Association for Psychological Science: Building a Science-First Foundation for Psychology. The Association for Psychological Science (previously the American Psychological Society) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of scientific psychology and its representation at the national and international level. The Association's mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in research, application, teaching, and the improvement of human welfare. The Association for Psychological Science was founded in 1988 by a group of scientifically oriented psychologists interested in advancing scientific psychology and its representation as a science at the national level. APS has approximately 20,000 members and includes the leading psychological scientists and academics, clinicians, researchers, teachers, and administrators.