International Psychology

The Handbook of International Psychology builds on a proud tradition:  specifically, the International Handbook of Psychology (Gilgen & Gilgen, 1987) and International Psychology: Views from Around the World (Sexton & Hogan, 1992).  These books are now over a decade old, and we believed it was time for another comprehensive review of international psychology.

The 1990s witnessed an explosion of interest in international psychology.  Two illustrations are the appearance in 1996 in the American Psychologist of a special section devoted to developments and issues in international psychology and the establishment in 1997 of the Division of International Psychology by the American Psychological Association.  Of course, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001 fueled interest in international psychology, as evidenced by the official statements of prominent leaders of the American Psychological Association (e.g., former CEO Raymond Fowler, Past-President Philip Zimbardo).  Beyond its timeliness, we were encouraged to edit the Handbook because the Sexton and Hogan volume, its predecessor (Sexton & Misiak, 1976), and the Gilgen and Gilgen book received so many favorable reviews as the major source of information in English on international psychology and the internationalizing of psychology.  We believe that the Handbook will follow in the tradition of its predecessors by becoming the definitive publication in the field.

To achieve a panoramic vista of international psychology, we developed a fine-grained chapter outline with a detailed list of topics that we hoped would yield a balanced, yet comprehensive description of psychology as a discipline and profession within each of the countries we included.  We invited our authors to prepare a chapter, approximately 20 pages in length and organized in four parts: an overview of psychology, the education and training of psychologists, the scope of psychological practice, and future challenges and prospects.  Within each section, we asked authors to respond to at least ten highly focused questions covering a wide range of topics.  For example, in the overview, we requested descriptions of the history of psychology, formal organizations that represent psychologists, and the status of psychologists relative to allied professionals.  In the section on education and training, we requested descriptions of undergraduate and graduate curricula, pedagogical methods and tools, and requirements for practice.  In the section on practice, we inquired about the work of psychologists in various settings, prominent conceptual, methodological, and technical approaches, and legal and ethical guidelines and regulations.  In the final section on the future of psychology, we solicited information on opportunities and obstacles facing psychology, controversial issues being debated (e.g., psychologists' political and social activism), the public's view of psychology, and what American psychologists can learn from the discipline and profession of psychology in the authors’ countries.  Each chapter also contains a biographical sketch of the author(s) and a list of the most influential literature on psychology that had been published in the country being discussed.  These lists were necessarily subjective, and many authors found it difficult to choose the “top ten” or so publications in psychology that originated in their country.  However, when pressed, almost all authors acknowledged that making these selections was a useful heuristic exercise.

The purpose of this article was to explore the police officers' experiences during police vehicle pursuits. Interviews of 3 US police officers were conducted and the descriptive phenomenological psychological method was used to analyze their naive (unanalyzed) accounts of their lived-experiences. The psychological constituents of the experience of leading a successful chase and capture of a fleeing criminal found are: (1) Alert to Possible Car Chase, (2) Suspect Identified, (3) Anxiety and Excitement About the Chase, (4) Awareness of Primary Chase Role, (5) Radio Coordination with Others to Take Actions to Stop the Suspect, (6) Ongoing Evaluation of Chase Situation and Persistence, (7) Reading the Suspect's Driving Behaviors, (8) Car Chase Transition to a Coordinated Physical Capture, and (9) Making Sense of the Experience through Inquiry. The differences and similarities in Japanese and American police that might influence the research finding's relevance to japan were brought to light. Insights garnered from this study may be useful to police, policy makers, trainers and others interested in emergency and crisis decision-making.

