APA Distinguished Scholar Lectures for Teaching

Visit here for information about the Harry Kirke Wolfe Lecture series

2025

Michael Tomasello- Evolution and Human Cooperation 

2024

Jessica Hartnett-  What do psychology majors really need to learn in Psychological Statistics? 

Lene Jensen-  The Cultural-Developmental Approach to Research and Teaching: Psychology in Today’s Global World

2023

Michele Hebl - (Postponed from 2022: Title to be announced)

NOTE:  The APA Board of Educational Affairs changed the name of the lecture series in 2022 from the G. Stanley Hall Lectures to the APA Distinguished Scholar Lectures for Teaching

2022

Apryl Alexander - Teaching for Social Justice: Advocacy & Public Scholarship in Psychology
(Second lecture postponed until 2023)

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

Janet K. Swim - Environmental Psychology in the Dawn of the 21st Century
Marie T. Banich - Mind & Brain: Core Concepts and Emerging Ideas in Cognitive Neuroscience

2015

2012

David M. Buss - Why Students Love Evolutionary Psychology . . . and How to Teach It
Christine Chiarello - Brain Organization for Language: It’s All in the Network(s)
Daniel L. Schacter - The Seven Sins of Memory: An Update

2011

Joseph E. Trimble - An Attentive Exploration of Ethnic Identification Perspectives and Influences on Change, Measurement, and Theory
Roy F. Baumeister - The Why, What, and How of Human Consciousness
Gregory J. Madden - Behavioral Economics, Impulsivity, and Health Decision Making

2010

Rex L. Forehand - Advances in the Understanding and Treatment of Child Psychopathology: A Conceptual Framework and Overview for Teachers of Psychology
Hazel Rose Markus - Does Choice Mean Freedom and Well-being?
Alicia M. Alvero - “Apples & Oranges?” Are Organizational Behavior Management and Industrial-Organizational Psychology really so different?

2009

Mary Kite - "The more things change...": Teaching About Stereotyping and Prejudice
David Barlow - Diagnoses, Dimensions, DSM V, and Evidence Based Psychological Treatments: A View to the Future
Alexandra Rutherford - Culture and Controversy: Situating B. F. Skinner in Psychology’s History

2008

Stephen T. Higgins - Reinforcement and Substance Use Disorders
Peter Salovey – Emotional Intelligence: Is There Anything To It?
Wendy M. Williams – Do Women Scientists Get the Credit They Deserve?

2007

Mahzarin R. Banaji - Unconscious Social Cognition: Research, Teaching, and Self-Discovery
Saul Kassin - Why Innocents Confess: Insights from the Psychology Research Laboratory
Stephen Sumoi - Up-tight, Laid-back, and Jumpy Monkeys

2006

Susan Folkman - Positive Emotions in the Stress Process: Should We Care?
Nora S. Newcombe - Uses and Abuses of Evolutionary Psychology
Daniel J. Simons - Failures of Visual Awareness

2005

Barbara Fredrickson - What Good are Positive Emotions?
Daniel J. Povinelli - What's Human about the Human Mind?
Barry Schwartz - The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less

2004

Jessica Henderson Daniel - Teaching about Race and Ethnicity: Focus on Learning about Human Beings
Dan C. McAdams - The Redemptive Self: Generativity and the Stories Americans Live By
Tom Pyszczynski Why Do We Need What We Need? Searching for the Motive Beneath the Motives

2003

Tiffany M. Field - Touch Therapy Research
C. R. Snyder - Questioning Hope and Finding Positive Psychology Answers
Timothy D. Wilson - Affective Forecasting and the Pleasures of Uncertainty

2002

Joshua Aronson - Narrowing the Minority-White Achievement Gap: Lessons Learned From Psychology
Martha McClintock - Biology and Emotion
Roxane Cohen Silver - Thinking Critically on Coping With Life's Traumas

2001

Thomas Blass - History
Nancy Eisengerg - Developmental
Drew Westen - Personality

2000

Alice Eagly -  Prejudice: A Social Role Analysis
K. Anders Eriksson - Capturing the Essence of Excellence: An Expert-Performance Perspecive on Intelligence
James Nairne - Teaching Myths About Memory

