Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 46, No. 3, 1990, pp.

1-20

Psychology for the Third World?

Tod S. Sloan
University of Tutsa

Most citizens in the industrialized nations know the Third World only through
secondhand and distorting images conveyed by the mass media. While these
images and related processes of globalization are increasing awareness of poverty, civil strife, and human rights abuses in the Third World, few people in the
First World seem to care about changing these painful realities. Ignorance,
neglect, and a form of defensive dehumanization allow the "developed world" to
proceed as if there were no serious problems in the "developing world." Yet
even the most basic statistics on conditions in the poorest nations point to
massive and systematic suffering. Western behavioral scientists, who clearly
have much to contribute, have yet to manifest the sustained concern necessary to
develop fruitful interventions. This is due in part to ideological constraints on
psychology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, numerous researchers working
in the Third World have been pioneering models and methods that may challenge
others to rethink disciplinary assumptions, and begin to confront Third World
problems effectively. This article surveys the development of these activities and
issues a call for increased involvement.
The Third World. Fbr those of us who live in the industrialized societies, it is
seen as another world, not our own. It is nevertheless a world whose surfaces and
textures we know fairly intimately. Through television and magazine images,
and perhaps through travel, we are familiar with the dust and the mud, the deserts
and jungles, the temples and tourist sights, the slums surrounding the megalopolises, the children and the beggars, the crowds, the lively markets, the garbage
and pollution, catchy rhythms and bright patterns, colorful festivals, military

The author thanks Stuart Oskamp and several anonymous reviewers for their comments on an
earlier draft of this article. The editors thank the University of TUlsa Office of Research and Department of Psychology for material and clerical support in the preparation of this issue.
Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Tod S, Sloan, Department of
Psychology, University of Tblsa, Tlilsa, OK 74104,
1
0022-*537/90/0900.0001$06,00/l 1990 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

Sloan

dictators, brilliant sunsets, the fly-filled eyes of famine victims, the destruction
left by civil wars and car bombs, mobs of angry youth, veiled and silent women.
Very few who are able to read this page, however, have more than a few
fragments of understanding that penetrate these plentiful but superficial and
distorting images. The Third World exists for us on a day-to-day basis mainly as
a jumble of striking images broadcast from the world's hotspots into comfortable
living rooms. The reports we receive are filtered through a variety of lenses that
often tell more about the processors of the news than about what is actually
happening (Dorman, 1986). Partly as a consequence of fragmentation and ideological distortion, the events that prompt Third World news reports line up in our
memories like a chain of explosive situations to which we feel unconnected: El
Salvador, Ethiopia, South Korea, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Chile, Mozambique . . .
Yet that other world, as alien as it may seem to the eyes of the industrialized
world's citizens, is obviously part of this world. It is made up of the three or four
billion fellow human beings who will live and die in conditions that few "modem" persons would tolerate for more than a few days or weeks. Perhaps it is this
unthinkable difference that inclines us to construe their existence as something
separate, untouchable, even irrelevant. Or perhaps we have learned that to begin
to empathize with their situations is to begin to feel connected to them, to sense
our common humanity, and to feel responsible, so we defensively deny the
connection and dehumanize them (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989). This oft-repeated
move plays its part in perpetuating their inhuman conditions. A century or two
ago, that other world and all those people were conveniently far away, just
colonial territories, exotic places, or tropical paradises. We could afford to ignore
them (and exploit them). But now they are in our living rooms nightly, and their
governments and economies are interwoven with ours. Furthermore, we who live
in the industrialized world (and in its outposts in Third World capitals) see them
streaming in to live among us. Even when we see them here, close up, we find it
difficult to recognize them as fellow humans. Empathy is difficult to generate
because our direct interests are not involved, we are unable to care (Batson, 1990), and we go about our business.
I apologize to those readers who will not be able to empathize with this
language of "we" and "they," of "here" and "there." Professor Montero and I
planned this issue of the Journal of Social Issues, in part, as a move toward
overcoming this linguistic residue of colonial times. The sad fact is that, in a
manner that mirrors the industrialized world's persistent dehumanization and/or
exclusion of what Harrington (1969) calls the "vast majority," Western psychologists operating within this language have ignored the societies of the Third
World, viewing them as the proper subject matter for other disciplines, such as
economics or anthropology. Many critical tasks, some of which we hope to
examine here and in the following articles, have thus not been confronted.

