Does anyone have any information - or can you suggest a source - regarding when (if ever) the study of social psychology became mandatory on first degree (bachelor) programmes - in the USA, UK and anywhere else. I know the British Psychol Society requires this, but hasn't always. Mark Burton

-- Mark Burton (mark.burton@mcr1.poptel.org.uk), August 06, 2002

Answers

I ran this one by David G. Myers, author of introductory and social psychology textbooks, who I think has his finger on the pulse of the field. His response was "I'm not aware of social psych being a requirement anywhere for anything," which was my guess as well. Social psychology is an "area" requirement in APA accreditation requirements for graduate education, but the course as such is not required. One could track the history of that by looking at various versions of the accreditation guidelines. Unfortunately, the Committee on Accreditation is much too busy to offer help to us historians (I've tried in the past) but the guidelines are probably available at various archives.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), August 16, 2002.