Coming Together: The Evolution of Globalization
The Growth of Psychology Around the Globe
Global Psychological Associations
Postmodernism and the Multicultural Movement
Development Initiatives and Indigenization
Systematic Deterrents to the Development of Psychology in the Developing World
Linking the Social and the Economic
Toward a Global Psychology Paradigm
Globalization, like gravity, affects all of us no matter who we are or where we live. The current expression of globalization has been influenced by the evolution of postmodernism, which is thought by some as an attack on scientific inquiry promoting relativism. Postmodernism calls for a reevaluation of psychology due to the limitations of hypothesis testing, and the tendency to universalize the findings of Western psychology to cultures and individuals around the globe.
Greater movement toward a global psychology requires rigorous development of indigenous psychologies while at the same time synthesizing their integration. At a time when the secular, scientific, religious, technological, and spiritual cultural traditions of different regions of the world seem to conflict more and more, global psychology welcomes the unique perspectives of every element.
When you finish studying this chapter, you will be prepared to:
Chapter 1 focuses on psychology in a global world, an environment that challenges us to appreciate more fully that “we are a part of rather than apart from each other.” The emergence of this global paradigm is the result of a radically changing world marked by rapid information exchange, unprecedented mobility, and the vanishing of ideological coherence. Advances in telecommunications, transportation, and economics have linked all of us to global forces. The fabled “global village” (McLuhan & Fiore, 1968) has arrived, yet unforeseen social, cultural, political, and environmental problems increasingly challenge its viability. As Vaclav Havel wrote, “without a global revolution in our sphere of consciousness, nothing will change for the better in the sphere of our being as humans, and the catastrophe toward which we are headed… will be unavoidable” (Lasley, 1994, p. 3).
Contemporary globalization is pitting secular, scientific, religious, technological, and spiritual cultural traditions against one another in what seems to be an irreconcilable conflict over ways of knowing (Marsella, 1998). The scale and complexity of global events and forces present an extraordinary challenge for psychology because they impose complex and intense demands on individual and collective psyches around the world and challenge our sense of identity, control, and well-being. In as much as global challenges threaten individual and collective wellbeing, superordinate movement towards understanding, evaluating, and addressing these negative forces is essential to change the course of events (Marsella, 1998).
Global psychology equally acknowledges each influence—global, cultural, and individual—that collectively shape affective (emotional), behavioral, and cognitive systems (Lawson, Anderson, & Rudiger, 2013).
Identifying and utilizing similarities and differences between people within and across the multitude of cultures requires efficacy in multicultural, multidisciplinary, and multinational knowledge, methods, and interventions (Christopher, Wendt, Marecek, & Goodman, 2014, Takooshian, Gielen, Plous, Rich, & Velayo, 2016).
Successful international collaboration requires culture-sensitive scientific methodology, that is consistent in practice, and receptive to feedback at all levels (Hall, Yip, & Zarate, 2016). Open dialogue is valued for addressing such concerns as underlying sociocultural-biased behaviors or potentially adverse sociocultural impact of research on human relations and institutions (Yakushko, Hoffman, Morgan, Melissa, & Lee, 2016).
Capitalism of the 19th and early 20th century was a primary catalyst behind the rapid expansion of the Western World. The new colonies, in addition to advancing religious and political movements, gave Westerners access to financial wealth and significant influence on world markets. The new colonies also advanced progressive values, such as individualism, reason, and human rights.
With the passing of the two world wars America established itself as a global super-power and arbitrator of international affairs. By the late 1960s a new stage of globalization had arrived, “the uncertainty phase” (Robertson, 1990). Major shifts in economic and political practices, such as the end of the cold war, struggle over nuclear weapon development and a palpable demand for global consciousness fed the collective uncertainty. While globalization has facilitated economic growth, enhanced connection, and coordination among people, it has generated multiple negative consequences. There is concern about the shrinking sense of community, crippling constraint on democratic processes, calculated centralization of corporate and governmental elites, and increased dependency on external powers by less-developed nations (Farazmand, 1999).
International collaboratives, having given too little consideration to the consequences of their actions on regional ecology and indigenous cultures, are considered by many a threat to human rights and psychological wellbeing. Overattention to export-oriented goods, cash-crop activities, and global interests weakens domestic production and economic stability particularly in many less-developed countries. There is growing concern about outside forces dictating local fiscal, monetary, and other structural adjustment policies, while inadvertently deepening poverty, social disintegration, and environmental devastation (Farazmand, 1999).
