ABSTRACT
Political conflict on the national scale is inevitably mirrored within the American Psychological Association (APA). Urie Bronfenbrenner and A. D. White especially highlighted the reciprocal processes of misperception illustrated in the cold war and in the Vietnam conflict. There are political challenges within the APA to direct more of its organizational resources toward peace issues. There is local and national politics, where participation in Society for the Psychological Study of Social Interests and in specialized organizations like Psychologists for Social Responsibility offers channels that should be expanded, but where the traditional routes of grass-roots organization and political pressure remain crucial. J. Morawski and S. E. Goldstein cite several other psychologists who, as researchers and commentators in the early 1950s, attributed people's sense of impotence to their readiness to leave matters to expert authorities. People need to be empowered by precept and example, and by political organization.
