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...

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.

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.

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 ...

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...