Worldwide anti-globalization movements, born of the above-stated concerns, speak against such developments as the displacement of indigenous people, human rights violations, environmental destruction, the suppression of ethnocultural diversity, the decline of democracy, the breaking of the social contract, and the illegitimacy of the State as an instrument of corporate power and interest rather than the collective good.
Global psychology prizes diverse psychologies, universal human rights, and democratic and participatory forms of globalization. Global psychology opposes the privileging of any national or cultural psychology and aims to alleviate social and psychological misery worldwide; it is as much about the appropriate research and application of psychological knowledge as it is about mandating an emancipatory political role for psychology.
According to data from the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS), the total number of psychologists and psychological researchers in the world doubled between 1980 and 1991, from 260,000 to 500,000 (Rosenzweig, 1992, 1999). Growth in psychology was predicted in almost all countries surveyed, so it is likely that at present the total number of psychologists in the world has exceeded the one million mark.
Since the amount of training required to be considered a psychologist differs from one country to another, local definitions were used in these surveys. In the United States and Canada most psychologists need to attain a PhD or master’s degree, while in other countries the mandate varies. Some countries require psychologists to achieve four to five years of postsecondary education, while in others three years of training is necessary (Rosenzweig, 1992). Obviously, an international issue for the discipline has been to gain legal protection for the title of psychologist that would include the development of training standards. Campaigns to achieve this goal are being pursued in many parts of the world so that the public will be protected from people without proper qualifications.
International cooperation and exchange are necessary components for psychology to become more global in scope and applicability. Cross-national understanding and goodwill among psychologists is the prevailing impetus for the growth of international psychological organizations around the world. The importance of international collaboration was recognized as early as 1889 with the founding of the National Congress of (Physiological) Psychology in Paris. Today international organizations, conferences, congresses, workshops, and cross-national research teams play a central role in the life of professional psychologists around the world. Internationalization serves psychology in both the contexts of basic and applied research, theoretical and conceptual development, and in the improvement of infrastructural resources for the continued internationalization of psychology.
Founded in 1951 as the organizational successor to the International Congresses of Psychology, the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS) is the most encompassing international organization of psychology (Rosenzweig, 1999). As is the rule for international scientific unions, IUPsyS has no individual members, but instead is an organization composed of national member organizations with no more than one national member per country. Every four years it schedules International Congresses. As stated in its aims, IUPsyS has worked to promote “the development of psychological science, whether biological or social, normal or abnormal, pure or applied” (Pawlik, 1985). The IUPsyS has national members on the five continents and through them has access to hundreds of thousands of psychologists around the world, making it the international voice of psychological science. Important IUPsyS publications include The International Journal of Psychology, the International Directory of Psychologists, and the Proceedings of the International Congresses (Pawlik, 1985).
In 2017 Pam Maras was elected the president of IUPsyS; she is the first woman to hold this office. Professor of Social & Educational Psychology at the University of Greenwich, London, Maras’s research collaboratives span the world to include Africa, Australasia, China, Europe (including France, Nederland, Spain and Italy), the Nordic Countries, North and Latin America, and Southeastern Asia.
Many smaller international organizations exist alongside and as a rule are affiliated with IUPsyS. For example, the International Council of Psychologists (ICP) holds conventions annually and aims to increase communication among psychologists around the world. There are also a number of international organizations that are either topically or regionally organized. The International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), also affiliated with IUPsyS, was founded in 1920 and is made up of individual members. IAAP has gradually expanded its membership to include psychologists from all over the world and has incorporated a wide variety of applied fields, as reflected through the work of its thirteen divisions: organizational psychology, community psychology, health psychology, economic psychology, and political psychology to name a few (Pawlik & d’Ydewalle, 1996, p. 489).
Many other topically focused international organizations have developed over the years and are affiliated with IUPsyS. Some examples include the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP), the International Society of Comparative Psychology (ISCP), and the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development (ISSBD). In recent years, however, there has been a strong tendency for the formation of regional organizations. This trend has been facilitated, if not necessitated, by economic and political developments toward integrated regionalization (Rosenzweig, 1999).
