536 Professional Organizations
group that provided continuity from one congress to the
next. In 1948, an international organization to support and
promote psychology worldwide was formally discussed at the
first post–World War II congress in Edinburgh. The United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) indicated a willingness to provide financial sup-
port for international scientific organizations. So, in 1951 the
International Union of Scientific Psychology (IUSP) was
formed at the Stockholm meeting of the International
Congress with a name change to the International Union of
Psychological Sciences in 1965. The International Union
of Psychological Sciences became a member of the Interna-
tional Council of Scientific Unions in 1982, with an attendant
change in name to the current International Union of Psycho-
logical Sciences (IUPsyS). In 1952, the IUPsyS became a
member of the International Social Science Council. The
IUPsyS is one of only two scientific unions that belong to
both the International Council of Scientific Unions and the In-
ternational Social Science Council, thus providing a bridge
between the natural sciences and the social and behavioral sci-
ences (Rosenzweig, Holtzman, Sabourin, & Belanger, 2000).
Membership in IUPsyS is by national associations rather
than individual psychologists. There were 20 initial member
nations, mostly drawn from western Europe, but also includ-
ing Canada, the United States, Egypt, Japan, Brazil, Cuba,
and Uruguay. As national associations formed over the sec-
ond half of the twentieth century, membership grew to in-
clude associations from every continent. At the beginning of
the twenty-first century, the IUPsyS represented 66 na-
tional members, which, in turn, represented most of the
500,000 or so psychologists around the world. There are 11
organizations affiliated with IUPsyS. In addition to sponsor-
ing the International Congress of Psychology every 4 years,
IUPsyS publishes The International Journal of Psychology
and facilitates communication among its national members
(Rosenzweig et al., 2000).
The International Association of Applied Psychology
The International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP)
is the oldest international association of individual psycholo-
gists. The archives of the IAAP were destroyed during World
War II, so the full history of the early years of the association
cannot be told. What is known is that in 1920, Edouard
Claparède (1873–1940) and Pierre Bovet (1878–1965), of
the Rousseau Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, organized the
first International Conference of Psychotechnics Applied to
Vocational Guidance. Despite its impressive title, there were
fewer than 50 conference participants. The conference was
hastily arranged to coincide with the annual training course
in vocational guidance offered by the Swiss Association for
Vocational Guidance and Apprentice Welfare (Gundlach,
1998). Vocational guidance was a new area for psychologists
and educators in Europe and the United States. The concept
was pioneered in the United States by attorney Frank Parsons
(1854–1908) and experimental psychologist Hugo Münster-
berg (1863–1916). In Europe, it formed a part of the bur-
geoning field of psychotechnics, in which the apparatus of
experimental psychology laboratories were used to test voca-
tional aptitude and to assist in the selection of personnel (van
Drunen, 1997).
Although the number of participants was small, the papers
were well received and it was decided to have a second,
larger, congress the next year in Barcelona. Following this
first conference, the International Association of Psychotech-
nics was founded with Claparède as its first president, a post
he held until his death in 1941. However, the actual legal
incorporation was not until 1927, when the group merged
with the International Association for Psychology and Psy-
chotechnics (Gundlach, 1998). The name was changed to the
International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) in
1955 (Wilpert, 2000).
The association sponsored international meetings on an ir-
regular basis until 1976, when an agreement was reached
with the IUPsyS to hold congresses every fourth year on an
alternating basis. The International Congresses of Applied
Psychology are currently held every 4 years, 2 years after the
preceding International Congress of Psychology, so there is a
major international congress every 2 years.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the IAAP had
more than 2,000 members in over 90 countries. In 1978, the
association began to organize its members into divisions that
represent various fields of psychology; at the end of the twen-
tieth century there were 14 such divisions. It was also in the
late 1970s that the association began forming committees and
task forces to implement its members’ initiatives. The
mission of the IAAP is to advance scientific work in ap-
plied psychology around the world. Its publications in the
service of this mission include Applied Psychology: An Inter-
national Review and the International Journal of Applied
Psychology.The International Council of PsychologistsThe National Council of Women Psychologists (NCWP)
began in December 1941 as an organization to promote the
interests of women psychologists in the United States. The
name was changed to the International Council of Women
Psychologists after World War II and to the current Interna-
tional Council of Psychologists in 1959.