Cross-cultural perspectives Book

Nearly all of what we know as scientific psychology has been developed in Western cultures. In the decades following World War II most of the psychological research was conducted in the United States. Today 80 percent of the psychology textbooks used in countries as diverse as India and West Germany are still written and published in America. Although the narrow focus on work by and about white, middle-class Caucasians is changing, the fact remains that the domination of one cultural group has crippled a discipline that aims to explain general human behavior. Hence the importance of these essays, which examine recent developments in cross-cultural psychology and alert main-stream social scientists to the limitations of their work.Editor John J. Berman notes in his introduction that some of "the very best representatives" of major areas of psychology have contributed to Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Gustav Jahoda of the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, traces the conceptual roots of cross-cultural psychology from the eighteenth century to the twentieth. Harry C. Triandis of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, shows the degree to which a society's emphasis on individualism or collectivism influences social behavior. Çigdem Kagitçibasi of Bogaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey, recognizing Western psychologists' tendency to highlight the individual, offers a synthesis of the cross-cultural work done so far on the family and on child-rearing practices. John Berry of Queen's University, Kingston, Canada, seeks to understand the changes and constants in behavior that occur when a person moves from one culture to another. Juris G. Draguns of Pennsylvania State University at University Park addresses the topic of abnormal behavior from a cross-cultural perspective. Michael Cole of the University of California, San Diego, arguing that all psychology should be "cross-cultural" and that such a distinction should not be necessary, looks to a future when practical, everyday activities are studied rather than artificially contrived laboratory experiments. Clearly, this volume will be of interest not only to clinical, cognitive, and developmental psychologists and researchers but also to cosmopolitan lay readers.