The European Federation of Professional Psychologists’ Associations (EFPPA) includes 25 European countries, represents about 100,000 psychologists, and was founded in 1981. The two major objectives of the EFPPA are to (1) reduce differences between European countries in the standards of training and professional practice and (2) ensure that expert advice is available to relevant intergovernmental and nongovernmental bodies on matters relating to psychology.
One of the oldest regional organizations is the Interamerican Society of Psychology (Sociedad Interamericana de Psicologia; SIP). Founded in 1951, the SIP advances psychology as both a science and a profession within the Americas.
Postmodernism is a construct with many meanings (Featherstone, 1990). Some equate it with an attack on scientific inquiry especially in the social sciences and psychology, the rejection of standards to judge one theoretical model against another, and the acceptance of relativism. Others see it as an extension of established knowledge by new methods of inquiry, such as deconstructionism, that place knowledge into cultural or other more focused contexts (Anderson, 1996; Fish, 1996; Rosenau, 1992).
Three features, as outlined by Burbles and Rice (1991), distinguish postmodern thought. First, postmodernists reject absolutes and insist that no single rationality, morality, or theoretical framework has the ability to explain all of the universe. As the philosopher Richard Rorty (1989) puts it, truth is made rather than found. This, however, is not a new idea, since it came into the Eastern world with Buddhism and the Western world in the works of Heraclitus some 2,500 years ago. The search for an ultimate system that explains the universe is considered to impinge upon the infinity of human creative potential. Postmodernism means understanding that all our stories about what is out there—all our scientific facts, all our religious teachings, our society’s beliefs, even our personal perceptions—are the products of a highly creative interaction between human minds and the cosmos (Anderson, 1996). Postmodernism does not ask us to change what we believe, but rather to examine how we came to believe it.
The second feature of postmodernism is the belief that all social and political discourses are saturated with cultural and ideological biases that seek legitimacy. Each of us wants to believe in the rightness of our perspective and the correctness of our judgments (Lawson, Anderson, & Rudiger, 2013), but postmodernists believe that truth is largely a social construction rather than an accurate representation of reality. People need to learn to recognize and appreciate that what they do and think is to a great degree a product of social constructions (most importantly, language and culture), rather than a product of some ultimately verifiable and defendable reality.
The third idea that recurs in postmodern thought is the celebration of difference. Since human ideas about the world are constructions, both socially and personally derived, there is no reason to grant one view exclusive explanatory power while dismissing other explanatory possibilities as less valuable or obsolete. Instead, postmodernism is an acceptance of the unavoidable plurality of the world and an abandonment of the modern urge to promote universalism at the cost of diversity. Diversity, and its encouragement, is at the core of postmodern thought.
Postmodernism emphasizes eclecticism and paradox and asks all people to be flexible and attuned to the many different strands of locally generated knowledge. For the field of psychology, this means recognizing that traditional psychological concepts and theories have developed in a predominantly Euro-American context that limits their applicability to culturally diverse populations (Sue, Bingham, Burke, & Vasquez, 1999).
Psychological science is based on certain assumptions regarding human nature. For example, empiricism assumes that the scientist possesses an observing mind that reflects and records the nature of a world external to it. Many years ago, Thomas Kuhn, a historian of science, challenged this assumption with the concept of “paradigm shift,” as presented in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970). Kuhn argues that scientists periodically recreate the world to make room for new ideas and discoveries. Paradigms shape the way we interpret the world so rather than scientists having minds that are capable of objectively reflecting the external world, we are increasingly viewing scientists and scientific discoveries as products of worldviews.
Paradigms or systems of knowledge, though oversimplified, are indispensable to human thought and action. It is impossible for the human mind to grasp reality in its entirety. As in the example of reversible figures studied extensively by Gestalt psychologists where either two profiles or a candlestick can be seen but not at the same time, the minute we focus on one quality of the world we fail to see other important qualities. Paradigms order our perceptions and lend coherence to experience, but problems occur when we stick to one paradigm at the expense of a more holistic understanding. In the words of Abraham Maslow (1908–1970), “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” Postmodernism and globalization demand that psychology have a multi-paradigmatic vision of the universe, one that recognizes the benefits of having a diversity of worldviews and perspectives. A global psychology recognizes that ethnocultural diversity is as important as biological diversity in that it provides social and psychological options in the face of formidable environmental challenges (Marsella, 1998).
