“Cautious Courage”: SPSSI's Connections and Reconnections at the United Nations

Abstract

The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) has had official connections to the United Nations (UN) at two separate points in its history. In the period right after World War Two (1946–1960), SPSSI leaders were involved in the building of a global social science network through the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Otto Klineberg was heavily involved in creating connections between UNESCO and SPSSI. Changes at UNESCO as well as in academic research culture, combined with continued Cold War politics, minimized SPSSI's involvement at the UN throughout the 1960s and 1970s. By the mid‐1980s, NGOs were increasingly a significant force in the UN through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). SPSSI has had NGO status since 1987 and was awarded consultative status in 1991, allowing the Society greater input at the UN. Since that time, SPSSI has continued to bring a research focus to a range of projects at the UN aimed at improving global well‐being.

Advocacy: Global opportunities and responsibilities for psychologists.

“…Following World War II, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) encouraged international cooperation among psychologists and other social scientists who became involved with UNESCO because they believed that their scientific work could offer insights into how another atomic war could be prevented (Okorodudu et al, 2020). Between 1946 and1960, Otto Klineberg, Gordon Allport, and UNESCO International Tensions Project, 1948-1949, and later as director of UNESCO's Division of Applied Social Sciences, 1953-1955(Cherry et al, 2011. Under his leadership during these years, the Tensions Project focused on the scientific conception of race and developed scientific facts to promote UNESCO's objective to combat racism and racial prejudice and to dispel stereotypic misconceptions among racial/ethnic groups in various countries (Klineberg, 1956).…”

A human rights‐based approach to climate injustices at the local, national, and international levels: Program and policy recommendations

“…Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that have obtained consultation status at the UN have long played a crucial role in the development of the UDHR and subsequent human rights agreements and the push for declarations to become conventions that are legally binding. As one example, US psychologists and the 18 NGOs later formed have been involved in the UN since 1947 and have advocated for human rights in nearly all the declarations and treaties mentioned above in their roles at the UN and in lobbying government officials to support the documents (Cherry et al, 2011;Okorodudu et al, 2020).…”