Multicultural Psychology. Jennifer T. Pedrotti

the importance of paying attention to cultural differences, though there is a tendency for many to avoid this in day-to-day life

       Summarize the historical treatment of race in the field of psychology

       Recognize the field’s pathologizing impact of the White Standard of all non-White cultures

       Interpret research findings in multicultural psychology with regard to the four types of equivalence

       Summarize the impact of The Fourth Force on the field of psychology as a whole

       Understand important definitions in this part of the field (e.g., race, culture, etc.) and the value of using a broad definition of culture that encompasses many facets

       Assess your own level of awareness and knowledge about this part of the field

       Analyze your cultural identity (via the Culture Sketch) to determine next steps for your own learning

      Introduction to Multicultural Psychology

      If you have already had one lecture from your instructor, you’ve probably started to realize that the study of multicultural psychology is not a simple one. Often people feel they should just understand the idea of diversity naturally: “It’s all about people, and we’re all people, right?” But this area of the field is much more complex than that, and studying multicultural psychology will allow you to better understand people in general, as well as the differences that exist between people from different groups. It will also help you to better understand yourself and to find new ways of explaining these ideas to others around you.

      Multicultural psychology is the study of differences. The word different often has a negative connotation in our daily language use and therefore we sometimes form the idea that it is impolite to talk about differences, or even notice them. This often starts early in childhood. Consider stories you’ve heard, or maybe things you’ve experienced yourself that involve children noticing (and commenting on) differences. When a White child says loudly in a grocery store, “Why is that man’s skin dark?” within earshot of an African American man, a natural response of a White parent might be to say, “Shh! That’s impolite.” The parent in this case might simply mean that we don’t call out these sorts of differences while walking through the grocery store, and of course the parent is correct about this in terms of social manners.

      But without a follow-up conversation on this interaction, it is possible that the child misunderstands the exact reason the parent called attention to the behavior. This may lead to a child accidentally getting the idea that we shouldn’t talk about differences, or that we should pretend not to notice them. Parents in this type of situation, particularly those who have not had much experience talking about race or other differences, may be uncomfortable starting a dialogue with the child about race at a young age, and unfortunately this allows children to instead fill in their own reasons regarding why they should not mention a different color of skin. Brown and colleagues conducted a study in 2007 in which parents of different ethnicities and races were asked if they talked to their children about race. Just 25% of White parents sampled talked to their children about race, while discussions of race in non-White homes occurred significantly more often (Brown, Tanner-Smith, Lesane-Brown, & Ezell, 2007). A parent in the scenario above might perhaps follow up later with the child, saying, “I know that you had some questions about the man’s skin inside the grocery store. It was different from ours, wasn’t it?” In this way a new conversation begins, and this may help a child to understand that while it is rude to yell things out about people’s skin (or other features) in public places, it is OK to talk about differences.

      This avoidance of discussion of differences may almost become a sort of pretending that these differences don’t exist, and this can have an unintended self-perpetuating quality: If we aren’t supposed to notice differences, then we can’t talk about them, which leads to difficulty learning about differences in general. In the vacuum of our knowledge, stereotypes and others’ opinions often fill the void, and this often leads to misunderstandings of those differences that exist between us. In the field of multicultural psychology, and in this book, difference is a main topic of discussion. While we should of course work not to discriminate against people as a result of a difference, it is beneficial to understand differences between people. James Baldwin once wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced” (1962, p. 38). The study of multicultural psychology involves digging into differences that have to do with cultural context, identity, and experiences and trying to better understand them. As Baldwin wisely notes in his quote, we cannot make change unless we face things head on. We are hoping you are here to do just that.

      A History of Pathologizing

      As a field, psychology has not always paid attention to culture and context in making efforts to understand different human behavior and experience, and it has not always been kind to those viewed as “different” in some way. Specifically, psychology, born of Western roots in Europe, has often pathologized those who didn’t fit the cultural mold of the prominent early European theorists. In the early 1900s, H. H. Goddard, a psychologist who studied the concept of intelligence, put forth the idea that the particular shape and definition of a person’s face allowed him to be able to predict the intelligence associated with that person (Gould, 1996). Individuals with “Roman noses” and “high brows” were the most intelligent, while those with lower brows were less intelligent. We have some vestiges of this notion even in our colloquial language today, where “highbrow” humor is thought to be more intellectual humor. Unsurprisingly, Goddard and colleagues’ own facial features seemed to mirror the descriptions of those who were most intelligent.

      Other beliefs about different groups were also held at this time, often spurred by differences from the European ideal, and these influenced psychological theories as well. For example, in the early 1800s, the idea of polygenism was taking hold in many areas of Europe. At the time this theory emerged, many still adhered to the religious explanations that all humans had descended from one particular line of genes (namely that of Adam and Eve from the Judeo-Christian Bible), but polygenism promoted the idea that different types of humans might have emerged from different genetic pools (Keel, 2013). Dr. Josiah Nott, an American physician, published a paper titled Two Lectures on the Natural History of the Caucasian and Negro Races that presented the idea that the different racial groups could not have developed such distinct features (e.g., skin color) due solely to the environment in such a short amount of evolutionary time. This was a hotly contested point of view at the time because of its dissension from biblical explanations for the genesis of human life, but it also appealed to some individuals, as it appeared to label race as a biological and genetic difference.

      Around this same time, Charles Darwin and his theories regarding evolution also began to emerge. While the tenets of Darwinism are in opposition to polygenism in the sense that Darwin did not believe that the different races had completely different origins, his ideas (now the basis of social Darwinism) put forth the premise that different racial groups might actually be evolving differently such that they were becoming different species. These ideas, which again complemented the societal views of race at the time, quickly gained popularity in Europe. The influence of this theory led many to believe that individuals of African or Asian descent were incapable of the same type of intelligent thought as those from Europe. In making these decisions, cultural context was ignored, and behaviors were only judged from the mindset of a European cultural scholar. Though these theories and ideas are from the past, they form the basis for many stereotypes that exist about non-White groups that are held today.

      Is Science Always Objective? Research Issues Through a Multicultural Lens

      Stereotyping and Science

      Even scientific experiments took on the stereotypes fueled by social Darwinism and polygenism by attempting to confirm the inferiority of certain races with physical data about brain size and weight. Today, we are aware that the size of one’s