Unit 1 The history of psychology in Africa
The origin of psychology in Africa
• Euro-American imports
• Colonial period through Christian missionaries, visiting Western psychologists and Africans
who were returning from universities abroad
• Missionaries introduced psychology in philosophy training intended for African candidates in
theology
• From this world view, psychology defined as study of thought, emotions and observed
behaviour, emphasizing the “scientific” aspect of psychology – can consider what is normal
and adaptive
• Nwoye - “systematic and informed study of the complexities of human mental life, culture
and experience in the pre- and post-colonial African world”.
- This type of psychology considers local world views to be important in understanding
local realities
Psychology and location
• Greek - psychē, which refers to the soul; the second part comes from the Greek logos, which
refers to studying a particular subject.
• Concluded that it is the study of the soul
• First issue epistemic location - people generate their world views from a particular
geopolitical context and qualify truths based on their positioning
- questioning the contextual relevance and applicability of such theories in non-Western
contexts.
• Second issue – science informing the study of psychology – study emotions and thoughts
objectively – can lead to thinking about humans as mechanical and may not reflect
complexities of society in informing human behaviour
• Third issue - Who decides what human processes are within the scope of psychology to
study? Why do they get to make this determination?
- limited scope of studying psychology?
Psychology in Egypt
• Three significant events occurred in the 19th century that influenced rise of psychology in
Egypt
- 1. Al-Abssia Mental Health Hospital (first mental hospital for Africa and Arab world)
opened in Cairo in 1880
- 2. Newspapers and magazines distributed and established by Lebanese and Syrian
journalists
- 3. Expanded their schooling system that included teachers’ schools with basic
psychology training
• Book Insanity by Mohammed Nagaty published in 1891
• In Cairo, term “psychology” first appeared in curriculum approved by the Ministry of
Education in 1906
• After the establishment of the Higher Institute for Education in Cairo in 1929, psychology
became known as a distinguished scientific discipline
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,Psychology in South Africa
• believed the Bantu were not simply less developed than Europeans; rather, the belief was
that their culture differed fundamentally from European culture and was incompatible with
it – conclusion wat that mixing cultures would be fatal for both African and whites and total
separation was only solution
• Dutch and German philosophical traditions of rationalism and idealism influenced Afrikaans
universities, and British empiricism and liberalism influenced English universities.
• Wilcocks – Professor of Logic and Psychology at University of Stellenbosch and established
first experimental psychology lab modelled on Wundt’s lab
• psychologists EG Malherbe, JC Smuts, RW Wilcocks, HF Verwoerd and S Biesheuvel, played
role in the creation of apartheid and its policies.
• Chabani N Manganyi became first black psychologist in 1965 and established the
Department of Psychology at the University of Transkei in 1976
• Josephine Naidoo was the first black person to apply for South African Psychological
Association membership
• Sathasivan Cooper – helped establish Black Consciousness philosophy and helped form SRC
at University College
- Suspended from uni in 1969
- Steered merger with University of Natal to form University of KwaZulu-Natal
Psychology in Zambia
• Emerged within context of anthropological research to serve colonial British interests
• Rhodes-Livingstone Institute (1937) – Prof Heron was director in 1963
• Heron found Human Development Research Unit at Institute for Social Research to study
perceptual development in African children and young adults
• 1965 – first lab for research in experimental psychology established in Zambia
• 1968 – one of first psychology departments in East and Southern Africa founded at
University of Zambia
• In a study of reasoning in specific non-language-based school examination tasks – poor
performance related to socio-economic background – meant that psychology and its
methodological application had to be redefined to fit context
The different areas in the development of psychology in Africa
• Psychology as discipline concerned with mind and behaviour
- Mind – internal processes (cognition or emotional states)
- Behaviour – outward manner in which inward processes manifest
• Basic or general psychology – study of different factors that shape individual’s personality,
learning, cognition
- Includes abnormal psychology, behaviourism, biological psychology, cognitive
psychology, comparative psychology, cross-cultural psychology, developmental,
evolutionary, experimental, neuropsychology, personality psychology, positive
psychology, psychodynamic psychology, qualitative psychology and social psychology
