Serbian Psychological Society was founded in 1953 as a branch of the Yugoslav Psychological Society. One of its founders was Prof. Borislav Stevanovic, who was a British student. In 1926 he defended his Ph.D. dissertation „An Experimental Study of the Mental Processes Involved in Judgment“ at London University.
As of 2021. the President of our Society is prof. dr Tamara Džamonja Ignjatović.
Serbian Psychological Society aims to encourage the development of psychology through professional and research activities and to provide its members with scientific and professional information relevant to academic activities, professional training as well as psychologists in practice. The Society also informs its members about contemporary professional methods and scientific innovations in different fields of psychology.
The Society maintains mutually useful forms of connection and co-operation with humanitarian, governmental and non-governmental, as wel as international organizations, in order to advance psychologists’ work, satisfy the needs of users of psychologists’ services and solve certain issues important for the Society and wider social community.
Professional reputation of members in professional-scientific and ethical sense, respect for norms and standards while performing professional work in the fields of psychological counceling and education also represent the goals of the Serbian Psychological Society.
Goals and tasks of the Association
- to organize and encourage the psychologists of Serbia to contribute by their knowledge to the entire development of the Republic and to their social reputation and status;
- to provide scientific and professional, as well as other information to their members, of significance for their profession and advanced training of the members;
- to provide acquaintance with advanced professional methods and scientific innovations, which should result in competent appearance of members in their professional and other activities related to their profession;
- to take care of their members reputation in professional-scientific and ethical sense;
- to encourage development of psychology as a science through scientific-research and creative work and its application in all areas of practice for promoting relationships among people in society, humanization of working and living conditions and more versatile development of a person;
- to organize and encourage the work on adopting and compliance with the norms and standards for carrying independent professional activities in the field of psychological advising and education, psychological estimations, diagnostics and expertise;
- to promote the quality of psychologists’ work;
- to protect the users of their services from low-quality psychologists’ work;
- to organize studying of individual theoretical and practical problems and to cooperate with divisions of psychological sciences on universities and with institutions dealing with psychological researches;
- to organize and encourage better quality and more successful realization of needs regarding professional literature, other publications, texts and appropriate technical aids that can be applied or have been applied in psychological evaluations, advices or diagnostics;
- to establish mutually useful linking and cooperation modalities with state authorities for solving particular issues of interest for the Association and the social community;
- to establish and maintain the international cooperation with related organizations;
- to promote and develop the ethics of the psychological profession;
- to provide usage of psychological methods and instruments only by graduated psychologists in accordance with application norms and standards as well as principles of the Code of Ethics of Psychologists of Serbia;
- to issue certificates on completing different modalities of professional training organized directly or through their or other educational centers as well as on quality and level of education;
Membership
The members of the Association can be Regular, Associate, Titular members or Donor-members.
Regular members are graduate Psychologists who live and/or work on the territory of the Republic of Serbia.
The Associate members of the Association can be Psychologists from other countries who can, by their professional work, contribute to the work of the Association, and express their wish for that.
The Titular members of the Association are recognized individuals that are not Psychologists, but have special merits for the work and development of the Association. Decision on the Titular member shall be made on the Association Assembly at the proposal of the Executing Board.
Donor-members are physical persons that contribute to the Association by funding or in the other way.
The rights, obligations and responsibilities of the regular members of the Association result from their voluntary membership for realizing their professional and personal interests through realizing the goals and tasks of the Association, such as:
- the right to elect and be elected into Association authorities,
- the right to participate in all activities organized by the Association,
- the right to give proposals and opinions regarding the work of the association, its authorities and bodies,
- the right to make decisions on the work of the Association and its authorities,
- the right to ask and get the professional help or protection of their professional interests from the Association
- the right to use in their work all the advantages that the membership in the Association offers them, and which are determined by the Executing Board of the Association,
- the right to buy psychological measuring instruments,
- the obligation not to give the psychological measuring instruments for usage to unprofessional persons under no circumstances (by ceding, selling, reproduction or in any other way),
- the obligation to compliance with the law, Statute and other enactments of the Association,
- the obligation of executing decisions of the Association,
- the obligation to actively cooperate in realizing the working plan and program of the Association for realizing the tasks of the Association,
- the obligation to regularly pay the membership fee for each calendar year,
- the obligation to compliance with the Code of Ethics of the Association of the Psychologists of Serbia.