African American Psychology

In two studies, this thesis depicts the relationship between minority group status in the United States, perceived discrimination, and coping with stress. Past literature on coping and its types – problem-focused versus emotion-focused – is inconsistent in terms of differences between minority status groups and majority groups. It remains unknown whether or why Black Americans and lesbian or gay Americans may demonstrate coping patterns that differ from White Americans and heterosexual Americans, respectively. What is altogether absent from the literature is the possible mediating factor of perceived discrimination experienced by these minority groups. That is, differences in internal, stable coping processes that manage stress may have been molded by one’s experience with discrimination. Study 1 examines the relationship between race (Black versus White) and coping, mediated by perceived discrimination. Study 2 examines the relationship between sexual orientation (lesbian or gay versus heterosexual) and coping, mediated by perceived discrimination. Both studies confirm the thesis that minority group members exhibit maladaptive, emotion-focused coping more than majority group
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members – but that this difference is explained by the minority group members’ perceived discrimination. Historical and political relevance, social implications, and possible limitations in design and interpretation are discussed.

... DOI: 10.1177/009579848300900201 1983 9: 1 Journal of Black Psychology Hector F. Myers,Rochelle T. Bastien and Ralph E. Miles Life Stress, Health, and Blood Pressure in Black College Students ... Hector F. Myers and Rochelle T. Bastien University of California, Los Angeles ...

Fate is regarded as a central component in tragedy. The significant role of fate is recognized when, despite a character's heroic acts and good intentions, they face death simply because they are doomed to die. But studies confirm that fate does not play a similarly critical role in the tragic denouement of each play. This paper attempts a critical comparison on the role and nature of fate in the downfall of protagonists in the classical Greek and Shakespearean tragedies. By reviewing research-based articles and books, and by reading through selected texts in reader-response approach, this paper attempts to identify the entirely different natures of fate that came into play for the tragic heroes’ downfall as portrayed in these two different ages. The findings manifest that the force behind the collapse of the heroes in the classical Greek tragedies was predominantly fate where the hero had little to do but to become a pawn in the hands of external forces beyond his control, wh...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the Psychological history and contemporary culture of African American Sexuality; paying particular attention to its contrast with Traditional Psychology. This analyzation will entail detailed research regarding the current (mythic) perception of African centered sexuality; in addition to the actual interpretation formed through literature and introspective interview. Further examination is needed regarding the intersectional invisibility of African American women's sexuality, within a framework which has subsequently created a system of coordinating identities; initiating cause for concern within Psychological study. This paper examines these ideals; as well as possible solutions.

Black Feminist and Womanist theories are culturally based perspectives that take into consideration the contextual and interactive effects of herstory culture, race, class, gender, and other forms of oppression. These frameworks provide a contextualized understanding of African American girls' experiences and perspectives. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the current status of research about African American girls. In addition, this article demonstrates the need for a theoretical perspective that can be used to produce research that accurately examines the lives of African American girls. Major themes of Black Feminist Thought and Womanism will serve as a viable theoretical framework for studying this population. Last, principles of a Black Feminist-Womanist research model will be defined.

The issue of the influence of poverty on early childhood development has received considerable research attention. Poverty has usually been conceptualised and measured in absolute terms, using a national and an international poverty line. Similarly, the outcome variables (such as cognitive ability, academic performance, personality, and behavioural patterns) have also been measured as if Western childhood developmental trajectories and ideals are universal. It is argued that when poverty is defined by biased attitudes and measures, children are improperly classified and judged and interventions are designed with the wrong goals in mind. It is against this background that this article provides a critical review of the existing literature. In particular, this article explores some definitional issues in the measurement of poverty and the presence or otherwise of Western biases in the conceptualisation and measurement of relevant outcomes in childhood. It is expected that there will be an appreciable improvement in knowledge production in respect of the influence of poverty on the African child when the issues explored in this article are addressed.