Another Western assumption has been to consider it essential to remain detached, objective, and value free while engaging in scientific methodology. Some critics outside the discipline disagree, believing distancing behaviors of this nature likely isolate and “divorce” it from other modes of investigation (Gergen, Gulerce, Lock, & Misra, 1996). Historical, mythological, and philosophical data, are often viewed as incompatible with science because they invariably entail subjective as well as objective elements. David Bakan (1969) pointed out that the use of rigorous scientific methodology might divorce psychology from the empirical rather than illuminate it. In a well-developed experiment, events are carefully chosen and controlled to prevent the haphazard events of the world from interfering with results. Thus, the more carefully designed the experiment, the more separate it becomes from the world of experience it seeks to clarify.
The process of globalization has brought increased diversity within nations and an interdependence among nations that makes it difficult for psychologists to assume a unicultural stance. Cross-cultural psychology is the systematic study of behavior and experience as it occurs in different cultures, is influenced by culture, or results in changes in existing cultures (Triandis, 2001; Triandis & Vassiliou, 1972; Triandis, Malpass, & Davidson, 1972). A major purpose of cross-cultural psychology is to test the generality of psychological laws through a comparison of cultures. These comparisons include an investigation of both similarities and differences across ethnic-cultural boundaries and focus not so much on cultures per se but on the individual-in-a-cultural-context (Ho, 1994).
Berry, Poortinga, Segall, and Dasen (1992) identify three theoretical orientations in cross-cultural psychology that explain the relationship between human psychology and culture in different ways: absolutism, relativism, and universalism. The absolutist position assumes that human nature is qualitatively the same across all cultures and that culture has little effect upon the meaning or display of human characteristics. The relativist position represents the opposite pole, asserting that culture is a primary determinant of human nature and dispositions. For the relativist, it is impossible to construct and measure context-free concepts.
Cross-cultural psychologists typically expect both biological and cultural factors to influence human behaviors and experiences. Like the relativists, they assume the influence of culture to be substantial but, like the absolutists, they believe comparisons can be made across cultures. The resulting theoretical stance is universalism, a kind of common ground. Universalism assumes that basic human characteristics are common to all members of the species and that culture influences the display of them.
Cross-cultural psychology is not so much defined by unique theories but rather by unique methodologies (Triandis, 1980). For example, generalizability approaches of cross-cultural research seek to find similarities and universalities across diverse groups. Generalizability approaches are etic. On the other hand, emic cultural concepts apply to only one culture and make no claim of applicability to other cultures. For example, philotimo, meaning the extent to which an individual conforms to the expectations of his ingroup, is an emic construct applicable only to Greece (Triandis & Vassiliou, 1972). It is especially salient in Greece and characterizes Greek culture. No purpose would be served in studying how philotimo dictates behavior patterns among the French.
In the early days of cross-cultural psychology, culture was conceptualized as something “out there” to be studied, observed, and described (Segall, Lonner, & Berry, 1998). Culture is considered “an intersubjective reality through which worlds are known, created, and experienced” (Miller, 1997, p. 103). Cross-cultural psychology views culture and the self as “interdependent, mutually reinforcing processes.”
In a world of increasing mobility, cultural regions are becoming less distinct and the identification of one cultural group from other cultural groups is becoming increasingly difficult. Triandis (1996, p. 409) devised a test that examines what he calls cultural syndromes or “a pattern of shared attitudes, beliefs, categorizations, self-definitions, norms, role definitions, and values that is organized around a theme that can be identified among those who speak a particular language, during a specific historic period, and in a definable region.”
One identifiable cultural syndrome is the individualist–collectivist dimension (Hui & Triandis, 1986). Other cultural syndromes include tightness–looseness, i.e., number of norms across situations (Gelfand, 2011), active–passive (i.e., competition vs. cooperation) and complexity–simplicity (i.e., high–low number of role definitions; Triandis, 1996).
Two methods of measuring cultural syndromes include (1) identifying questionnaire items to which 90% of a sample responds on the same side of a neutral point and (2) identifying items to which 90% of triads agree among themselves in less than 60 seconds (Triandis, 1996). These measures of cultural identification emphasize that cultural group membership is internalized within an individual or a group and can represent attitudes and beliefs specific to differing groups even within similar regional boundaries. In line with this reasoning culture is represented less by place or time and more by internalized beliefs that subsequently influence the thoughts and behaviors of individuals in each distinct culture. Most studies in the field of cross-cultural research involve data collection from at least two cultural groups while some studies are monocultural with comparisons made to other cultures through previous research. It is generally agreed that a minimum of three cultures must be involved to yield meaningful comparisons.
