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Summary Psychology 114
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Chapter 7 notes SLK120
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INTRODUCTIONPsychology is positioning itself as an expert - Steeped in Western / Eurocentric
on the subject of the human mind, mental values.
processes and behavior. - Promotes a positivist-empirical
mode of scientific investigation.
Talk about history of psychology because;
- Can track what the underlying Western / Eurocentric values
assumptions psychology has used Knowledge that reflects the interests and
in the past to understand people. ideas of white, heterosexual, middle class,
- And how we use this knowledge and educated American and European
from the past to understand societies.
ourselves in the present.
Positivist-empirical science
Naidoo [1996] argues the history of Knowledge is only considered scientific,
knowledge psychology has produced at valid, true and factual when it is produced
an international and local level is; under conditions that are observable,
objective, highly controlled and
quantified.
HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICAN PSYCHOLOGY
Divided into two periods;
- South African psychology pre-1994.
- South African psychology post-1994.
SOUTH AFRICAN PSYCHOLOGY PRE-1994
1. South Africa pre-1994 : an apartheid state. [All areas of life affected by policies put in
place during this time].
2. Psychology took up humanitarian role. [Psychology positioned itself as a solver of
human problems and protector of human rights. Psychology called itself as a
humanitarian science pre-1994].
3. Psychology’s authorization of racism. [Psychology gave reasoning that justified racist
practices, they used their authority as a science to justify racism].
4. Psychology documented white people’s lived experiences whilst ignoring black
people.
5. Psychology generated a racially skewed process of knowledge production and
training. [Little to no training available for black psychologists – shaped availability of
psychologists today].
6. Psychology produced racially defined diagnostic systems – bantu hysteria vs
depression. [Different sets of diagnostic criteria were used to treat mental health of
white people vs mental health of black people].
7. Psychology objectified black people as the negative “other”.
8. Psychology’s major concern – “poor white people”.
Why did South Africa not resist apartheid?
1. South African psychologists indoctrinated into systems of knowledge and ideologies
that left them little room to criticize and challenge racism.
2. Majority of psychologists were white and middle class and they benefitted from
apartheid’s racism.
3. Black psychologists represented under 10% of registered psychologists, so they did not
have a significant no. to create strong resistance.
, 4. The eugenics movement embraced and supported by psychology during apartheid
lead to ideas that black people are genetically inferior to white people. [Promoted
idea white people are mentally and morally superior to black population because of
their genetic makeup].
5. The “Extension of the University Education Act No. 45 of 1959” – access to the best
universities in terms of funding and resources reserved for white students only.
6. Psychology curriculum was complicit in reproducing racism. [Psychology curriculum
was designed to stop students thinking critically about racism].
7. The Psychological Institute of the Republic of South Africa had a say in the content
and curriculum of psychology programmes at universities.
8. The Publications Act No.42 of 1974 banned more than 18 000 books from universities
because they encouraged critical thinking that could challenge apartheid and
racism.
SOUTH AFRICAN PSYCHOLOGY POST-1994
1. Psychology side-stepping subject of racism and race.
2. Reforming psychology – at a professional and institutional level.
3. Removing organized psychology from any ties w. apartheid racism.
4. Creation of new organizations – PsySSA [Psychology Society of South Africa]. [PsySSA
is dealing with internal problems regarding racism].
5. Academic reform through research and publishing – shifting production of
knowledge to represent voices that were silenced, marginalized and excluded during
apartheid.
6. New forms of marginalization;
a. Low rates of publishing from minority of black academics in psychology.
b. Black academics stationed at disadvantaged universities where research and
publication are not given priority.
c. Black academics burdened w. unusually large volumes of students which left
them little time research and publishing.
d. English was medium of publication which largely worked to exclude black
academics because they were first language English speakers.
7. The continued use of Western / Eurocentric knowledge in psychology.
8. The racialized nature of professional psychology training programmes.
Substantial barriers remain in removing racist ideologies, which effect practice psychology.
THE DECOLONISATION OF THE PSYCHOLOGY PROJECT
WHAT IS THE DECOLONISATION OF PSYCHOLOGY
Decolonization suggests psychology has strong colonial ties, even at present.
Decolonization of psychology can be understood as questioning and challenging
mainstream models of psychology, which are wrought w. colonial assumptions and ideals
[psychologists are rethinking the knowledge, theoretical models and ideas they use in their
everyday practice].
MAINSTREAM PSYCHOLOGY
Psychological knowledge and ideas about world that reflect Western / Eurocentric values
and interests, steeped in positivist science, and neglects the social, cultural, political, and
historical contexts in which individuals are embedded.