Pre-modern, modern, and postmodern frames of reference have all helped shape important contemporary psychological theories and issues.  In this reflection paper, I  attempt to walk through and revisit areas covered in a psychology course, the end aim being to gain a measure of insight into where the field of psychology stands today.

Erratum

Please cite as:
Oppong, S., Oppong Asante, K., & Kumaku, S. K. (2014). History, Development and Current Status of Psychology in Ghana. In C. S. Akotia and C.C. Mate-Kole (Eds).
Contemporary Psychology: Readings from Ghana
(pp. 1 –17). Accra: Digibooks Ghana Ltd.

Psychology has many applications including psychological testing. In this paper, an attempt is made to identify the types of tests used in Ghana and discuss the problems associated with the current state of psychological testing in Ghana. It was concluded that the current state of psychological testing has been too Eurocentric and Westernized. As a result, it limits the applicability and usefulness of the tests in the Ghanaian setting. After this critical evaluation, suggestions were then made for the improving psychological testing in terms of construction of Ghana-centric tests and validation of imported tests. Though this paper focuses on Ghana, it is expected that the discussions and recommendations would equally be relevant for other non-European and non-American populations of world.

Generally, psychologists are not well known in public policy and development circles as experts whose contributions are invited. This has been attributed, at the very least, to the inability of psychologists to communicate what they can contribute to public policy. To address this issue of lack of involvement, it has become necessary for psychologists, therefore, to claim part of the intellectual space in development circles in order to showcase what contributions psychologists can make to public policy and development planning. Thus, this article seeks to examine the potential contributions that psychology as a discipline can make to public policy making and development, particularly in Ghana. It concludes that public policy and development will benefit from the application of psychological research and principles. However, it is suggested that further studies should be conducted to assess the perceived acceptance of the involvement of psychologists in public policy from the various stakeholders on the one hand and the readiness of psychologists to participate on the other.

Whereas multiple articles have utilized Azibo's Nosology for its practical interventions into the theory and practice of Black psychology, to date no articles have inquired into the methodological and theoretical genealogy of Azibo's system. To some psychologists and Black Studies scholars to pose such a question at the 25 year mark of the theory seems silly, or useless given its representation in the literature, but it is precisely the archival history of Azibo's nosology, specifically the special edition of the 1998 Journal of Black Psychology edited partially by Dr. Azibo himself that brought this question to mind. begins with eulogies by Ewart Thomas and Howard Hall to the late W. Curtis Banks, who died January 14 th of that year; and ends with a smaller section edited by Dr. Daudi Azibo himself on the clinical efficacy and theoretical intervention of his now popular nosology. The contrast of these two sections in this edition impressed me, and reignited an argument I developed as an undergraduate student in an African American Psychology class at Southern Illinois University Carbondale when I was asked to read Azibo and Banks works on African-centered thought. On the one hand, we see the death of one of the most philosophically astute and critical methodologists in Black psychology, next to the rise of a (then) young radical theorist who adamantly disagreed with Banks, but nonetheless was influenced by his intellectual opposition.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the current and historical associations of Psychology, in reference to the study of African American culture and Oppression. Specifically the study researches what happens when there is not the inclusion of the African centered identity within Psychological research and practice. In addition; a proposal is presented regarding this paradigm can be altered in the future to include better implementations of culture, in order to avoid the bias which is currently present within Traditional and Western Psychology and practice.

Psychology is a hyper-science because it utilizes the philosophy and methodology of the natural sciences to create an impression that it is a natural science and frequently calls itself as a science so that it can compensate for the lack of substance and content. Unfortunately, theorizing has been left to a few gifted scholars, even though it is required to truly move the discipline beyond its status as a hyper-science. More importantly, the aim of science is not application but theory, yet method is overdeveloped in psychology to the neglect of theorizing. A good science leads to good applications and a good science is one that produces good theories. However, African scholarship is often mocked as being too data-driven and empirical, but less theoretical and conceptual. This suggests that African scholars in general and African psychologists in particular make little or no theoretical, philosophical, and methodological contributions to the discipline of psychology. This raises a question about the nature of the scholarship produced in the social sciences by African scholars in general and Africa-based or Black psychologists in particular. Thus, there is an urgent need to redeem our image as scholars whose science seeks to generate explanations for behaviour and mental processes with application as a secondary but an essential objective. I recommend some actions to help us move beyond data collection and analysis to contribute conceptually to the discipline.

