L.H. Carnell Professor Emeritus, Temple University
frank.farley@comcast.net
They’ve done it again. Time Magazine, venerable news magazine with a 100 year publication history, has published its annual “The World’s Most Influential People” issue, with 100 names listed, but nary a psychologist, psychiatrist or an obvious primarily behavioral scientist in sight, replicating those absences of last year’s issue. Inclusion on the list is apparently based on a Time reader poll but little is said about the methodology.
The article reports 6 categories of “Influential People,” with the number of people out of 100 in each category: Leaders 20; Artists19; Pioneers16; Icons16; Innovators15; Titans14. There is subjectivity in labeling as with terms like Icons, Pioneers, Titans. There is an Artist category (heavy with Hollywood) but no Scientist category. Clearly science has been one of the major influences in creating the modern world but Time has to a large extent passed it by. There are policy or administrative folk with some science in their efforts but few where undertaking research was central. Medical science gets touched on but coming out of a 2-year pandemic with its inherent stress and behavioral challenges one would expect some significant nod not only to medical accomplishments but to the psychological and behavioral science and practice domains that have produced leaders and innovators helping get the world past the goal posts. The poll reflects Time’s organization of the polling results, the viewpoints of its subscribers and readers, and presumably at least in some degree the material Time carries in its magazine that is consumed by its readers.
One takeaway from this report might be that to the extent that Time may reflect a significant segment of literate individuals which was appropriately sampled in the reader poll, then psychology needs to up its game in the publics represented therein and perhaps the media more extensively. Psychology as a science and practice has been one of the profound developments in the history of ideas, society and culture, and the more we can influence the world and be seen as doing so the better for those domains. In a media-centric world, that is where we should be upping our game—more APA involvement in all the relevant venues of media and communication, articulating the psychology brand and supporting increasingly the great efforts we have in our portfolio from understanding life to lifting it up, providing ideas and practices to influence a hurting humanity.