The Oxford Handbook of International Psychological Ethics is the state-of-the-art source for information on psychological ethics worldwide, and offers a long-awaited comprehensive review of contemporary and emerging international ethical issues within psychology as a science and profession.  There is no comparable volume on the market nor has the material in The Handbook been presented in depth in the psychological literature.  The Handbook is organized in sections, with chapters written by acknowledged authorities from around the globe.  The first section covers the history and types of ethics codes, ethical decision-making, and responses to ethical infractions.  Section two addresses issues in international psychological ethics, including the process of ethics-code development, the quest for universal standards, ethics and cross-cultural research and indigenous practice, the ethics of online research and practice, and the role of ethics in national security.  Section three links psychological ethics to other disciplines, such as business, law, and medicine.  The fourth section outlines major convergent and divergent developments in various geographic regions.  Section five represents an emerging area within psychological ethics, that being the impact of economic, political, and social systems on ethics-code development and the ethical practice of psychology.  The final section of The Handbook synthesizes the proceeding sections and offers direction for future work on ethics as situated internationally.  An appendix is included with useful annotated resources, such as books and book chapters, journal articles, websites, national and international ethics organizations, etc.

An apology, which is defined as a formal admission of error accompanied by regret (www.merriam-webster.com), has become a commonly utilized political strategy for addressing issues from blatant errors to social injustice perpetrated by leaders. This chapter reviews the use of apology in the Latin American political context. First, historical examples from throughout the region are explained and analyzed. Next, data obtained from the Personal and Institutional Rights to Aggression and Peace Survey (PAIRTAPS;  Malley-Morrison et al., 2003) are reported. Results indicated that, in general, Latin Americans agree that apology is an important tool for reconciliation subsequent to conflict or injustice, although they vary regarding the context and degree to which it should be applied.

The contributing authors to Toward a Global Psychology: Theory Research, Intervention, and Pedagogy have introduced and described the parameters of a relatively new, but increasingly important specialty within the discipline of psychology.  They have delineated the mission and foci of global psychology; its origins, development, and current status in the industrialized and postmodern world and in the less familiar majority world; its emerging conceptual models, research methods, psychotherapeutic and macro-level practices, ethical and legal regulatory mechanisms, and educational and training needs; and avenues for becoming more competent and engaged as globally oriented psychologists and psychology students.

Toward a Global Psychology offers rich and varied evidence for the globalizing of psychology.  In part, the globalizing of psychology seems to be an outgrowth of a more general process of globalization.  The economic, political, social, and technological developments that are accelerating in the early 21st century represent macro-level forces, which are moving psychology toward a science and profession without borders vis-à-vis understanding, dialogue, and integration of knowledge across countries and cultures.  A number of significant paradigm shifts are underway that attest to the transformation of psychology into a less insular discipline.  Examples include the rise and acceptance of cross-cultural psychology and multiculturalism, the growing interest in cultural and indigenous psychologies, and the challenge posed by normative alternatives to mainstream “universalist” perspectives in psychology that emphasize the situated and relational nature of human action and experience.  Concrete evidence for the globalizing of psychology can be found in ongoing efforts to formulate a universal code of ethics for psychologists, the proliferation of exchange programs and sources of funding that support transnational goals and activities in psychology, more urgent calls for the revision of the existing psychology curriculum to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world, and the growing commitment by international psychology organizations to diversify their membership by including psychologists in the majority world, to capacity-build scientific psychology in the majority world, and to establish ties with policy-making entities to improve the quality of life in the majority world.

As part of the UCL Grand Challenges Global Health Scheme, this project investigated and compared international efforts to raise awareness and combat stigma towards people with intellectual disabilities. This report outlines the background information gathered through the analysis of State Party reports submitted to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006). It also outlines an in depth analysis of the results of survey that we developed and disseminated to further investigate the efforts made at local, regional and international levels to raise awareness and combat stigma. We suggest future recommendations on the basis of this scoping review.

International vistas on philosophical psychiatry are summarized. Many investigators emphasize the continuing relevance for psychopathology of the classical perspectives of Jaspers and Husserl. The Husserlian reduction provides a solid methodological path for psychiatry, psychotherapy, and neurosciences. This presupposes a change in the attitude of the psychiatrist himself.