I present here an assessment of African Psychology (AP) to give insights about how it has been conceptualised and practised thus far as well as what its future holds. I begin with a focus on the centrality of culture and how AP treats the concept of culture. I will then attempt to respond to some concerns often raised by Africa-based psychologists who do not operate in and from a multiracial space about the relevance and legitimacy of AP. Theoretically, multiracial space is conceptualised not to mean the mere presence of people from diverse races in a particular space but also to the uneven distribution of power in spaces such as a country, state, university, or any community of people. Further, I attempt to argue for positioning of AP to contribute to global psychology. I will discuss implications for theory development, practice, curriculum design, and pedagogical practices as well.

With the recent increase in empirical studies investigating depression among urban African American youth comes the need to refine and integrate theoretical perspectives that address culture-specific etiologic mechanisms and developmental trajectories. The purpose of this article is to review four theories of depression relevant to the study of African American adolescents and to offer suggestions for the integration of theories to enhance the culturally relevant design of empirical investigations. It is argued that all four theories-socioecologic, cognitive, family stress, and biopsychosocial-center on the role of oppression in the development of urban Black youth and that an integrated theory would assume this underlying construct as its core focus. A macrotheoretical model synthesizing the four theories is presented, with oppression identified as the key catalyst in the chain of factors that might ultimately lead to adolescent depression. Implications for further theory development and empirical research on adolescent depression are discussed.

This study focuses primarily upon the current state ofAfrican-centered psychology through the pages o f the Journal o f Black Psychology (JBP). Recent literature on African-centered psychology is reviewed and articles published in the JBPfrom 2000-2010 relative to African-centered psychology are examined. The results o f the content analysis o f empirical or theoretical articles within the JBP indicated that 90% (n = 221) o f the articles were empirical and 10% (n = 25) were theoretical. The results o

Liberation education is a pedagogy which enables gifted youth, especially gifted African American youth, to critical view the systemic inequities that hinder their development. This educational paradigm addresses the needs of not only gifted African American youth, but is an educational pedagogy that addresses the educational and psychosocial needs of all humanity. Ultimately, the goal of gifted education is the development of all of humanity, to develop the natural genius of all youth so that they may bring about a global renaissance for humanity.

A dual task method was used to examine the relationship between strategy use and working memory load during subtraction problem solving. Undergraduates mentally solved subtraction problems alone and while performing secondary tasks that involved the central executive of working memory. Analyses revealed that a central executive task involving response selection and input monitoring (CRT-R task) interfered more with subtraction problem solving than a task that involved only input monitoring (SRT-R task). Additional analyses showed that the CRT-R task interfered more when participants used a nonretrieval (counting) strategy than a retrieval strategy. These findings suggest that the response selection subcomponent of the central executive is involved during both retrieval-based and non-retrieval-based simple subtraction problem solving but is involved more during the latter. Recently researchers have documented that use of nonretrieval proce dures, such as counting, to solve simple arithmetic problems (e.g., 5 + 9, 13-8, 7 x 4) is quite common; depending on the sample, nonretrieval procedures are used on 30% of problems or more (Campbell & Xue,

