Black Psychology Exam/ Due Monday by 6:00
Ojillius22
Ch.3PSYC3230.pptxTheoretical and Conceptual Approaches to African and African American Psychology
Ingrid L. Cockhren, M.Ed
The challenges to deepening our understanding of humanity & human potential are greatest when we fail to appreciate the contributions of all cultural groups to the greater good of the world.
Culture and Psychology
Culture is the social force that informs our designs for living and patterns of interpreting reality.
Appropriate regard should be given to to cultural underpinnings informing our perceptions & shaping our interpretations.
Culture and Psychology
Theorists & researchers whose subject matter & interests, perspectives, & cultural frames of reference differ distinguishably from the dominate Western view are marginalized, limiting the scope & depth of inquiry available to the the field of study.
As expected, each cultural group embraces its own perspectives & understanding of the world.
Culture and Psychology
When a cultural worldview supports the construction of a social reality w/out critical self-awareness & consciousness of its own character & biases, access to more complete knowledge of humankind is limited.
Results in gaps in scientific knowledge which fosters a distorted view.
Monocultural perspective
Culture and Psychology
When exploring theoretical and conceptual approaches there are four areas of interest.
Pre-assimilation: rejecting Western orientation
Assimilation: adopting Western orientation
Bicultural reform: adopts some Western assumptions while moving toward a system of self-definition
Cultural congruence: grounded in African centered frame of reference
These are not meant to drive judgment but to be a fair descriptor of the impact the theoretical and conceptual approaches have had in all of their complexity.
Psychological Science & the American Social Context
In this society in particular, it matters whether you came to the United States as a voluntary or involuntary immigrant and the extent to which you have assimilated or internalized the dominant cultural worldview.
When trained in the United States, although the field of study identified as psychology is more accurately European American, White, European Psychology, it is seldom, if ever, acknowledged as such.
Have you ever heard of “White-on-White crime”?
European psychologists have defined the discipline to reflect the belief that Western thinking is universally applicable to, relevant to, and representative of all humanity.
Your reality is not my reality
The field of psychology is surrounded by a myth of objectivity.
European, White, European American Psychology: The Modern Historical Context
Mainstream American psychology cannot be separated from the social context within which it emerges; it has historically been Eurocentric and plagued by blatant racism characteristics of the times.
European, White, European American Psychology: The Modern Historical Context
Dr. Benjamin Rush, the reputed “father of American Psychiatry,” declared that the color of Black people was caused by a congenital disease akin to leprosy. The only evidence of a cure was when the skin turned white.
Dr. Edward Jarvis, a specialist in mental disorders, used a 1840 census to purportedly prove that the condition of freedom in the North was so unnatural to Blacks it made them more prone to mental illness, thus justifying the enslavement of African people by the flawed premise that it provided a shield for Black people from what he consider the liabilities and dangers of active self-determination.
European, White, European American Psychology: The Modern Historical Context
In 1851, Dr. Samuel Cartwright published an article in a professional journal of his time claiming that he had discovered two new mental diseases peculiar to Black people
Drapetomania – which caused Black people to have the uncontrollable urge to run away from their slave captors
Dysaesthesia aethiops – evidenced by disobedience, answering disrespectfully, and refusing to work.
Cure:
beating; more work
European, White, European American Psychology: The Modern Historical Context
The First President of the American Psychological Association (G. Stanley Hall), theorized that Africans, Indians, and Chinese were members of “adolescent races” and in the stage of “incomplete growth” and that therefore it was Western psychology’s role and responsibility to save these adolescent races from the liabilities of freedom.
This concept has evolved over time…how so?
European, White, European American Psychology: The Modern Historical Context
Popenoe (1929) asserted that intelligence is determined by the amount of white blood
Herrnstein & Murray (1999) asserted that Blacks have lower IQs than Whites
Evolving African(a), African American, Black Psychology
Ancient Kmt (known in the West as Egypt),
period in human history in which Africans first produced an “organized system of knowledge (philosophy, definitions, concepts, models, procedures, and practices) concerning the nature of the social universe.