Abnormal psychology • Unusual patterns of behaviour, emotion and thought
• Three historical phases of development:
1. Demonology – evil forces – Chinese, Egyptian, Babylonian
and Greek records – exorcism to cast it out
2. Somatogenesis – bodily causes – Hippocrates – mania,
melancholia and phrenitis (brain fever)
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, - He believed normal brain functioning depended on
balance btw blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm
- Phlegm – sluggish; Black bile – melancholia; yellow
bile – irritability and anxiousness
- Emil Kraepelin – classification system to establish
biological nature of mental illness
3. Psychogenesis – psychological/mental causes
- Franz Anton Mesmer – modern-day hypnosis
- HL Gordon – 1934 Kenya – “African had no regard for
the sanctity of life, no sense of decency…was simply
abnormal”
Behaviourism • Dominated btw 1920 and 1950s
• All things organisms do regarded as behaviour
• Ivan Pavlov – classical conditioning
• John Broadus Watson (1913) – psychology deals with
observable behaviours and not phenomena such as
conscience or thought – this led to 3 phase:
1. Watson’s behaviourism – lasted until 1930
2. New-behaviourism – Tolman, Guthrie, Hull and Skinner –
till 1960s
- Psychology composed of studies about learning
- Behaviour explained by conditioning
- Psychology had to comply with principle of
functionalism
3. New-new behaviourism – Bandura (Social cognitive
theory) and Rotter (Social learning theory)
• Radical behaviourists (Watson & Skinner) – psychology
should study observable behaviours and environmental
processes
• Methodological behaviourists (Bandura & Rotter) –
cognitive processes must be included when studying
methods of behaviour
Biological psychology • Mind-body connection – how nervous system affects
behaviour
• Came into being in 1913 – Noguchi’s discovery of
bacterium responsible for syphilis
Cognitive psychology • Study cognition – mental processes underlying perception,
learning, problem-solving, reasoning, thinking, memory,
attention, language and emotions
Cross-cultural psychology • Behaviour and mental processes under diverse cultural
conditions
• 1960 – to explain disparities in topics like affect, cognition,
conception of self, psychopathology, anxiety and
depression
• Paul Eckman examined facial expressions or emotions
from 10 different cultures – some expressions universal
Developmental psychology • Study humans throughout various life stages
• Started with John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• Locke – child is a tabula rasa (blank slate) on which
experience writes
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, • Rousseau – child grows in stages
• Dietrich Tiedemann created baby biographies in 1787
• Wilhelm Preyer – Die seele des kindes in 1882 (first 4
years of son’s life)
Evolutionary psychology • Traits and processes such as memory, perception and
language in terms of humans having to adapt to evolving
environment
• Charles Darwin
Experimental psychology • Methodological approach – use of experiments
• Wundt founded first lab for experimental psychology in
Leipzig
• Charles Bell – research on nervous system
• Heinrich Weber – German physicist – judgement of
sensory differences are relative, not absolute – Weber’s
law – first quantitative law in history of psychology
Neuropsychology psychology • Structure and functions of brain in relation to specific
psychological processes and overt behaviours
• Fundamental of human neuropsychology (2000) by Kolb
and Whishaw – first textbook
• Traced back to 3rd dynasty of ancient Egypt – Imhotep
Personality psychology • Investigates characteristics that all people have that shape
their thoughts, feelings and behaviour
• Big 5 personality model describe individual differences in
people
Social psychology • Studies social behaviour and mental processes pertaining
to social behaviour – how humans think about and relate
to one another
• Study conformity, effect of persuasion on human
behaviour, beliefs, attitudes and stereotypes
Different theoretical perspectives in the development of psychology in Africa
• Beginning of psychology in Africa – research done by missionaries, explorers, anthropologist
and colonial administrators
• Training psychologists in Africa – inaccurate representation of African reality
• Critical research in 1920s were Europeans and Americans
• 1960s – psychology departments established in Zambia – had first lab for experimental
research in sub-Saharan Africa
• 1980s – universities in Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Malawi established psychology
departments
• Most approaches were paternalistic, imperial, scientific, semi-mystical and proto-fascist –
focused on pursuing racist agenda and were oppressive
• Three ways in which Eurocentric psychology continued to manifest itself:
1. Assumptive solipsism – Euro-American world view only or most significant world view
2. Methodological solipsism – positivism or neo-positivism is only or best way to conduct
scientific research
