suinn is an emeritus professor and former chair of the Department of Psychology at Colorado State University. Prior to assuming the role of APA president, Suinn was appointed, in 1995, to lead the APA Commission on Ethnic Minority Recruitment, Retention, and Training. In 1994, he received the APA’s Career Contribution to Education Award.
Like the Asian-American population, there is no single Hispanic or Latino population, but rather a collection of distinct groups whose culture, language, and/or geography have Latin roots (Padilla & Salgado de Snyder, 1985). The Latino population is the fastest-growing group in the United States; the number of Latinos in the United States more than doubled between 1980 and 2000, accounting for 40% of the growth in the country’s population during that period, and in 2003 the U.S. Census Bureau designated Latinos as the nation’s largest minority group (Saenz, 2004).
Despite the rapid growth in size of the Hispanic American population, their representation within psychology remains limited. For example, Hispanic psychologists averaged 5% of the total number of active psychologists in the United States according to 2013 U.S. Census Bureau statistics (see Table 2.2 Number and Percentage of Active Psychologists in the United States, Chapter 2), and only 1.6% of APA members identified their race as Hispanic (see Table 2.1 American Psychological Association, 2016 in Chapter 2). In the workplace, female Hispanic psychologists outnumber male Hispanic psychologists 5 to 1 (see Chapter 2, Table 2.3 Estimate Number and Percentage of Active Psychologists by Gender & Ethnicity).
Martha Bernal (1931–2001) was born in San Antonio, Texas, the daughter of Alicia and Enrique de Bernal, who both emigrated from Mexico as young adults. Raised primarily in El Paso, Texas, Bernal earned her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Indiana University, Bloomington, in 1962. Bernal was the first Latina to receive a PhD in psychology in the United States.
In addition to overcoming the barriers often encountered by fellow ethnic minority psychologists within professional or academic arenas, Bernal also encountered obstacles at home. The more successful she became in her academic endeavors, the more Bernal realized that her father did not support her goals because he believed that women were to be married and that college education for women was a waste (Vasquez & Lopez, 2002). Her father eventually relented and grew to support her efforts under the influence of Bernal’s own persistence and the unwavering support of her mother and older sister.
Bernal is most remembered for her contributions to two important areas in the field of psychology: (1) the treatment of children with behavior problems, and (2) the advancement of a multicultural psychology (Vasquez & Lopez, 2002). Bernal was instrumental in bringing the use of learning theory and methods to the treatment and assessment of children with behavior problems, resulting in an increase in use of empirically validated interventions in the treatment of children (Vasquez, 2003). Active in professional as well as scholarly activities, Bernal helped to advance psychology toward a more multicultural perspective that recognizes the importance of diversity in training, recruitment, and research (Vasquez, 2003).
In the early 1970s, Bernal’s research activities focused attention on the fact that psychology was significantly lacking in adequate representation of ethnic minority practitioners within the discipline. In articles published in journals that included American Psychologist (e.g., Bernal & Castro, 1994) as well as The Counseling Psychologist (Quintana & Bernal, 1995), she called attention to the low numbers of minority graduate students and faculty members in psychology departments across the United States (Vasquez, 2003).
While at the University of Denver and Arizona State University, Bernal implemented a number of strategies designed to increase the presence of minority students (Vasquez, 2003). She also received a number of financial awards from various foundations, including the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) to study training of clinical psychologists to work with ethnic minority populations.
Bernal was also an active leader in the profession of psychology, including serving on the task force responsible for establishing what is now called the National Latina/o Psychological Association (NLPA) in 1986. She served as NLPA’s second president and as a treasurer. Bernal also was actively involved in a variety of public interest initiatives including APA’s Commission on Ethnic Minority Recruitment, Retention, and Training (CEMRRAT); the Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest; and the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns.
In recognition of the importance of her efforts on behalf of the profession of psychology, Dr. Bernal received a number of awards, including the Distinguished Life Achievement Award from Division 45 of APA (Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues), the Hispanic Research Center Lifetime Award from Arizona State University, and the Carolyn Attneave Award for contributions to ethnic minority psychology. Sadly, Bernal received this latter award only a few weeks prior to her death from cancer on September 28, 2001, in Black Canyon City, Arizona.
As Dana (1993) emphasizes, Native Americans do not constitute a homogeneous group, and their various subcultures are neither intact nor fully functional. However, Native Americans appear to share a common core of worldview characteristics that have persisted. According to Dana (1993), this sense of Native American identity has not only minimized the degree of assimilation into the larger Anglo-American culture, but has also sustained the Native American population despite conditions of poverty, lack of educational opportunities, isolation, and discrimination.
Despite constituting a numerically small group, the Native American population represents 517 different native entities recognized by the federal government, and state governments recognize 36 tribes with unique customs, social organization, and ecology (Dana, 1993; LaFramboise & Low, 1989). According to data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census (2010) approximately 2.9 million people, or 1.7% of the total population, identified themselves as American Indian or Alaska Native, and an additional 5.2 million people or 1.7% of the total population, reported mixed ethnicity, including American Indian and Alaska Native and at least one other race (www.ncai.org/about-tribes/demographics).
Research indicates significant underutilization of mental health services by the Native American population. A variety of causes for this underutilization have been theorized including the basic reality that mental health services are often not available, especially in reservation communities (LaFramboise, 1988). In addition, the few professional mental health service providers present on reservations, many of whom are Anglo-American, are often disadvantaged by their tendency to approach their clients from a typical medical model that is at odds with the more informal, equalitarian relationships typical of Native American culture (Dana, 1993).
As of 1983, only 180 Native Americans were identified as holding master’s or doctoral degrees in psychology (Stapp, Tucker, & VandenBos, 1985), and most were involved in research or education and not in the direct provision of clinical services. APA membership data from 2000 included 208 individuals identifying themselves as American Indian.
