moghaddam talkback

Following each discussion group, we host an online Q&A with the author or another academic in the field. Read the expert response to our group’s initial questions, and post your comments in the talkback!

Fathali Moghaddam kindly joins this talkback from Georgetown University, where he researches the process of radicalization, the psychology of globalization, and contextualized democracy and the psychological citizen. Following our discussion of his 1990 article, “Implications for Psychology in the Three Worlds,” we asked him how the outlook for developing-world oriented psychology has changed in the past 17 years. He kicks off our conversation:

There is little doubt that the APA has made real efforts to become more international and to develop stronger links with international agencies. The formal institutional structures of the APA reflect this trend. Second, psychology is becoming more “international” if by that we mean more people around the world doing psychological research.

However, at another level, one could argue that the trend involves mainstream “deterministic” psychology spreading around the world, rather than a genuine international trend in psychology. This is clearly reflected in the way in which even cross-cultural research is carried out. Because of the global reach of electronic communications, it is now very easy for a researcher in Boston to send a research instrument to 50 different countries and ask colleagues to hand out a survey to psychology students in each of the 50 countries. The result is published as a “50-nation study,” and it all looks very “international.” In a recent review, Naomi Lee and I found that this trend of using student subjects is increasing even in cross-cultural research.

In terms of studies that I would point to as “good examples” of a normative approach in psychology [the study of how meaning systems are collaboratively constructed, as opposed to the conventional focus on inbuilt determinants of behavior], I think the research of Joan Miller (New School, NY), Richard Shweder (Chicago) and Michael Cole (U California) serve as a good start.

F.M.M