Understanding ‘relevance’ in psychology

Since the 1970s, psychologists around the world have questioned the ‘social relevance’ of psychology in their societies. Curiously, the matter of ‘social relevance’ is under-theorized in the discipline, a state of affairs this paper attempts to correct. First, it describes how disagreements about psychology's cognitive interest – and subject matter – create an environment in which accusations of ‘social irrelevance’ can flourish. Second, it asserts that applied psychology's reliance on basic psychology for its scientific authority makes debates about ‘social relevance’ inevitable. And third, it claims that the discipline's longstanding antithesis to the social domain leaves it vulnerable to these debates – particularly in recent decades that have witnessed rapid social change. The paper reflects further on the rise of ‘market relevance’ in the global academy and its significance for psychology today.