What is multicultural psychology?

Introduction

Multicultural psychology is the study of human behavior as it occurs when people from multiple cultural groups encounter one another within the same context. This field emphasizes understanding how recurrent contact between people from different cultures shapes behavior, cognition, and affect.

Those who study multicultural psychology stress the interplay between mind and culture. Psychological processes are assumed to be learned and to occur in cultural contexts, which, narrowly considered, are characterized by race, ethnicity, or nationality. This characterization can be broadened to include ethnographic, demographic, status, and affiliation identities. From this, it can be inferred that people belong to multiple and overlapping cultures. In this field, it is assumed that cultural contact and the characteristics, values, and behaviors that are associated with cultures govern all aspects of human behavior, including a person’s perception of the self, other people, and things. This perception is called a worldview. It is the aim of multicultural psychology to strengthen the understanding of how cultural contact produces different worldviews and the reasons and ways in which groups influence one another as a function of power and status.

The culture-centered perspective of multicultural psychology conflicts with perspectives common in much of psychology that emphasize the universality of mental processes. This may explain why psychology was slow to embrace the study of multicultural issues. However, the United States is a multicultural society, in which people from different backgrounds live and work together on a daily basis, creating a need for the inclusion of factors related to culture in the study of psychology.

History

Multicultural psychology as its own discipline gained considerable attention in the 1960s and 1970s, when psychologists began to recognize the importance of understanding issues of culture in diverse communities and advocated for research examining the influence of culture and ethnicity on all aspects of human behavior. It was during the 1970s that the study of gender gained inclusion in multicultural psychology. Soon after, the scope was again broadened to include the worldview of lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals. The understanding of this worldview contributed in part to the removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder in the American Psychiatric Association’s
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), beginning with the third edition (1980).

Some early efforts within the field of multicultural psychology depended on traditional quantitative research methods that used Western constructs and psychological instruments to study differences between cultural groups. White populations were treated as the standard against which minority groups were measured. From a multicultural perspective, this makes little sense. For example, if a researcher wants to understand how Confucian teachings influence some parenting practices, a white comparison group is not necessary. As a result of the implicit power dynamic, researchers failed to recognize how groups influence one another and how stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination shape the worldviews of people of color and women. To correct the notion that other cultures were inferior to white culture, researchers in the 1980s and 1990s began to use qualitative research methods, such as observation and interviews, to gain a more accurate understanding of how culture governs human behavior and to develop an understanding of behaviors in their cultural context.

Status in the Twenty-first Century

In spite of resistance from researchers who have attempted to develop universal principles of human behavior, the multicultural perspective in psychology has gained acknowledgment for its inclusion of culture-centered research and the emphasis it places on acquiring culturally appropriate skills in applied psychological practices, education, and organizations. Its emphasis on understanding one’s own culture, understanding other worldviews, and developing appropriate interpersonal skills has had a transformative effect on how researchers and practitioners approach various fields of psychology, including testing, communication, social processes, health, counseling, and education. This led Paul Pedersen, a long-time contributor to multicultural psychology, to suggest that the growing perspective of multicultural psychology is the “fourth force” in psychology. Like the first three forces—psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and humanism—multicultural psychology has changed, and continues to change, the way people think about all aspects of human behavior.

Bibliography

Davis-Russell, Elizabeth, ed. The California School of Professional Psychology Handbook of Multicultural Education, Research, Intervention, and Training. San Francisco: Jossey, 2002. Print.

Jackson, Yolanda K., ed. Encyclopedia of Multicultural Psychology. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2006. Print.

Leong, Frederick T. L., ed. APA Handbook of Multicultural Psychology. Washington: APA, 2013. Print.

Locke, Don C. Increasing Multicultural Understanding: A Comprehensive Model. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1998. Print.

Mio, Jeffery Scott, Lori A. Barker, and Jaydee Tumambing. Multicultural Psychology: Understanding Our Diverse Communities. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.

Nagayama Hall, Gordon C.. Multicultural Psychology. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice, 2010. Print.