Research Activities in Psychology: Funding and Human Resources

The data presented in this article on research activities in psychology were collected through APA's 1978 Human Resources Survey and are based on the responses of a stratified sample of 6,551 members. The results are presented in three sections. The first section describes the characteristics of researchers: degree level, sex, race/ethnicity, age, subfield, and primary employment setting. These data are presented for the subset of respondents involved in research activities as well as for the subset of respondents involved in funded research; all employed respondents are used as a comparison group. The second section describes the characteristics of funded research projects, which include institutional base of research, type of research project, level of responsibility of the respondent, involvement of other researchers, and the source, mechanism, length, amount, and renewal of funding for these projects. The final section examines the reasons of respondents without funding for not having funding and for not seeking funding, sources of information on research funding availability, and production of scholarly publications and other products of research. Discussion focuses on the level of research activity among psychologists. Estimates of total research funding for psychology are derived and contrasted with data reported by the National Science Foundation. An estimated 78.9% of the research funds for psychology come from federal sources, and the implications of this pattern of research support are discussed.