Psychology 114
Introduction:
Venue: Online
Module Framework:
https://learn.sun.ac.za/pluginfile.php/2393552/course/section/491072/Psychology%20114%20Cours
e%20Outline%20Eng%20Afr.pdf?time=1615535933260
Assessment Dates for Semester One:
1. Early Assessment Test: 12 April
2. Semester Test: 15 May
3. Major Assignment: 27 May
4. Tutorials: Weekly (Every Friday)
5. First Opportunity Exam: 25 June
6. Second Opportunity Exam 14 July
Class Mark: Test 1(20%) + Test 2(20%) + Assignment(50%) + Tutorials(10%)
Final Mark: Class Mark(40%) + Final Exam(60%)
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, Week 1: Brief History of South African Psychology
Introduction
Why is it important to discuss the history of psychology in South Africa?
● This question allows us to engage with how the past comes to shape and influence the
present and future.
● We know that psychology in South Africa was shaped by racism.
● Knowledge production = the production of knowledge about psychology in South Africa,
which informs how we practice psychology through teaching, research, psychotherapy,
psychometric assessments etc.
Naidoo (1996) argues that the history of knowledge psychology has produced, at an international
and local level is:
1. steeped in Western/Eurocentric values;
2. and, promotes a positivist-empirical mode of scientific investigation.
What does this mean?
It means that, historically, psychology has produced knowledge that is Western/Eurocentric and
based on positivism, and that this knowledge has been adopted universally, in South Africa and
everywhere else.
Two key characteristic features of psychological knowledge
1. Western/Eurocentric values = knowledge that reflects the interests and ideas of white,
heterosexual, middle class, and educated American and European societies. This represents a
particular type of consciousness.
2. Positivist-empirical science = knowledge is only considered scientific, valid, true and factual
when it is produced under conditions that are observable, objective, highly controlled and
quantified. This refers to where the people or phenomena under investigation are removed
from the natural context and environment and are put into situations that resemble settings
like a scientific laboratory. It is not interested in studying people in their natural
environment.
What does psychology’s Western/Eurocentric and positivist knowledge mean for you, and the social,
cultural, economic and political context from which you come?
Is the knowledge psychology produces relevant to your life, with respect to your race, gender, class
position, sexuality, nationality, political views, religious affiliation, ethnicity etc.?
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, For most people this type of view is highly problematic as it fails to take into consideration
peoples social, political and historical location. When we fail to acknowledge the history of any
knowledge including psychological knowledge then we allow this knowledge from the past that
represented a group of particular people to speak on our behalf in the present
For example, mainstream psychology which is taught at undergraduate and postgraduate levels is
loosely based on Western/Eurocentric values and a positivist model of scientific inquiry.
This means that psychology carries the tendency to decontextualise your experiences and
subjectivities, should you fail to question and interrogate from where this knowledge comes, in
the first place, and its usefulness for your current social reality.
Two histories to consider
1. The history of psychology (spoken about above)
2. The history of South Africa (spoken about below)
Two key historical determinants that shaped South Africa
1. Racism
2. Apartheid
How did psychology fit into apartheid?
Was psychology complicit in promoting apartheid and racism or did psychology challenge this system
and its racist ideology?
The second reading from this week by Duncan & Bowman answers this question.
History of South African Psychology
The history of psychology in South Africa can be divided in two important periods, which represent
noticeable shifts in the political landscape of South Africa:
1. South African Psychology pre-1994
2. South African Psychology post-1994
South African Psychology pre-1994
The main features
1. South Africa pre-1994 – an apartheid state (the most important point). Everything was
shaped by the policies put in place by the oppressive apartheid government.
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, 2. Psychology took up a humanitarian role. Positioning itself as a solver of human problems and
labelled itself as a humanitarian science pre-1994.
3. Psychology’s authorisation of racism. Psychology supported the reproduction and oppression
of apart by reasoning and producing arguments that justified racist practices and ideologies.
Psychology used its authority as a science to justify racism in South Africa.
4. Psychology documented white people’s lived experiences, which were published in journals,
whilst ignoring black people.
5. Psychology generated a racially skewed process of knowledge production and training. There
was little to no training facilities for black psychologists which resulted in the under
representation of black psychologists working in the profession of psychology. This has
shaped the availability of psychologists up until today in South Africa.
6. Psychology produced and utilised racially defined diagnostic systems – bantu hysteria versus
depression. This means that there were different systems used to treat the mental health of
whit people in comparison to the mental health of black people. It was reasoned that black
people did not suffer from depression but suffered from bantu hysteria, only white people
were acknowledged as suffering from depression.
7. Psychology objectified black people as the negative ‘Other’.
8. Psychology’s major concern – ‘poor white people’. Huge sources of funding were made
available to investigate and alleviate the ‘poor white people’ problem. Psychology had
therefore privileged the concerns of white people over black people. This is due to systemic
racism.
Why did South African psychology not resist apartheid?
1. South African psychologists were indoctrinated into systems of knowledge & ideologies that
left them little room to criticise and challenge racism. Such as Western/Eurocentric views
and systemic racism.
2. The majority of psychologists were white and middle class, and they benefitted from
apartheid's racism.
3. Black psychologists represented under 10% of registered psychologists, and so they did not
have a significant number to create a strong resistance.
4. The eugenics movement embraced and supported by psychology during apartheid = ideas
that black people are genetically inferior to white people. It promotes the idea that white
people are born more intelligent and morally correct in comparison to black people. This
promoted the idea that black people were genetically inferior to white people.
5. The ‘Extension of the University Education Act No. 45 of 1959’ – it regulated and controlled
access to the best universities in terms of funding and resources reserved for white students
only.
6. The psychology curriculum was complicit in reproducing racism and had very little to say
about the view of apartheid. This directly/indirectly supported the apartheid regime.
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