Western psychology has focused primarily upon the personal or dispositional characteristics of individual actors at the expense of recognizing the influence of sociocultural factors upon psychological processes (Sinha, 1994a). In contrast, problems of social development invariably have contextual, structural, and institutional components.
Sinha and Holtzman (1984) note that a major constraint of psychology in approaching the complexities of development has been its reliance on a Western methodology modeled after mathematics and pure science. While this has led to a vast output of neatly designed research into social processes, one wonders how much relevance it has to real-life psychological phenomena. Some truths unique to a particular culture may be inaccessible to science employing hypothesis testing. In Africa, for example, much wisdom is embedded in folklore, idioms, spatial use of cues, and touch, yet the ability of rigorous scientific methods to extract this knowledge is doubtful. Pressing social problems are highly complex and do not lend themselves well to controlled experimental study. The narrow conception of acceptable methods has limited the ability of contemporary Western psychology to account for and react to the urgent social problems that face countries in the process of development.
Long before the development of psychology as a formal academic discipline, people throughout the world had their own religious and metaphysical systems that contained rich theories about human nature, behavior, personality, and interrelationships with the world. Indigenous cultures have provided their own unique solutions to human problems since the dawn of humankind from coping with frustration through fatalism, to the treatment of mental illness through suggestion, herbal medicine, prayer, song and dance, or other culturally meaningful practices. Indigenization can be seen as a project to restore the true identity of people (Sinha, 1994a).
According to Heelas (1981), indigenous psychologies consist of the cultural views, theories, classifications, and assumptions together with overarching social institutions that influence psychological functions in each respective culture. Indigenous psychologies are concerned with issues that are often applied in nature and have immediate relevance to the culture from which they emerge. These psychologies are very pragmatic and hope to foster a sense of unity and prestige among local people and the psychological enterprise (Bernal, 1985). They are not the same as “specialist” psychologies, such as industrial/organizational psychology, which are created by academic psychologists to develop esoteric understanding of a specific phenomenon or topic (Heelas, 1981). Indigenous psychologies represent culturally pervasive psychological opinions and can include the fields of anthropology, religion, sociology, and non-psychological traditions (Heelas, 1981). A move toward indigenous psychologies implies a move toward culturally relevant applied psychologies.
The major purpose of indigenization is not to generate a set of mutually exclusive alternative psychologies, but rather to develop more culturally grounded and locally useful forms of knowledge to respond appropriately to urgent social issues, and to encourage multi-world dialogue between psychologies that may eventually lead to a universal psychology. While there exists a great local and global urgency for indigenization, many factors currently exist that are impeding the growth of psychology in developing countries.
The most pervasive problems confronting psychology in the developing world are tied to wealth. Lack of funding makes it extraordinarily difficult for psychologists to have access to current books and journals, technical instruments, money for research projects, and transportation to international conferences. The net result of limited funding is isolation from the psychological community at large, which in turn leads to a narrow scope of training, research, and overall development.
Knowledge of people’s motivations and habits, and their participation in implementing development schemes, are some of the critical areas where psychology can make contributions to economic development (Sinha, 1994b). Since the cognitive and motivational characteristics of individuals in the developing world determines their ability to exploit opportunities provided under new socioeconomic circumstances, psychological services are essential to the success of development strategies. In India, facilities for easy bank loans have been made available in rural areas but most poor small farmers have been unable to derive full benefits from them due to a lack of experience with modern economic practices (Sinha, 1994b). What if some indigenous people consider borrowing money from outside the family inappropriate? What if money is not the most important motivating factor for a farmer to develop his farm? As these questions suggest, economic inputs need to be grounded in knowledge of the interaction between local culture and the psychological processes of motivation and decision making.
While development must be seen as a complex interaction of variables (economic, political, sociocultural, and psychological), development strategies place almost exclusive importance upon economic inputs. International agencies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization give enormous loans that are contingent upon developing countries reorienting their economies to export-oriented, cash-crop activities, and global interests. The aim is to cultivate an economic infrastructure capable of returning a profit that could then be used for further development and the growth of social services. While there are numerous problems with the capitalist approach to development (e.g., destruction of domestic production economies, deepening dependency on Western powers and globalizing elites, restrictions on democracy, and favoring of the wealthy), the exclusive emphasis on capital as the solution to development is the major misconception inhibiting the development initiative.
