John Veronis, Who Helped Start Psychology Today, Dies at 93

38 views
Skip to first unread message

Christopher Darren Green

unread,
Jul 20, 2021, 10:41:44 PM7/20/21
to Cheiron, Society for the History of Psychology List SHP
“Psychology Today” get very little attention from historians of psychology, but it was just once probably the single greatest conduit from the discipline to the public.


Chris
...........................................
Christopher D Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada


Editor, History of Psychology (journal)
Producer & Host, The History of Psychology Show (video podcast)

Vincent Hevern

unread,
Jul 21, 2021, 1:32:32 PM7/21/21
to shp-li...@googlegroups.com, Cheiron
I was a graduate student at Fordham in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I remember when the APA decided to buy Psychology Today and Anne Anastasi, by then an emerita professor, came back from a COR meeting furious at the decision to do so. She thought it was a very bad investment decision and the NYT article about the sales closing in early 1983 seems to back her up: "The 15-year-old Psychology Today has been dropping in advertising revenues each year since 1979 and its circulation, which had a high of 1,750,000, is currently at 850,000.” <https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/23/business/advertising-psychology-today-sale-to-group-completed.html> She predicted that the whole thing would be a mess for APA and, as I recall, it was since the organization got rid of the magazine reasonbly soon after its purchase.

Vinny


Vincent W. Hevern, SJ, Ph.D.
Professor, Psychology Dept.
Le Moyne College 
1419 Salt Springs Rd
Syracuse, NY 13214
hev...@lemoyne.edu
www.hevern.com


--
Questions regarding the SHP Listserv? Please contact the Electronics Editor electroni...@historyofpsych.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SHP Listserv" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to shp-listserv...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/shp-listserv/D2824CC2-DEA0-4575-BF08-1C655E3605F7%40yorku.ca.

John D. Hogan

unread,
Jul 21, 2021, 4:17:54 PM7/21/21
to hev...@lemoyne.edu, shp-li...@googlegroups.com, cheiro...@googlegroups.com
     Virginia Staudt Sexton was on the APA Board and Max Siegel was APA president when the organization purchased Psychology Today.  Virginia told me that the Board was tied on a vote to purchase the journal, with Siegel the tie-breaker.  As they waited in silence for his decision, someone said "Don't do it, Max."  But he did.  Later he referred to the purchase as "Siegel's Folly."    John  

John D. Hogan, PhD
Professor Emeritus
St. John's University
Jamaica, NY  11439
Author: Twenty-four Stories from Psychology
Sage Publishing 2019



--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cheiron Forum" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cheiron-foru...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit

Christopher Darren Green

unread,
Jul 21, 2021, 4:47:10 PM7/21/21
to cheiro...@googlegroups.com, shp-li...@googlegroups.com
Yes, the Psychology Today fiasco nearly bankrupted APA, as I understand things, and forced them to sell off valuable property in order to remain solvent. I believe that Gary VandenBos was instrumental to stabilizing APA finances after the magazine had been sold off.

As I recall, when Psychology Today was successful, it published sloppy pop psych articles about people’s love lives, etc. This was embarrassing to psychologists, and APA bought it with the aim of turning it into a Scientific American-like magazine: more “serious” content, including citations of “real” psychological research. Virtuous as this may have been, in principle, it turned out to be disastrous commercially. There was simply no market for popularized accounts of “serious” psychology. Junk advice about love lives had not been a bug; it had been the magazine’s key feature. 

In any case, my point wasn’t that Psychology Today was a “good” thing, but that it was an historically important thing in the history of the discipline (broadly speaking), and that the passing of its creator was worth noting.


Chris
...........................................
Christopher D Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada


Editor, History of Psychology (journal)
Producer & Host, The History of Psychology Show (video podcast)

On Jul 21, 2021, at 1:32 PM, Vincent Hevern <hev...@lemoyne.edu> wrote:

 I was a graduate student at Fordham in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I remember when the APA decided to buy Psychology Today and Anne Anastasi, by then an emerita professor, came back from a COR meeting furious at the decision to do so. She thought it was a very bad investment decision and the NYT article about the sales closing in early 1983 seems to back her up: "The 15-year-old Psychology Today has been dropping in advertising revenues each year since 1979 and its circulation, which had a high of 1,750,000, is currently at 850,000.” <https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/23/business/advertising-psychology-today-sale-to-group-completed.html> She predicted that the whole thing would be a mess for APA and, as I recall, it was since the organization got rid of the magazine reasonbly soon after its purchase.
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cheiron Forum" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cheiron-foru...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cheiron-forum/8A0A4377-7004-43A2-A7A8-577C509F9136%40lemoyne.edu.

Fredric Weizmann

unread,
Jul 22, 2021, 12:21:16 PM7/22/21
to cheiro...@googlegroups.com, shp-li...@googlegroups.com
How long before someone writes an article about this with "Psychology Yesterday" in the title. 😎
Fred
From: cheiro...@googlegroups.com <cheiro...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Christopher Darren Green <chr...@yorku.ca>
Sent: July 21, 2021 4:47 PM
To: cheiro...@googlegroups.com <cheiro...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: shp-li...@googlegroups.com <shp-li...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [Cheiron-Forum:2924] Re: [SHP-listserv] John Veronis, Who Helped Start Psychology Today, Dies at 93
 

Christopher Darren Green

unread,
Jul 22, 2021, 1:47:01 PM7/22/21
to cheiro...@googlegroups.com, shp-li...@googlegroups.com
Fred, You should copyright that title now. 
Indeed, if I ever write the article about CCHP's Ludy Benjamin collection of historical pop psychology magazines that I've had in the back of my head for the past decade, I might use that title myself! 

Best,
Chris

.....
Christopher D Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada


From: cheiro...@googlegroups.com <cheiro...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Fredric Weizmann <weiz...@yorku.ca>
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2021 12:21:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Cheiron-Forum:2925] Re: [SHP-listserv] John Veronis, Who Helped Start Psychology Today, Dies at 93
 
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages