Limitations of Western Psychology

It is first worthy of mentioning that Indigenous knowledge, with its roots spanning thousands of years, have been appropriated by our "beloved" well known psychological theoretical approaches, such as EFT (emotional freedom technique) tapping and The Hierarchy Needs, which they have extracted and adapted to fit into the individualistic-based psychological theories and concepts we know today (Mullan, 2023). Dr. Jennifer Mullan (2023) mentions how the well known tapping techniques have origins in ancient Chinese medicine with the development of acupuncture, but current energy psychology do not acknowledge the roots of their techniques nor provide compensation or credit to the communities from which they have been extracted. Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" were also extracted when Maslow spent six weeks living at Siksika (Blackfoot) in the summer of 1938, where he restructured his theories and beliefs about self-actualization (a term Maslow uses), which is seen with how American ideals focus on individual and solitary ways of actualizing, but the Blackfoot focuses on communal practices that actually ensures everyone thrives together (Mullan, 2023).

There is a high level of respect that I feel needs to be regarded to indigenous psychology and healing. The current "evidence-based practices" that are used today must acknowledge their roots in order for the global community to have a fuller understanding of psychology's roots, as painful as it may be. As much as I attempt to decolonize my therapy practice serving the people, I make efforts to increase understanding of our connection to land, rebuilding relationships with water, fire, Earth, and the air we breathe (because we have both blood and land ancestors), as well as being curious of the client's ancestral roots of how they perceive healing, there is still much to unlearn and relearn. I believe it is a necessary first step to reckon with our history first, then begin to heal from its wounds by paying respects and honoring indigenous wisdom.

Impact of Western Psychology

The western lens is dominant across the globe, with the rest of the world as “consumers” that we have sold to, even the International Union of Psychological Science is Euro-American. “Indigenous psychology” is inappropriately used to refer to other psychologies to reflect the ideologies of the majority of the world. Part of the cause is problems of imbalance and dominance in the development of psychology. Western psychology has been guilty of using the majority of the world as a laboratory and has been known to exploit human resources in different ways (Berry, et al, 2011).

Many do not realize how limiting not just the field of psychology, but even the psychological research accrued over the past decades has had both direct and indirect ways of self understanding and relating with others. Much of the psychological research published in APA (American Psychological Association) journals focus too narrowly on Americans, who comprise less than 5% of the world's population. The understanding of psychology is incomplete and inadequate when it does represent humanity. The narrowness of American psychology research ignores or strips away cultural context.

American psychology unfortunately makes the assumption that social, emotional, and cognitive functioning applies to all human beings, but conclusions are based not on a broad cross section of humanity but just from a small corner of the human population, neglecting the other 95% of world population. Much of psychology research is dominated by Americans. Many American psychology researchers are oblivious to international contributions, with unfortunate consequences for science in psychology.

Arnett (2008) investigates six premier APA journals from his analysis from 2003 – 2007.

• U.S. dominates current content of many APA journals; 73% were based at American universities, an additional 14% of first authors were from the four English-speaking countries
• Only 1% of first authors were from Asia, and none from Latin American, Africa, or Arab nations
• Analysis of samples showed pattern of American dominance: 68% from US, 14% from English speaking countries, and 13% in Europe
• American samples in 2007 were also analyzed for their ethnic composition (because of ethnic diversity of US), but the samples were predominantly European American
• Some may object that APA is American, but there’s no mention of their journal guidelines that the content of journal is intended to be primarily American

Implications of Journal Analysis

• U.S. dominates APA journals
• Even in the past 20 years, despite the rise of cultural psychology and rise of globalization as a topic of scholarly study and public discourse, little change has taken place in the predominance of American content in APA journals
• Editors were exclusively American, and associate editors and editorial board members were overwhelmingly (more than 80%) based in the U.S.
• In all journals, even when authors and samples were from outside the US, cultural context rarely mentioned. Like American authors, authors from other countries appeared to operate on the assumption that the national and cultural origin of the study didn’t matter, because any human beings could be taken to represent all human beings

The U.S. and the Rest of the World: Demographic Contrasts

The frequent contrast made by demographers is between “developing countries” / countries being developed on that comprise the majority of the world’s population and the economically developed countries that are part of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including U.S, Canada, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.

The current population of OECD countries is 1.2 billion, 18% of the total world population. By 2050, world population is forecasted to surpass 9 billion, with most of the increase taking place within countries being developed upon.

Key areas must be noted: income, education, and health. With respect to income, nearly half the world’s population lives on a family income of less than $6,000 per year. The gap between rich and poor nations is growing. Although the gender gap in education is shrinking in all regions of the world, it still remains substantial at secondary levels (i.e. in India, with a population of over 1 billion ppl, only 39% of girls enroll in secondary education, compared with 59% of boys). Physical health is another factor: in United Nations figures, 17% of children in exploited countries are malnourished, compared with less than 1% of OECD countries, with WHO (World Health Organization) estimates that malnutrition is the underlying cause in more than half of deaths among children under age 5.

Consequences of Demographic Contrasts

This raises questions of whether American psychology can truly be considered a human science if it focuses primarily on an unusual 5% of the human population, with occasional inclusion of an additional 7%. Such narrowness in research in psychology cannot be justified by requirements of science.

In studying human beings, whose environmental, economic, and cultural differences make them more diverse than any other animal species, are not factored. Psychology’s focus on cognition, behavior, mental health, social relations, and individual development are all affected by income, education, and health (i.e. low income families affect behaviors, with much of daily activity focused on survival; education affects cognition and individual development, such as western decisions about when to marry and how many children to have, physical health risks affects mental health).