Access to education remains a significant barrier for the Native American population. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of the of American Indian and Alaska Natives report completing at least a high school education, 11.5% have completed a bachelor’s degree, and only 3.9% have completed advanced degrees (please note that these data reflect responses from individuals identifying themselves as American Indian or Alaska Native only and do not include respondents of mixed racial identity).
Like Martha Bernal, Carolyn Attneave (1920–1992) was a native Texan. Born in El Paso, Attneave was the daughter of a Swedish-American father and a Delaware Indian mother. In an autobiographical account, Attneave (1990) described herself as a “maverick” and reviewing accounts of her life path certainly confirms the aptness of this description. Following the path of her father, who fought in World War I, Attneave served as a naval officer during World War II. She was the youngest commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard and a member of the Coast Guard’s first class of women (Attneave, 1990). After leaving military service, her interests turned to the profession of psychology. Her primary area of interest was in family therapy and she emerged as one of the field’s leading figures.
After completing her graduate degree in psychology at Stanford University in the early 1950s, Attneave continued to develop her interest in General Systems Theory (GST) that stimulated her during her graduate years. As described by Attneave (1990), just as “Unified Field Theory” was the goal of so-called hard sciences in the 1980s, the goal of general systems theorists was to unify explanations and descriptions of social, biological, and mechanical actions and reactions that were developed from multidisciplinary perspectives. Attneave had experienced Stanford’s approach to the concept of GST through participation in a series of seminars in which invited students joined in discussions with faculty from such diverse departments as Psychology, Engineering, Medicine, Physics, and Anthropology (Attneave, 1990).
GST interested Attneave in part because it provided a theoretical foundation for her Native American understanding of the interrelationships present among all phenomena of the world (Kliman & Trimble, 1993). Attneave is best remembered for her groundbreaking work in network intervention. During the mid-1960s in Oklahoma, she began to utilize the social networks of underserved populations, including Native Americans, African Americans, and poor whites, to compensate for the inadequate services provided by the mental health and social service systems (Kliman & Trimble, 1993).
In 1970, at Philadelphia Child Guidance, Attneave began collaboration with Ross Speck. Together, she and Speck introduced the network approach to family therapy with their book Family Networks: A Way toward Retribalization and Healing in Family Crises (Speck & Attneave, 1973). In this book, Speck and Attneave presented the radical concept that just as an individual’s difficulties and strengths are embedded and can be treated within the context of his or her family, so too are the family’s difficulties and strengths embedded and can be treated within the context of its social networks (Kliman & Trimble, 1993; Speck & Attneave, 1973).
Attneave then moved to Boston where she lived from 1969 to 1974. During her years there she taught at the Boston Family Institute and worked at the Harvard School of Public Health where she evaluated mental health services provided nationally by Indian Health Services. Attneave also helped found Boston City Hospital’s Minority Training Program, a psychology internship and service program serving Boston’s inner-city population. She led numerous training seminars in family and network therapy through the auspices of the Massachusetts Psychological Association’s Professional School for Psychologists.
Attneave moved across the continent to Seattle in 1975 to take a joint position as Director of American Indian Studies and professor of psychology at the University of Washington. She remained there until her retirement in 1987. Attneave once asked her colleagues where they would place her within the variety of subclassifications within the field of family therapy. As befits a maverick, the best description her colleagues could devise was “eclectic.” She agreed with this description but felt the need to describe the “meta-structure” underlying her overall approach to family therapy. In summary, Attneave (1990, p. 42) felt that the wide variety of human behaviors could be divided into four classifications:
In addition to her many contributions to the field of family therapy, Attneave cofounded the American Indian Psychologists Association and served as its president from 1978 to 1980 and was an active member of the Association for Indian Affairs. In recognition of her efforts to enhance APA’s level of multicultural awareness, Attneave was posthumously awarded APA’s 1992 Psychologist of the Year award. She died on June 20, 1992, after a year-long battle with lung cancer. She left behind a network of colleagues spanning both sides of the continent who were deeply influenced by her approach to family therapy.
In this chapter, we discussed briefly the issue of racial diversity in psychology, focusing primarily on psychology within the United States. Embracing diversity has been a longstanding problem in psychology as well as the larger cultural context, and recent historical events around the globe have only served to heighten global racial tensions, thus increasing the need to address intolerance in all forms. One initial step toward embracing diversity in American psychology is to enhance our understanding of the history of minority-group participation within psychology.
We began by presenting an overview of the unique challenges faced by African Americans in psychology and highlighting the contributions of four prominent African-American psychologists: Kenneth B. Clark, Francis Cecil Sumner, Dalmas A. Taylor, and Norman Anderson. We then discussed briefly the contributions of Asian-American, Hispanic American, and Native American individuals within psychology, highlighting challenges and barriers that are unique to each respective group. Some of the individuals whose contributions were discussed include: Stanley Sue, Richard Suinn, Martha Bernal, and Carolyn Attneave. Many of these individuals have contributed significantly to the profession’s understanding of ethnic minority issues in addition to their contributions to general psychological theory.
While significant strides have been made over the last two decades, psychology will need to continue addressing the issue of underrepresentation of ethnic minority groups within its professional ranks. Given the increasingly diverse population in the United States, undergraduate and graduate level programs will need to take an active role in recruiting more individuals from minority groups and enhancing our awareness of the need to be culturally sensitive in all areas of psychological practice, in both clinical and research settings. Progress toward fully embracing diversity will require each of us, as individuals, to examine our own role in perpetuating intolerance. Psychology as a profession also needs to be open to a similar degree of self-examination if significant progress is to be made in building a psychology that can adequately meet the needs of our changing and increasingly diverse world.