Psychology in Developing Countries: Reassessing its Impact

Abstract

The last global review of the role of psychology in developing countries was edited by Sinha and Holtzman in 1984. This paper evaluates journal publications appearing in the Psychlit database in the decadefollowing Sinha and Holtzman's review, focusing on studies which contain scientific evidence of practical out come. There are three categories of such research, namely, social/organisational, health/welfare, and educational/developmental, with clear evidence of reliability, validity, and utility in each category, but largely in health and welfare. Despite this relative imbalance however; there are signs of what Sinha has defined as true indigenisation, namely, progressing beyond assimilation of, and anti-conformity against, the so-called "mainstream ", towards a more pluralistic search for a psy chology that works.

A brief history of Social Psychology and its contribution to health in Malawi

“…The search for relevance includes the process of transformation and not just the outcome 13 . In line with this Carr & MacLachlan point out that several commentators seem to have indicated three stages in the progress of psychology in developing countries 14 . These stages were said to be "reminiscent of Henri Tajfell's intergroup account of how social minorities find a 'positively distinctive social identity'.…”

“…Hence, psychology is seen through the spectacles of western psychology. Implicit in all this is a "tinge of negative self image" 14 , p.13…”

Anti-Poverty Psychology

“…Since the 1990s however, a balance between arrogance on the one hand and self-doubt on the other has progressively been struck. We have moved from personality to context (Carr and MacLachlan 1998a) and more latterly toward context-person fit (Carr and Sloan 2003). A prime and leading example of this idea in this chapter is person-opportunity fit, for example when recruiting and selecting would-be entrepreneurs and development workers.…”

“…Toward the end of the 1990s, a meta-review of the trends toward context likened the shifts of focus to shifts within Psychology itself (Carr and MacLachlan 1998a). From Table 2.1, during the 1960s its focus on personality had stayed relatively preoccupied, implicitly perhaps, with assimilation.…”

“…It was neither conformist nor anticonformist. It was concerned with reorienting psychology, toward utilizing whatever works, for local people, in their particular niche (Diaz-Guerrero 1990;Carr and MacLachlan 1998a).…”