Despite unprecedented access to information and diffusion of knowledge across the globe, the bulk of work in mainstream psychological science still reflects and promotes the interests of a privileged minority of people in affluent centers of the modern global order. Compared to other social science disciplines, there are few critical voices who reflect on the Euro-American colonial character of psychological science, particularly its relationship to ongoing processes of domination that facilitate growth for a privileged minority but undermine sustainability for the global majority. Moved by mounting concerns about ongoing forms of multiple oppression (including racialized violence, economic injustice, unsustainable over-development, and ecological damage), we proposed a special thematic section and issued a call for papers devoted to the topic of "decolonizing psychological science". In this introduction to the special section, we first discuss two perspectives—liberation psychology and cultural psychology—that have informed our approach to the topic. We then discuss manifestations of coloniality in psychological science and describe three approaches to decolonization—indigenization, accompaniment, and denaturalization—that emerge from contributions to the special section. We conclude with an invitation to readers to submit their own original contributions to an ongoing effort to create an online collection of digitally linked articles on the topic of decolonizing psychological science.

This paper engages the theme of “decolonizing psychological science” in the context of a perspective on psychological theory and research—namely, feminist psychology—that shares an emphasis on broad liberation. Although conceived as a universal theory and practice of liberation, scholars across diverse sites have suggested that feminism—perhaps especially as it manifests in psychological science—is not always compatible with and at times is even contradictory to global struggles for decolonization. The liberatory impulse of feminist psychology falls short of its potential not only because of its grounding in neocolonial legacies of hegemonic feminisms, but also because of its complicity with neocolonial tendencies of hegemonic psychological science. In response to these concerns, we draw upon on perspectives of transnational feminisms and cultural psychology as tools to decolonize (feminist) psychology. We then propose the possibility of a (transnational) feminist psychology that takes the epistemological position of people in various marginalized majority-world settings as a resource to rethink conventional scientific wisdom and liberate “liberation”. Rather than freeing some women to better participate in global domination, a transnational feminist psychology illuminates sustainable ways of being that are consistent with broader liberation of humanity in general.

Previous research has contrasted patterns of cautious or prevention-oriented relationality in various West African settings with patterns of growth or promotion-oriented relationality in many North American settings. The present research draws upon the concept of relational mobility to test the hypothesis that different patterns of relationality have their source in respective affordances for embedded interdependence or abstracted independence. Study 1 investigated the relationship between cautious intimacy and perception of relational mobility among a sample of Hong Kong students. Study 2 compared students in Hong Kong and North American settings to test whether differences in perception of relational mobility mediated the hypothesized differences in caution about friends. Study 3 used an experimental manipulation among a sample of Hong Kong students to test the hypothesis that increased perception of relational mobility reduces caution about friends. Results reveal broad support for the hypotheses. Whether as a measured variable or as an experimental treatment, the perception of relational mobility was negatively related to caution about friends. Moreover, this relationship mediated hypothesized cross-national differences in caution about friendship.Adiscussion of the results considers intersections of cultural and ecological approaches to psychology and implications for theoretical conceptions of interdependence.

This paper investigates the identity implications of silence about genocide in commemorations of American Thanksgiving. In Study 1 we assessed the co-occurrence of national glorification themes with different forms of silence in commemoration products by conducting a content analysis of presidential Thanksgiving proclamations. In Study 2 we examined the extent to which different commemoration products are infused with particular beliefs and desires by measuring participants' reactions to different Thanksgiving commemorations-a literal-silence condition that did not mention Indigenous Peoples, an interpretive-silence condition that mentioned Indigenous Peoples but did not explicitly mention genocidal conquest, and an anti-silence condition that did mention genocidal conquest-as a function of national glorification. In Study 3 we manipulated exposure to different Thanksgiving commemorations (with associated forms of silence) and assessed the impact on national glorification and identity-relevant action. Results provide evidence for the hypothesised, bi-directional relationship between national glorification and silence about genocide in commemorations of American Thanksgiving.

In this chapter, we outline a cultural psychology approach to relationship research. Although approaches vary (see Chapters 4 and 9, this volume), cultural psychology perspectives generally emphasize the idea of "mind in context" (Adams, Salter, Pickett, Kurtis ¸, & Phillips, 2010, p. 278): how habits of mind embodied in person exist in a dynamic relationship of mutual constitution with affordances for mind inscribed in local worlds. Resonating with ecological perspectives on relationship (e.g., Chapter 7, this volume), one theme of a cultural psychology analysis emphasizes the sociocultural constitution of psychological experience: the extent to which species-typical tendencies of human experience do not emerge "just naturally" but instead require engagement with the particular affordances available in different cultural ecologies. From this perspective, organism-based habits of relationship are not only the expression of genetically encoded, inherited potential, but also develop as people engage with socially constructed scaffolding or tools for relationship embedded in the structure of everyday cultural worlds. Resonating with constructivist perspectives on relationship (Ross & Nisbett, 1991; Chapters 6 and 10, this volume), the other theme of a cultural psychology analysis emphasizes the psychological constitution of sociocultural reality: the extent to which everyday ecologies likewise are not "just natural" but instead are the product of human action. As people form relationships according to their own context-informed inclinations, they reproduce relationship realities into which they inscribe their understandings of what is right and good (Chapter 9, this volume). An important implication is that humans do not inhabit a natural environment but instead develop within cultural ecologies that bear traces of previous actors' relationship experience.We first discuss how a cultural psychology analysis provides two strategies for decolonizing relationship research. We then illustrate these strategies with empirical examples from research in West African and North American settings. For each example, we first apply the "normalizing" strategy of a cultural psychology analysis to consider how patterns that mainstream research portrays as abnormal instead constitute time-tested wisdom about healthy relationship. We then apply the "denaturalizing" strategy of a cultural psychology analysis to illuminate typically neglected, sociocultural foundations of relationship (including historical and political-economic forces) in worlds that inform conventional scientific wisdom. 49