3. Experiential solipsism – middle-class white men’s experience is most valid
• Assumptive solipsism continues to function in South African psychology in the form of biases
• Following table sets out the forms of assumptive solipsism
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,Control-prediction bias - control of variables and prediction are seen as
necessities for scientific inquiry
- control nature and predict events before they happen –
led to oppression of others
Analytical-reductionist bias - complex human experience understood better when
reduced to elemental and simple units
- psychology identifying with natural science
- complex human behaviour compromised and
compared with animal behaviour
Trait-comparison bias - assess traits or abilities and to compare them with one
another
- traits seen as stable and not influenced by socio-
historical determinants
- measured through IQ tests
Stability-equilibrium bias - maintain and exercise social control to further
perpetuate status quo
- stability desirable, conflict and change not
• solipsism could be seen in obsession with psychometric testing as an area of development
• Gideon Malherbe & Raymond Wilcocks pioneers of psychometric testing
• Tests developed by America and Europe seen as universal – mainly used for testing blacks,
Indians, coloureds and whites with view of making racial comparisons
• First SA intelligence test – Official Mental Hygiene Individual Scale (Fick Scale) published in
1926 by Martin Laurence Fick
• Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (1916) – test intelligence across 6 areas (general
intelligence, knowledge, fluid reasoning, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing
and working memory)
• Investment in test development – aimed at maintaining racial segregation – HSRC, NIPR and
SADF developed to carry out this type of research and develop such tests
• Frech philosopher Lucien Levy-Bruhl – How natives think (1910) and Primitive mentality
(1923) – differences in mentality btw primitive and modern societies – differences caused by
collective representation and not individual thoughts
• Psychoanalysis often used to explain racial relations and conflict btw black and white
• Advancement of psychoanalysis through personality theory saw child-rearing practices of
Africans at centre of analysis
• Led to development techniques by Peris (Gestalt therapy) and Wolpe (behavioural therapy)
• Blacks were placed in asylums because they ceased to conform to notion of the African
subject
- Black men and women who refused to confine themselves to areas assigned to them
were labelled insane
- Their confinement was less about curing them but rather removing them as a source of
disturbance to society
- Whites who had forgotten who they were and “gone native” were confined to
psychiatric hospitals – they failed to maintain civilised behaviour and ended up as
alcoholics or contracted sexually transmitted diseases
• Table below gives overview of socio-political context that influenced emergence of African
psychology
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, The role of psychology in colonisation and racial segregation
• Rose (1988) – psychology involved government rationality – ways to control and manage
citizens
- Psychology is a body of beliefs, institutes and techniques whose nature should be
understood within a global context
- A science that translates human subjectivity into language used by governments for
regulations of schools, prisons, factories, labour markets and economies
- device for obtaining information on human capacities and mental processes that
governments can use to make decisions about people and to manage them
• one of most important functions of psychology was to classify human differences and led to
racial classification and became a colonial tool
- biased research maintained that blacks were inferior and should not be allowed to self-
determine
- differences btw whites and blacks became critical in determining labour and industrial
practices
- intelligence testing was one of the instruments used to determine differences among
races
• identity formation – product of psychology – political identities of white superiority and
black inferiority
- Carnegie Commission (1932) help poor whites by giving them institutional assistance
(economic power) and preventing racial mixing
- Psychological science transformed ways in which individuals were produced, ordered,
accumulated and circulated – how blacks should be positioned in society (type of
education, employment and accommodation)
• Following individuals are worth mentioning as role players who shaped the history of
psychology in SA
- Ernst Gideon Malherbe – poor white study
- Jan Christian Smuts – prime minister of SA from 1919-1924 and 1939-1948; Mines and
Works Act of 1911 and Native Land Act of 1913
- Raymond William Wilcocks – joined Malherbe in psychometric testing of poor whites in
1930s
- HF Verwoerd – PhD in Psychology at Stellenbosch (1936) – worked alongside Wilcocks
and shared similar views on race relations in SA
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