A message from our president

Dear Colleagues,

I appreciate the opportunity to serve Division 6 and would like to express my gratitude for being chosen to serve as president in 2026. I am going to share some thoughts about service to professional organizations, specifically the place of SBNCP/Division 6 in APA, and participation in the Division 6 meeting and program. My view is optimistic toward the benefits of participation, and I’ll highlight the program constructed by our wonderful program chairs for this year’s meeting in August.

Annual meetings of professional organizations create places to connect with others in the field. For students, this can be meeting peers in poster sessions and forming friendships. Meetings serve to provide participants with feedback on ideas and opportunities to receive support and advice. As careers develop, service to professional organizations creates opportunities to connect with the field. Attendance at and service to professional organizations takes effort. But in return, the benefits include a great program of activities such as the Division 6 program at the APA convention, a social media where members can share and discuss ideas, and opportunities to contribute to the field and members’ scholarly work.

Division 6 has been active in all these areas. Nonetheless, this year there was a big drop in membership, participation in the program is low, and few plan to attend the APA meeting to participate in Division 6.

What do we get out of attending APA? The American Psychological Association is a big organization, and behavioral neuroscience and comparative psychology are not the main attractions, or are the divisions adjacent to ours (e.g., Divisions 3, 25, 28). APA functions to support practice and provide accreditation to the academic programs that train clinical psychologists.

This may not be news to readers over the age of 40, but the role of experimental and comparative psychology was debated in the organization in the 1980s, and there was even a splinter group that is now known as the Association for Psychological Science. Google AI gives a nice summary of the whole saga. Aside from rehashing historical details, I want to raise the issue of why one would attend APA when the umbrella organization appears not to be committed to scientific psychology and even considers proposals to endorse non-scientific ideas. APA is a political organization, and this should not be surprising as an entity that represents psychology, which is a broad and sometimes poorly defined discipline.

First, I will note another piece of history. APA has been a strong ally to animal research and research involving nonhuman animals, including primates, birds, dogs, cats, horses, fish, marine mammals, and so on. See recent examples here:

For more information on research advocacy more broadly in APA:

There are also examples from APS that are worth sharing here:

Know the Issues: Make Your Voice Heard

Second, and meant to be less dramatic, I have enjoyed attending the conventions. Our Division 6 group is full of kind, energetic, and committed people; they are fun to be around. APA has a lot going on. Most attendees are members of several divisions and attend sessions organized across different topics. This makes for the opportunity to explore areas that are not typically available at a single-track conference and find overlapping areas of interest. For example, I attended talks by John Wixted on memory and by Ellen O’Donoghue on category learning in pigeons at the Seattle 2024 meeting. Each talk was relevant to Division 6 but organized as part of other programs (Divisions 3 and 25, respectively).

Third, I have made unique connections as a member and participant in Division 6. I was a student member of Division 6 and had joined for the listserv, which was active with announcements, opportunities, and discussions before these were pulled onto social media. Those days are gone, and it gets more and more difficult to connect as time and money become scarce. The opportunity to get involved came as a surprise, and I went for it with good intentions but little effort to spare. I found it fulfilling and recommend it. These organizations depend on the abilities and interest of the membership and committees, which wax and wane, but I feel like Division 6 is heading in the right direction.

I would like to reiterate my appreciation for the support of current and past SBNCP presidents and the executive committee members. Specifically, Amanda Dettmer, Jeremy Bailoo, Lauren Highfill, Lauren Robinson, Heather Hill, and Deidre Yeater. Journal editors Geoff Schoenbaum and Mike Beran (also our council representative! Thank you, Mike!). I’ll add current president-elect/incoming president Olga Lipatova, our secretary, Will Whitham, and the excellent team of program chairs, Elizabeth West Niedringhaus and Jessica Stagner Bodily; Treasurer Mayte Martinez Navarrete; and Awards Chair Kendal Smith, who have done amazing work to keep the ship going into the 2026 convention and beyond. My sincere appreciation also goes to our historian, Daniel Marston, PhD, and our student representative, Mario Rodriguez, who made excellent contributions to this newsletter.

We are still seeking a newsletter editor. I did this one myself, and it probably shows. Please consider nominating yourself or an interested colleague for this and other open positions in Division 6. The newsletter is an important tool for disseminating the activities of our membership. Finally, I want to highlight the Executive Committee, who already support the division and already do what I am talking about. This must have been a boring read for them, but I am not sure it gets across that APA is worth attending and an opportunity to experience high-impact science and connections, as well as to advocate for what our division represents. Consider joining us in Washington, DC, and abstracts are due in January for the 2027 program!

Best regards,
Eric A. Thrailkill