If a better world is to be promoted by the psychological enterprise, then Western psychology can no longer assume an independent stance at the cost of ignoring substantive possibilities from disparate cultural traditions. The time has come to further the development of indigenous psychologies globally, and to place Western psychology in its appropriate global context as one indigenous psychology within a diverse global landscape. Facilitating indigenous psychologies, however, goes beyond a mere expansion of psychology’s horizons; it mandates political action and calls for recognition of the moral implications inherent in the multicultural movement. Global psychology aspires to be integrative by including all cultural human behavior and experience so as to form a truly representative and dynamic psychology. Accordingly, this text presents a history of psychology that is broader and more inclusive than standard treatments to date. We examine the relationships between religions of the world and psychology, we devote almost one-fourth of the book to diversity issues, we present Western psychology in the context of globalization, and we present detailed histories of psychology in Russia, China, Africa, Asia-India, Latin America, and other parts of the world.
The framework for our treatment of the history of psychology consists of four sections mirroring the epochs of psychology, namely, the present, the early foundations of scientific psychology, schools of psychology, and diversity in psychology, which embraces eastern and western psychologies (see Table 1.1).
The first section of the book, The Present: Globalization, Psychology, and History consists of three chapters, which includes this one on psychology and global forces while Chapter 2 focuses upon the ideas of appreciating and valuing the growing diversity of the content and applied strategies of American psychology. The third chapter examines the nature of history, methods for studying history, the paradigms and revolutions in psychology, and the effectiveness of psychology.
Table 1.1 Framework for the History of Psychology
| The Present | Early Foundations of Scientific Psychology | Schools of Psychology | Diversity in Psychology |
| • Contemporary Psychology: Global Forces | • Philosophical Foundations | • Voluntarism and Structuralism | • Women in Psychology |
| • Psychology: The American Approach | • Biological Foundations | • Functionalism | • Ethnic Diversity in Psychology |
| • Nature of History and Methods of Study | • Phrenology, Mesmerism, and Hypnosis | • Behaviorism | • Psychology in Russia |
| • Psychology in China | |||
| • Associationism | • Gestalt Psychology | • Indigenous Psychologies | |
| • Psychoanalysis | |||
| • Beyond Psychoanalysis |
The second section, Early Foundations of Scientific Psychology, consists of four chapters and examines first some of the early ideas of psychology shaped by religions of the world, philosophy, and biological science, then we turn to the systematic modification of consciousness by “talking methods,” including phrenology, mesmerism, and hypnosis, and conclude this section with associationism focusing upon how mind acquires content. The many ideas about mind leads us to examine the issue of whether other living creatures (infrahumans) besides humans are also mindful or whether they have no access to their mind thus making humans unique creatures amongst all other creatures.
The third major section of this book, Schools of Psychology, consists of six chapters and on the surface resembles the standard approach of most textbooks on the history of psychology, which focus primarily upon the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries as the golden era in the history of Western psychology. In fact, significantly much more has been learned and published in psychology during the 20th century, and thus the need for extension of the foundational ideas presented in each chapter to contemporary research and applications in psychology.
The final section of this book is Diversity in Psychology and serves as the gateway to the future of psychology in the 21st century. This is a very exciting and challenging time for humanity as well as for the field of psychology. We believe many of the topics covered in this final section represent the infrastructure for the further development and strengthening of psychology over the next 25 years and beyond.
We hope this book is of value to you, and we welcome your suggestions and comments about what did and did not work for you. Please feel free to e-mail, fax, phone, write, or, best of all, stop by and visit us.
There is a brighter future on the horizon embodying the power of the world as a truly global community. As illustrated by the growing numbers of psychologists throughout the world, cross-national cooperation is clearly essential for the global advancement of psychology.
Postmodernism is often thought of as an attack on scientific inquiry while at the same time accepting relativism. The deconstructionist methods of inquiry introduced by post-modernism require a reevaluation of psychology that focuses upon both methodological issues and the expansion of Western psychology around the globe and its dominance of other cultures. We must recognize the process of globalization, which includes increasing diversity within nations as well as interdependence among nations.