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PSYCHOLOGY IN A NON‐WESTERN COUNTRY *
Author(s) -
Azuma Hiroshi
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1080/00207598408247514
Subject(s) - psychology , indigenous , asian psychology , psychological research , history of psychology , cultural psychology , international psychology , theoretical psychology , cross cultural psychology , social psychology , epistemology , cognitive psychology , ecology , biology , philosophy
Most psychological phenomena are intrinsically culture bound. Psychological theories developed in one culture may not automatically be generalizable to the behavior of the people of another culture. The psychology as a science primarily developed in Europe and America, based on the behavioral data of Western people studied by the psychologists grew in the Western culture. This obviously limits the applicability of psychology as it is to developing countries. This does not mean, however, that there should be as many psychologies as there are cultures. More generally valid psychology will emerge by identifying what is culturally specific in the main stream psychology and adopting new concepts of general applicability from other cultures. In the article below, stages of interaction between Western psychology and indigenous thought are described based on the history of psychology in Japan.