Psychology for the Third World?

Pick up any introductory psychology or sociology textbook. Flip through its

pages. Where is the Third World, the other half of the world's population? No
sign of it? Perhaps it is just not there explicitly. Perhaps we will find it hiding
under such topics as the psychology of poverty, immigration, exile, malnutrition, crowding, unemployment, exploitation? Not a chance. True, you will increasingly find glimpses of Third World life in brief sections on cross-cultural
comparisons of psychopathology, perceptual processes, or child-rearing practicesbut in these treatments we are often still dealing with Others (the mentally
ill, traditional cultures).
The reader will ask, perhaps in annoyance, whether a psychological science
that represented the other half would really be any different. Would our basic
concepts and theories change if we took into account the existence of the Third
World? This question, which certainly follows from otir line of thought to this
point, is the basic impulse for most cross-cultural psychology, a well-intentioned
venture that has corrected some nearsightedness regarding the universality of
Western psychological processes. An example can be seen in the state-of-the-art
cross-cultural psychology textbook entitled Human Behavior in Global Perspective (Segall, Dasen, Berry, & Poortinga, 1990). This approach seems to be more
interested in variables than in human problems. It acknowledges potential applications in various settings, but gives few hints as to where and what the most
pressing global problems are.
One must wonder, therefore. How has psychology been capable of ignoring
Third World realities for so long? Why has this energetic science not managed to
address systematically the most ubiquitous forms of human suffering on the
planet? We may now recall the title of this volume and ponder it in the form of a
question: Is there a Psychology for the Third World?
The question immediately raises more questions: Which psychology?
Whose psychology? For whom? For what purpose? And who should answer
these questions?
The Western reader who pauses to ponder this project will be confused by
the images it provokes. What could it possibly mean? MMPIs for the urban poor
in Brazil? Desensitization therapy for Mozambique? Shipments of introductory
psychology texts to Afghanistan?
The Third World reader will be similarly perplexed, but from other angles:
Will they now send us psychology as a form of foreign aid? Do they think
psychology will solve our problems? How much will it cost?
Given the questions that rush to one's mind, based on our title, we spent
considerable time debating whether this issue should be called Psychology in,
and, of, OT for the Third World. Since our basic question regards the sort of
psychology that will be appropriate in addressing Third World problems, we
decided on Psychology for the Third World. But whatever that psychology may
be, it will obviously also be in and of the Third World. So our issue gives some

Sloan

attention to all of these topics. We turn now to describe some aspects of the
reality we hope psychologists will begin to address more systematically.
Indicators of Suffering
The 3 or 4 billion people overlooked by psychology are the world's impoverished groups, most of them living in what are called (always with controversy) the "developing societies," the "underdeveloped" economies, or the
"less-developed countries" of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (Alavi & Shanin,
1982). The desperate conditions among the poor in these countries have been
described in popular books (Harrington, 1969; Harrison, 1981, 1983), feature
films (e.g.. The Children of Sanchez, El Norte, Salaam Bombay), and in hundreds of documentaries and fund-raising videorecordings. International agencies
routinely gather the often gruesome economic and demographic statistics on
Third World conditions. Since the latter information is less prevalent in the
popular media, we will review some representative basic facts here.
Consider, first, a few of the "development indicators" compiled recently by
the World Bank (1988), presented in Table 1. Now, link these figures with the
statistics in Table 2. (The secondary school enrollment figures are percentages of
secondary-aged youth actually enrolled for 1985. The under-5 mortality rate is
the number of deaths during the first five years of life per thousand children for
1987.)
For the low- and middle-income economies, the picture is generally bleak.
Their economies struggle and for the most part get nowhere while the already
industrialized countries forge ahead. The gap between rich and poor societies

