For, and against, cultural imperialism in psychology teaching

As a Europe-born professor teaching in a Latin American country I am always at risk of being a twenty-first century cultural imperialist, i.e. forcing my culture onto another. After all, a professor is there to teach, to affect a change in the abilities and behaviour of the students. That is what learning is. The learning itself is desirable of course, but the content of the learning is the crux of the issue. Professors come from specific cultures and have their own blind spots and biases. It is a real risk; one can easily assume that what one is familiar with is the correct way of doing things.

In fact, many psychologists are acutely aware that adaptions need to be made for teaching in different cultures. As a particular example, forms of psychopathology vary across cultures. Simply teaching about DSM disorders in Ecuador, without examining local manifestations of mental illness would be inappropriate. DSM is really only a classification of mental disorders based on signs and symptoms commonly seen in the USA. Much of that will transfer across cultures, but some will not.

However, here I argue that adaption of teaching to different cultures is not necessarily the big issue that some psychologists make it. I am talking here from the perspective of a British psychologist teaching in Ecuador. I teach more or less the same ideas and concepts whatever country I am in. This is not out of laziness; it is out of belief. In this blog post I explain why I believe in a general, global education for psychologists, rather than parochial, local-style psychology, which may appear more culturally appropriate, but ultimately does not serve the students well. These are my reasons:

1. Good psychology is science. Science does not change from culture to culture. The way to advance psychology is to produce and interpret data logically. That’s basically what science is: Sensible, intelligent interpretation of data. It’s a clear way of thinking, not a topic. That way of thinking is the same in Ecuador as it is in my home country (England), or in Kazakhstan, or anywhere. It is my job as an educator to encourage the scientific way of thinking. It is true that there are inter-cultural differences in the matter of psychology, i.e. the mind. For example, there are cognitive processing differences between people in individualist and collectivist cultures. We know this because quantitative, scientific psychologists have done research on it. Good psychology teaching is about teaching good science.

2. Psychology is international. Psychologists move around the world, particularly those from countries such as Ecuador, where postgraduate study opportunities are limited. To continue one’s studies one often has to move to a different country. That’s good. However, if the students only study a version of psychology considered suitable for the Ecuadorian context, then they will be at a disadvantage when they go abroad, and that’s not fair. Good psychology education prepares people to use their training globally. This is particularly important in regards to information literacy and research methodology. Such skills are currently not emphasised in Ecuadorian psychology training. Nevertheless, they are essential for one to succeed in one’s studies in many other countries.

There is admittedly a bias for psychology literature, particularly journal articles, to come from a small number of English-speaking countries. And journal articles are the number one source of information for good psychologists. The way to address that imbalance is for psychologists in countries such as Ecuador to gain the skills to be able to publish their own research. That will ultimately serve Ecuadorian psychology better than making unnecessary distinctions between the local psychology and gringo psychology. Again, this will be achieved by international-standard research skills being emphasized in Ecuador, as they are in the countries publishing most of the research.

3. Universities are special. Whereas most people in their working lives are focused on producing profits for somebody, good professors are in the business of truth (the ultimate goal of research) and forming better people (the ultimate goal of education). That’s the same around the world. I think of universities as being like embassies, they are both insulated to a large extent from the environments that they are physically located in. There are ways of doing things, in universities or in embassies, which are the same wherever you are, in Quito, Washington or Moscow. In academia at least, these are generally virtuous ways of doing things. For example, attitudes to cheating may vary between cultures, but there is a common belief amongst university-people that one should not present as one’s own, work that was produced by another, i.e. plagiarism. Students may have to learn that, but that is part of their education in how to be academic. That special, high-minded feature of universities globally is something that should be celebrated. Adapting academic ways to local cultures risks that specialness of higher education.

4. Much of the ‘Ecuadorian psychology’ that I come across is nothing that needs to be preserved anyway. In fact, it shouldn’t even be taught at universities. If there was a rich cultural tradition of thinking about the mind espoused by modern Ecuadorian psychologists, derived from their history, perhaps of Amerindian origin, then I would be all for teaching that, alongside internationally-accepted psychology material. But the psychologists who resist my teaching of psychology, and suggest that I’m imposing my academic cultural background, are generally involved with highly dubious fields anyway. These include hypnotherapy, dream analysis, graphology, tarot cards, Bach flower remedies, etc. These are all European, nineteenth and twentieth-century pseudosciences. Think about it. The damaging cultural imperialism has already been done. I’m in fact one of the people fighting against it. It is the responsibility of good psychology professors, from whatever background, to train psychologists who can tell the difference between pseudoscience and psychology. That means not only teaching up-to-date and accepted knowledge, but even more importantly, the scientific skills and the information literacy needed to recognize and reject pseudoscience.

Finally, if students are trained well in the core of globally recognised psychology, and have the information literacy and research skills they will become good psychologists. From those foundations they can develop a psychology for Ecuador.