Why The Neglect?

Two influences:

1. The abundance of research resources in more privileged countries

It is obvious that wealthier countries have more economic resources to support scientific research (especially in psychology); U.S. is the largest yearly gross domestic product (GDP) in the world, producing most psychological research because a portion of its abundant resources go to universities, government agencies, and foundations that support such research.

• There is in fact an immense amount of psychology research in countries around the world and most of it published in English, but it rarely influences the APA journal system and ignored by American psychologists
• The vast majority of American psychologists and their students have extremely limited knowledge concerning the work of their international counterparts

2. Psychology’s dominant philosophy of science and its search for human universals

• From its beginnings, psychology has modeled itself mainly after the natural sciences. 19th century psychology researchers in the U.S. and Europe mostly believed that the study of human beings could be pursued using the same scientific methods– primary methods were experimental, and it did not matter who the research participants were or how they lived outside the lab– goal was to find human universals, the fundamental processes and principles that comprise human psychological functioning.
• In 20th century as psychology research became more extensive, methods used became more diverse (i.e. observations became acceptable methods, etc), but philosophy of science remains today and relative neglect of cultural context of people being studied.
• “Second psychology” was always there as an alternative, advocating for research attention to psychological consequences of diverse cultures, contexts, and circumstances, using a wide range of approaches rather than strictly experimental methods (Wundt, Dewey, and Vygotsky advocated for this). Cultural psychology emerged, but then research grew in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and behavior genetics, all of which search primarily for universal processes and principles rather than emphasizing cultural context and variation.

Need For Broader Psychology

Of course many are content with American psychology's dominant philosophy of science.

Arnett (2008) argues the demographic analysis in this article has shown that the lives of the majority of the people in the world are simply too different from the lives of the people in the U.S., failing to sufficiently illuminate the psychology of even the Americans who are mainly studied.

Developmental psychology: peer relations are common in research, with importance of peer relations during adolescent years, but in a substantial proportion of the world today, half or more of children have left school by adolescence and spend their days mainly with adults or in mixed-age groups. In East Asian countries, peer influences in adolescence are often minimized for a different reason: intense educational pressures; so it would be important to understand that peer influence is not universal but is dependent on conditions of an American peer environment that is unusual historically and internationally.

Social psychology: one area of interest has been gender roles and gender stereotypes, but this is only limited to American undergraduates taking introduction to psychology classes at research universities. Gender roles have changed dramatically in recent decades, becoming less strict as girls and women have moved beyond these boundaries. Gender roles remain stronger in non-western countries, where girls have less access to secondary education than boys do, and women have a restricted range of occupational opportunities. Regarding social psychology, specifically marriage, the primary basis of marriage is romantic love– consequently, emotional and sexual intimacy demands placed on marriage are exceptionally high. Whereas in India and China, marriage’s primary purpose is practical arrangement, often arranged by parents. American psychologists should be more familiar with worldwide marriage forms and how the demands of modern American marriages and the sorts of challenges and problems these demands entail.

Family psychology: Family psychology research is incredibly narrow! Studies focus almost exclusively on standard American nuclear family forms (mother, father, and 1 or more children), but family forms experienced by most people of the world are much more different, which include extended family members. Infants are frequently fostered out to other family or community members after weaning, especially in Micronesia and West Africa, with grandmothers being heavily involved in child care in many parts of the world, and grandparents frequently live within the household in Asian cultures.

HIV/AIDS: virtually all research is published involving American samples, but 98% of world’s AIDS deaths take place in southern Africa! HIV infection is different in the US (dominantly gay men), but in southern Africa, it’s dominantly heterosexual women.

Educational psychology: research focuses on topics as the relation of different teaching approaches in academic performance, focusing exclusively on American schools, yet structure and content of schools vary vastly worldwide. For instance, Asian schools place strong emphasis on rote learning, European schools have different types of secondary schools leading to different occupational paths. By examining how children in different cultures respond to different types of structures and requirements, psychologists could enrich the understanding of how children learn.

Personal Reflections

I acknowledge that I have received a formal education in the field of western psychology here in the United States, based in California, recognizing the limitations and narrow perspectives within western psychology and their positioning on the human mind, including the therapeutic treatment through various psychological modalities. I acknowledge and recognize western psychology’s biases, its history and current stance of being part of the mental health industrial complex (psychotherapist Dr. Greene defines this as a positioning of mental health problems as purely individual issues, the mental health industrial complex depoliticizes distress, effectively conditioning people to overlook structural issues, such as racism and classism; he argues that the mental health field in the United States perpetuates systemic violence, suggests that being human is reducible to our brain chemistry, and ignores context and culture). I acknowledge my own personal biases, and commit myself to continually cultivate daily self-awareness in my journey as a psychotherapist in order to uphold ethical standards of practice so that I do not unintentionally create harm to the communities I serve.

References

• Berry, J.W., Poortinga, Y.H., Breugelmans, S. M., Chasiotis, A., & Sam, D. L. (2011). Cross-cultural psychology: Research and Applications. (3rd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Arnett, J. J. (2008). The neglected 95%: Why American psychology needs to become less American. American Psychologist, 63, 602–614.
• Mullan, J. (2023). Decolonizing Therapy: Oppression, Historical Trauma, and Politicizing Your Practice. W. W. Norton & Company.