Two experiments used a novel method called Pathfinder to examine whether the salience of temporal cues embedded in event structure increases developmentally and whether people link event actions by simple adjacency relationships or embed them in an organized whole. A sequential format for eliciting knowledge was compared with a less structured format for dinner and bedtime events. Adults and their 8-and 10-year-old children demonstrated well-developed script organizations regardless of format, and organization improved across this age range. In Experiment 1, temporal cues were not a salient basis of comparison for 6-year-olds, but in Experiment 2 they could use temporal cues when instructed to do so. The results suggest that temporal salience increases between 6 and 10 years and that temporal knowledge of event actions is highly organized in this age range. Furthermore, children's event knowledge functions partly in the interaction between their developing event knowledge and the support provided by sequential constraints in the environment. Children begin to represent event knowledge, or knowledge of activities that are causally or temporally ordered, very early in development

This research aims to reveal to what extent the textbooks developed for senior high school students all around Indonesia have provided or developed the materials for vocabulary learning purpose to promote students’ competence in using English for their daily communication. This qualitative content analysis research was conducted with the content analysis research method and was carried out in Yogyakarta Special Territory from 2018 to 2019. The research data were collected and managed with the help of NVivo 11 Plus and NVivo 12 Plus Software. The data were gathered from three English textbooks for Senior High School Students: Bahasa Inggris X, Bahasa Ingris XI, and Bahasa Inggris XII , all of which were specifically developed by the Indonesian Government to be used by all SMA (Senior High School) students all over Indonesia. To achieve reliability agreement level of data, the Kappa Statistics reliability test was used; the result of which was > 0.75 (excellent). The research res...

The relative strength of similarity to self and category typicality as predictors of proximity attitudes (social distance) toward people of varying race and objects associated with people of varying race was investigated. Similarity to self and category typicality were significant predictors of proximity attitudes toward both objects and people, but similarity to self was the significantly stronger predictor. The predictive utility of similarity to self was greater for object judgments than person judgments, but category typicality was a better predictor of person judgments than object judgments. Although the results provide evidence of ingroup favoritism in proximity attitudes toward people, the ingroup bias did not extend to objects associated with people. Category typicality was positively related to attitudes, even for distanced groups. The role of predictability of the target in determining proximity attitudes is discussed.

When psychologists were assimilating statistical practices into their discipline, they could not agree on the role statistics played in the interpretation of research findings. These disagreements stemmed in part from different research orientations, which encouraged different ...

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how Twentieth Century Modern Greek literary critics influenced the work of Nineteenth Century Modern Greek translators of 'The Poems of Ossian' by the Scot, James Macpherson. Were these literary critics neglectful in their assessment of the penetration of the impact that this poetry had on Modern Greek culture?

Shakespeare's late tragedy Coriolanus seems to defy definition, having been categorized in a variety of ways from historical tragedy to satirical tragedy to comedy, to name a few. Such a wide spectrum of labels is true too for the play's eponymous character who is seen by many as haughty and proud in the extreme, immature, virtuous, and even lovable. That the tragic hero Coriolanus undergoes extreme topsy-turvy fluctuations at a break-neck pace is a given. Though the play is lacking in laughter-subtle humor is present-it is rife with many poignant examples that illustrate Bakhtin's concept of carnivalistic literary modes. This paper will discuss such extreme carnivalesque transformations, particularly the main character's topsy-turvy fluctuations in name, status, loyalty, and sexuality, as well as his own position relating to the scheme of Bakhtin's carnivalesque concepts.

A common approach to studying emotional reactions to music is to attempt to obtain direct links between musical surface features such as tempo and a listener’s responses. however, such an analysis ultimately fails to explain why emotions are aroused in the listener. in this article we explore an alternative approach, which aims to account for musical emotions in terms of a set of psychological mechanisms that are activated by different types of information in a musical event. this approach was tested in 4 experiments that manipulated 4 mechanisms (brain stem reflex, contagion, episodic memory, musical expectancy) by selecting existing musical pieces that featured information relevant for each mechanism. the excerpts were played to 60 listeners, who were asked to rate their felt emotions on 15 scales. skin conductance levels and facial expressions were measured, and listeners reported subjective impressions of relevance to specific mechanisms. results indicated that the target mechan...