TWO CONCEPTUAL WAYS TO DECOLONIZE PSYCHOLOGY
Liberation psychology:
Movement within discipline of psychology.
Influenced by contexts w. longstanding histories of colonialism such as SA, South America,
etc.
Overarching goal is social justice.
Recurring emphasis on perspectives, interests and knowledge of oppressed.
,3 goals:
- De-ideologizing everyday realities.
- Recovering historical memory.
- Privileging marginalized perspectives.
De-ideologizing everyday realities:
- To reveal and disrupt ideology of everyday realities.
- Everyday realities made up of knowledge: our everyday assumptions about world
that come from variety of sources.
- Everyday knowledge is not neutral, objective, value free and not natural.
- Ideology refers to ways in which meaning creates and sustains unequal power-
relations.
- Everyday experiences contain ideologies, which construct versions of reality for us.
- Aim is to critique the role of ideology and power in dominant institutions like
academia and psychology.
Recovering historical memory:
- Recovery of repressed historical memories replaced by imposition of colonizer’s
understandings.
- Recovery of historical memory aims to:
o Counteract institutional denial / collective forgetting of historical violence.
o Raise awareness of viable alternatives to colonial violence of modern global
order.
o Promotes a reconstruction of identity that provides unity and purpose around
alternative understandings of history and process.
Privileging marginalized perspectives:
- Concerted effort to understand realities of oppressed.
- Give oppressed a voice; give oppressed authorship.
- Allowing oppressed to speak shifts the knowledge, views and perspectives of those
that are privileged.
- Represents a challenge to authoritative discourses.
- Production of a localized knowledge made by and for people on margins of society.
Cultural psychology:
Considers relationship btwn mind and culture as dynamic and mutually constituted.
Mutual relationship has 2 directions:
- Sociocultural constitution of psychological experience [our individual minds are
shaped by the society and culture in which we live].
- Psychological constitution of sociocultural reality [actions and activities of individuals
are what shape the societies and cultures we live in overtime].
Notion of relationship btwn culture and mind / society and individual as mutually constituted
can be used to decolonize psychology based on 2 strategies:
- Normalizing other experience.
- De-naturalizing conventional scientific wisdom.
Normalizing other experience:
- Normalizing experiences of marginalized and oppressed who are usually portrayed as
abnormal.
- Recognizing local experiences w. out need for Western / Eurocentric enlightenment.
- Affirms intellect and humanity of people in marginalized spaces.
De-naturalizing conventional scientific wisdom:
- Questioning relevance and standards of conventional and “natural” scientific
knowledge.
, - Scientific knowledge is inherently Eurocentric and Western, so its relevance especially
in countries that were colonized need to be de-naturalized.
PSYCHOLOGY AND COLONIALISM
- Colonial violence refers to - Native people suffered deep and
colonizers occupying the land and severe forms of inferiority
controlling resources of colonized / complexes regarding skin colour,
native people. identity, culture, ethnicity, etc.
- Colonial violence also refers to - Colonial violence as form of
mental colonization / psychological violence to one’s
psychological form of colonization. identity.
FRANTZ FANON
An influential postcolonial writer. Post-colonial studies / postcolonialism:
Use his works to engage with: - Investigates colonial relations btwn
- What is the decolonization of the colonizer and colonized.
psychology? - Fanon is interest in psychological
- Why do we need to decolonize effects of relationship from
psychology? perspective of both colonized and
- Why is Western / Eurocentric colonizer;
knowledge and ideas privileges o Dutch and British formally
over the ones of native people? colonized SA, but this
colonial period evolved
into the Apartheid regime
which is merely an
extension of colonialism.
COLONIAL HISTORY IS IMPORTANT FOR TWO REASONS
1. Black and white are not only about skin colour, but more about the meanings
attributed to looking black and white that have been cemented and solidified for
hundreds of years.
2. Western / Eurocentric psychological theories end up inadvertently privileging the
consciousness of the colonizer, who are often white, whilst the experiences of black
people and people of colour are neglected.
RACE AND PSYCHOLOGY
HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
Psychological knowledge produced:
Western / Eurocentric frame of reference.
Mainstream schools of thought:
- Psychoanalysis:
o Sigmund Freud used this innovative procedure to treat people who were
troubled by psychological problems such as irrational fears, obsessions, and
anxieties. his exploration persuaded him of the existence of what he called
unconscious.
- Behaviorism:
o Founded by John B Watson.
o Is the theoretical orientation based on the premise that scientific psychology
should study only observable behavior.
o Watson proposed psychologists abandon the study of consciousness and
focus exclusively on behaviors they could observe directly.
- Humanism:
o A theoretical orientation that emphasizes the unique qualities of humans,
especially their freedom and their potential for personal growth.
o Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.
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