A little study about psychologists from the world, related to the tragic situation of the chilean miners trapped 700 mts. deep, in the desert of the north of Chile.
Important ideas, contributions, and low participation of chilean psychologists...
See diferences and participation...

Democracy is good government because it upholds freedom and human rights.  Yet, democracy as constituted around the world has declined.  Sources for this decline include divisive global trends (globalization), reactionary political movements (populism), disinformation, and low political engagement (including voting).  Behavioral research offers insights into concepts that are integral to democracy: free will (self-determination theory), negative emotion (terror management theory), intergroup competition (realistic conflict theory), and socialization (sociocultural theory).  Multilevel interventions that promote civic education, particularly among youth, social harmony, and accurate media that serves to inform rather than influence all stand to strengthen freedom and democracy.

We lay the groundwork for a stand-alone course on international psychology by first delineating the scope of international psychology.  We then identify course goals and learning outcomes, provide foundational literature from the United States and abroad, outline a broad coverage of topics, suggest instructional resources that support cognitive and experiential learning, and recommend strategies for overcoming resistance to adding a course on international psychology to the curriculum.  We provide annotated course material that is instructive, engaging, and readily available within each section of the chapter.

Aggression and Peace Survey (PAIRTAPS). Participants’ descriptions of what they would want to do if directly exposed to 3 specific human rights violations (torturing a prisoner, bombing civilians, and beating antiwar protestors) were coded for personal agency (prosocial or nonprosocial). In addition, their arguments concerning whether countries have a right to invade other countries and torture suspects, and whether civilians have a right to protest, were coded for moral disengagement and engagement. As predicted, moral engagement was positively correlated with prosocial agency and with belief in a right to protest, and negatively correlated with nonprosocial agency and with beliefs in the acceptability of state-perpetrated invasion and torture. When scores for activists versus nonactivists were compared, activists showed more prosocial agency on behalf of human rights, lower nonprosocial agency on behalf of those rights, and more moral engagement regarding the right to protest than nonactivists.

We examined the association of national emotional climate to personal political views in 159 Grenadian citizens. Grenadians completed five national emotional climate scales: Anger at Government, Fear, Hopeless-Insecurity, Security and Social Trust. We also measured the following personal political views: desire to emigrate, confidence in nonviolent protest and willingness to surrender freedom. Anger at Government and Security predicted desire to emigrate and Security predicted confidence in non-violent protest; national emotional climate scores and willingness to surrender freedom were unrelated. Grenadians were less angry at government, less fearful, and less hopeless-insecure as well as more secure and more socially
trusting than Colombians and Costa Ricans, but less secure and more hopeless-insecure than US respondents. Grenadians expressed a relatively positive national emotional climate with few signs of collectively held emotions that might precipitate further emigration and renewed civil unrest. We offer suggestions for future research on national emotional climate in Grenada and the Caribbean generally.

Published from Russia: "Industrial-Organizational psychology in the Americas: Past & future trends"
Harold Takooshian PhD. from Fordham University of New York, and directive of APA International Psychology
(click in the link above. At the Russian Academy of Sciences)

As part of the UCL Grand Challenges Global Health Scheme, this project investigated and compared international efforts to raise awareness and combat stigma towards people with intellectual disabilities. This executive summary outlines the background information gathered through the analysis of State Party reports submitted to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006). It also outlines the results of a survey that we developed and disseminated to further investigate the efforts made at local, regional and international levels to raise awareness and combat stigma. We suggest future recommendations on the basis of this scoping review.

Merriam-Webster defines torture as “anguish of body or mind; something that causes agony or pain” or “the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure” (Torture 2011). For our purposes, we will focus on state-sponsored torture. Members of the military and police have almost universally been permitted, or even encouraged, to engage in acts that have resulted in significant physical or psychological pain, sometimes even resulting in death, in order to obtain information or to punish an act considered contradictory to the stated policies of the government. These government agencies would engage in torturous acts ranging from sleep deprivation to rape to mutilation and other forms of physical abuse.