American Psychological Association

The American Psychological Association (APA) is a professional organization representing psychology in the US. It has around 150,000 members and an annual budget of around $70m. The APA mission statement is to "advance psychology as a science and profession and as a means of promoting health, education, and human welfare".

The APA was founded in July 1892 at Clark University by a group of 26 men. Its first president was G. Stanley Hall. There are currently 53 professional divisions in the APA. It is affiliated with 58 state and territorial and Canadian provincial associations.

Due to the dominance of clinical psychology in APA, several research focussed groups having broken away from APA. These include the Psychonomic Society in 1959 (with a primarily cognitive orientation), and the American Psychological Society in 1988 (with a broad focus on the science and research of psychology).

APA is perhaps best known for APA style, a writing style and formatting standard widely used in the social sciences (especially psychology), and is occasionally confused with the American Psychiatric Association.