1999

Carol Dweck - Motivation and the Self
Sara Kiesler - The Internet and the Family
Edwin Locke - Understanding Motivation by Studying Conscious Goals: A 35-Year Odyssey

1998

David Barlow - The Future of Psychotherapy
Leda Cosmides, - Evolutionary Psychology
Wayne Viney - A Larger Canopy for Psychology: Unifying Themes in Pragmatic Empiricism

1997

Christina Maslach - Wild Card/Burnout
David Matsumoto - Diversity/Emotion
Jerre Levy - Physiological

1996

Robert Sternberg - Successful Intelligence
Harry Triandis - Social/Culture
Brian Little - Personality

1995

Michael Domjan - Learning and Behavior Systems
Christine C. Iijima Hall - The Growing Obsolescence of Psychology in the Diverse U.S. Population
Susan Krauss Whitbourne - Identity and Changes with Age

1994

Lillian Comas-Diaz - Diversity/Clinical
Dennis Sacuzzo - Testing
Margaret Matlin - Sensation and Perception
Robert Cialdini  Social

1993

Alexander Astin - Adult Development and Intelligence
Kurt Danziger - Research and Methodology
Robert Guthrie - History
Elizabeth Capaldi - Motivation and Emotion
LaRue Allen - Teaching

1992

Emily Sue Savage-Rumbaugh - Comparative
Frank J. Landy - Industrial/Organizational
David S. Holmes - Abnormal
Blythe Clinchy - Psychology of Women
Thomas V. McGovern - Teaching/Curriculum

NOTE:  Beginning in 1992, a committee of Division 2 selected the lecturers; prior to that year, a committee in the American Psychological Association selected the lecturers. 

1991

David Myers - Social
Diane Halpern - Teaching
Janet Hyde - Gender
Michael Posner - Cognitive
Mark Ware - Teaching

1990

Arnold Buss - Personality
Irene Hulicka - Developmental
Charles Brewer - Teaching
Jeffrey Rubin - Peace/Conflict
Howard Rachlin - Learning

1989

Linda Bartoshuk - Sensation and Perception
K. Carson - Assessment in I/O
Larwrence Wrightsman - Psychology and Law
Ludy Benjamin - Teaching

1988

Carroll Izard - Emotion
Laurel Furumoto - History
Martin Seligman - Clinical
Michael Mahoney - Sport Psychology
Richard Mayer - Teaching

1987

Leonard Goodstein - Social Psychology of Work
Donald Dewsbury - Comparative
Richard Suinn - Abnormal
Richard Brislin - Culture and Ethnicity
William Cashin - Evaluation of Teaching

1986

Elizabeth Rice Allgeier - Sexual Interactions
Elliot Aronson - Prejudice
Timothy Jay - Computers
Gary Schwartz - Personality and Health
Henry Ellis - Memory

1985

William Crano - Research Methodology
Robert Hogan - Personality
Ellen Reese - Learning
Susan Saegert - Environmental
Wilbert McKeachie - Teaching

1984

Duane Rumbaugh - Comparative
Jerome Kagan - Developmental
Anne Anastasi - Testing
N. Dickon Repucci - Public Policy
Douglas Bloomquist - Sensation and Perception

1983

Russell Geen - Motivation
Sandra Scarr - Intelligence
Nancy Schlossberg - Developmental
Michael Wertheimer - History
Gordon Wood - Research Methodology

1982

Paul Thayer - Industrial/Organizational
Florence Denmark - Psychology of Women
Irwon Sarason - Abnormal
K. E. Moyer - Physiological
Rochel Gelman - Cognitive

1981

Carolyn Wood Sherif - Social
Lee Shulman - Educational Psychology
Elizabeth Loftus - Memory
Dan Stokols- Environmental
Donn Byrne - Human Sexuality

1980

Gregory Kimble - Learning and Memory
David Elkind - Language Development and Cognition
Walter Mischel - Personality
Jerome Singer - Clinical
Wilse Webb - Sleep and Dreams