Best Journal Article
All papers published in History of Psychology during the previous year are automatically considered. The award consists of a certificate and an invitation to present an invited address at the APA Convention the following year.
Articles are judged on the following general criteria:
- To what extent does the article add to the historiography of psychology?
- How well documented are the claims made in the article? How extensive is the research?
- To what extent does the article add to our understanding of historical processes?
- What does the article articulate about psychological science, praxis, or theory?
- Scope and potential influence of that work
- Quality of the writing
The selection is made by a committee of three scholars appointed by the President of the Society. Each member serves for three years, with one member rotating off the committee each year. Normally, the person serving for the third year will chair the committee for that year. The committee begins deliberations in May for the volume ending the previous December and continues discussion until a consensus is reached on the winner of the award. If a member of the committee has authored an article in that volume of History of Psychology, she or he will be replaced by the Society President and will return to the committee the following year.
The committee reports the winner to the Society President no later than August 1. The winner of the award for the volume ending in December is announced at the Society’s Business Meeting at the APA Convention in August. The invited address for the winner would take place the following year. The name of the winner is publicized in the News & Notes section of the History of Psychology journal and on this website.
Best Journal Article in
History of Psychology Awardees
“Mere guesswork”: Clarifying the role of intelligence, mentality, and psychometric testing in the diagnosis of “mental defectives” for sterilization in Alberta from 1929 to 1972.
2023 Elliott M. Reichardt, Henderikus J. Stam, and Kim Tan-MacNeill
Pierre Janet and the enchanted boundary of psychical research.
2019 Renaud Evrard, Erika Annabelle Pratte and Etzel Cardeña
Prison break: Karl Menninger’s The Crime of Punishment and its reception in U.S. psychology.
2018 David C. Devonis and Jessica Triggs
The Other Side of the Brain: The Politics of Split-Brain Research in the 1970s-1980s
2017 Michael E. Staub
The 'Textbook Gibson': The Assimilation of Dissidence
2016 Alan Costall and Paul Morris
Great Aspirations: The Postwar American College Counseling Center
2014 Tom McCarthy
Rethinking Relevance: South African Psychology in Context
2013 Wahbie Long
Searching for the second generation of American women psychologists
2008 Elizabeth Johnston & Ann Johnson
Roles of Instruments in Psychological Research
2005 Thomas Sturm & Mitchell Ash
Screening Selves: Sciences of memory and identity on film, 1930-1960
2004 Alison Winter
"To be a big shot or to be shot": Zing-Yang Kuo's other career
2001 Geoffrey Blowers
The triumph of the segregationists? A historiographical inquiry into psychology and the Brown litigation
2000 John P. Jackson, Jr.