Chronicle of IAAP

Psychology as a formal discipline is now well over 100 years old, having been recognised officially with the establishment of Wundt's experimental laboratory in Leipzig in 1879. The centennial was celebrated in 1980 at the International Congress of Psychology in Leipzig in honor of this great event in the history of psychology. The international movements in psychology are not far behind in age. From these movements three major general international psychological associations have sprung up and are still flourishing. They are also still sponsoring quadrenniel congresses or annual conventions, although until 1976 when the International Congress of Psychology was held in Paris, this was not always de case. These three international organisations are:

International Congress of Psychology, sponsored by International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS)

International Congress of Applied Psuchology, sponsored by International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP)

International Congress of Cross-Cultural Psychology, sponsored by International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP)

The International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) or Association Internationale de Psychologie Appliquee (AIPA) is the oldest international association of psychologists. It was founded in 1920 as the International Association of Psychotechnology or Association International de Psychotechnique. The association was known by this name until it was changed to the current name in 1955 during the tenure (1953-58) of Clifford Frisby, who was the first non-French speaking president. Frisby, incidentally, was also a nonpsychologist; he was a business man and is the only such president to have served in that office in IAAP. He was the head of the once-great National Institute for Industrial Psychology in Great Britain which, in the 1920s, led the world in industrial psychology and vocational guidance.

The Association is responsible for organising the International Congress of Applied Psychology. The past congresses of IAAP, the city, country and year win which each was held and the name of the organizer of the congress are as follows:

Beginning with the IUPsyS Congress in Paris in 1976, IAAP Congresses started to be organized on a four year cycle.

The IAAP was organised primarily to establish contact and communication among psychologists on an international scale. For the first 50 years of its existence, the Association, although international in nature and in scope, was dominated by European psychology and psychologists. This fact is emphasized by noting who its principal officers were, where its congresses were held, and the nationalities of the organizers of those international meetings. While many Americans and other non-Europeans were members of the Association in those early days, they did not assume major leadership roles. Perhaps much of this was due to the earlier emphasis in psychology outside of Europe (particularly U.K. and France) on experimental and theoretical psychology rather than clinical, counseling and industrial psychology.

All of this seems to have changed with the Montreal Congress, the first to be held outside of Europe, and this trend has continued after congresses held in Kyoto: ICAP move from continent to continent.

After the 23rd ICAP held in Madrid 1994 book of abstracts are available online at the homepage page of IAAP section devoted to congresses.