Evolving African(a), African American, Black Psychology
Literature from this period addresses the nature of the human consciousness, heart, mind, soul, & beyond.
Evolving African(a), African American, Black Psychology
Because of the differences in the deep structure of cultural worldview, the scope of African(a) Psychology is potentially much larger than that of Western psychology.
When the concerns of the person & community in everyday life are grounded in spirit/mind/soul & multi-dimensional, all cycles of life are of interest.
Schools of Thought in African(a) African American, Black Psychology
One system of categorization used by Daudi Azibo has been to divide the perspectives between:
Pro-Black perspectives: focus on response to American experience
Pro-Afrocentric perspectives: focus on African philosophy
Schools of Thought in African(a) African American, Black Psychology
Pre-Assimilation
One of the earliest examination on psychological processes can be found in the Book of Knowing: The Creation of Ra as Ptah, translated from hieroglyphics by Karenga.
Estimated to be written in 2500 BC, this text presets foundation interpretation of an African-centered understanding of the roles of cognition, affect, and language in human functioning
Suggests that reality is created by what we think, feel, & say
Schools of Thought in African(a) African American, Black Psychology
One of the earliest examinations written by an African (Olaudah Equiano)on enslavement dates back to 1797; gives voice to the social realities created by the dominant cultural group
Carter G. Woodson analyzed the negative impact of the formal education system on Black people leading to the miseducation & continued subjugation
Schools of Thought in African(a) African American, Black Psychology
Assimilation
The research by Kenneth Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark concluded that Black children had negative self-concepts, due largely to the impact of segregated formal educational systems on them
The Clark team challenged the notion of differences in abilities of Black & White children
(this helped to shape the 1954 landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas)
Schools of Thought in African(a) African American, Black Psychology
Long-term consequences of the research have not proven to yield the outcomes in education achievement as desired
Self-concepts of Black children have not been shown to improve with school desegregation
Why?
Elijah Whitten
Grew up picking cotton
Attended an all Black highschool until integration
Sat in front of each class- had spit balls thrown at the back of his head
Experienced discrimination as Mr. Orr, the history teacher, belittled and degraded him constantly in front of class
Attended the county fair with his brother until an officer told them to leave and pulled his gun
Schools of Thought in African(a) African American, Black Psychology
The “mis-education” of the Negro remains a pervasive problem. Questions ever Looming that Black Psychology must address:
What are the costs, as well as benefits, of assimilation into a formal educational system that has as its primary goal the indoctrination of the students into a dominant cultural worldview that has historically denigrated them to perpetuation of a status quo that has historically disenfranchised them?
Schools of Thought in African(a) African American, Black Psychology
Culturally congruent research has demonstrated that the educational success of all children, and Black children in particular, are best met in warm, nurturing environments where the expectation for success is high and is matched with instruction in accordance with the learning styles appropriate for the children being taught.
Schools of Thought in African(a) African American, Black Psychology
Jones & Shorter (2003)- conclude that “shifting” diminishes the joys of living an authentic life; they encourage women to share their stories and give voice to their pain
Schools of Thought in African(a) African American, Black Psychology
Bicultural Reform
Psychological Nigrescence Model (Cross, 1971, 1995)
This model starts with a stance conforming to the dominant culture’s norms with the intention of predicting movement toward a positive racial identity, which would be a position counter to that perpetuated by the dominant culture.
Little evidence for the progressive sequencing
Schools of Thought in African(a) African American, Black Psychology
Cultural Congruence
Kobi Kambon (Joseph Baldwin) was one of the first African American psychologists to develop an African self-consciousness scale to explore the many facets of African American identity.
Schools of Thought in African(a) African American, Black Psychology
Black Psychology at its roots is a holistic perspective that encourages the examination of the hard questions with concern for the future and evolution of all of humanity that is comprehensive, cohesive, and coherent.
