Psychology in Culture and Mind: Culture and Mind in Psychology (Part 1)

The Introduction of Psychology as Science: Nature or Culture?

Jahoda (m.r.)explicates that the notion and study of psychological knowledge has been at start the dubious ideas of social scientists except of the psychologist before psychologist had come to age (i.e., to call them selves as such). The psychological knowledge that was born out of this stern efforts were that of man under culture and society. However, the history of psychology, as most who have read one, have singled out the study of psychology under culture and society. Culture and society has been kept under the impression that it can be both controlled and limited/directed.

This effort of 'invisibling' culture and society in psychology has brought out the idea that psychology in itself is a natural science, which is an artefact per se. Wundt regarded psychology as a cultural (and social) science (Enriquez, 1994), that which is not a natural science bound to be purely scientific and objective in understanding. Although this distraction has been kept silent, recent efforts has been building up to interject this notion to clear the fact and status that psychology in itself cannot retain to be a natural science but also as a cultural-social science that which can be scientific in nature or phenomenological in expounding knowledge.

It is still to be ragarded that the human body is of fact general and that it's effect psychologically are quantifiable by the universal standard of math and science. But in effect to nurture (that which sounding of socialization and culture), psychology is still seen to be universal as that of it's natural scientific form. What i mean, is that psychology contructs are absolutely constructed to be universal. However, many rejects the idea that all things are universal, esp. in psychology. An example of this effort is that which of study of personality and culture, psychological anthropology, ethnopsychology and personality psychology. In an effort to discern this contestation is that of Church and Katigbak's (1989) work concerning indigenous constructs (Philippine) against Western (universal) construct. [Note: Indigenous--culture] Their efforts concluded that western construct, i.e., five-factor model, do not actually exist or exactly translate with indigenous construct, but accepts the fact that similarity exists between the two. (See Church & Katigbak, 1989)