Table 1. Selected Development Indicators of Representative Nations

Nation
Low-income economies
Ethiopia
Bangladesh
Uganda
Haiti
Middle-income economies
Nicaragua
Venezuela
Industrial market economies
United Kingdom
Japan
United States

Mean annual % growth

in GNP per capita.
1965-1986

Average life
expectancy

120
160
230
330

0.0
0.4
-2.6
0.6

46
50
48
54

790
2920

-2.3
0.4

61
70

8870
12,840
17,480

1.7
4.3
1.6

75
78
77

GNP per capita

1986 (U.S.$)

Source: Adapted from World Bank (1988).

Psychology for the Third World?

Tahle 2. Nutrition, Education, and Child Survival Data for Selected Nations

Nation
Ethiopia
Bangladesh
Uganda
Haiti
Nicaragua
Venezuela
United Kingdom
Japan
United States

Daily calorie
intake

% enrolled in
secondary school

Under-5 mortality
rate per 1000

1704
1804
2483
1784
2464
2485
3148
2695
3682

12
18
n.a.
18
39
45
89
96
99

261
191
172
174
99
45
11
8
13

Source: Adapted from World Bank (1988) and UNICEF (1989).

thus widens, and even using wildly optimistic projections, it can be established
that existing economic and political structures wiil never permit poor nations to
catch up (Donaldson, 1986). For the moment, we will leave aside the questions
of whether those societies should want to emulate the material standard of living
of the industrialized countries and whether there are ways of improving material
conditions without severe social disruption.
To render this picture of Third World conditions more concrete, one can
translate the above figures from the low-income economies into the image of a
single person's existence: a life of hunger, malnutrition, backbreaking work,
stagnation, disease, wrenching losses of loved ones, and early death. The impossible psychological task for concerned individuals is to multiply that stark image
by several billion and to sense the magnitude of suffering experienced by at least
a third of the world's inhabitants. One may be tempted to argue that they have
always lived that way and may not want to live differently. It is true that the
meanings and qualities of Third World suffering are determined by cultural
processes and historical contexts, but it is safe to say that things have not always
been as they are. Conditions of Third World life, for those in poverty, have
declined as a systematic effect of urbanization, industrialization, and related
population growth, all of which are the direct effects of historical linkages to the
industrial powers (Clark, 1986; Frobel, Heinrichs, & Kreye, 1985; Harris,
1986).
Is Psychology Relevant?
Until recently, psychologists could have shrugged oflf this reality, arguing
that Third World development is an economic or political problem about which
psychologists know very little. It would just be a matter of time, they could say.

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before these suffering societies would share in the benefits of industrial civilization. But for most countries, despite intensive international efforts, development
has not occurred as planned. This is partly due to world recession in the 1980s
(UNICEF, 1989) and partly to what has come to be known as "underdevelopment"the systematic destruction of "peripheral" economies through unequal
and distorted exchange with the "core" nations (Clark, 1986). There is much
debate about the extent to which "underdevelopment" accounts for Third World
economic problems, and even more controversy about the cultural and ideological ramifications of North-South economic relations (cf. Montero, this issue;
Walker, 1984). These may be pseudoissues, because even in the few successful
newly industrializing countries such as Taiwan, South Korea, and occasionally
Brazil or Mexico, in which economic growth has begun to improve material
conditions for some sectors of society, there is a neglected reality that many
observers prefer not to see. It is, however, exactly the sort of reality about which
psychologists need to be concerned. Improvement of material conditions does
not necessarily depend on or lead to the development of just and equitable labor
practices or social institutions. For example, Harris (1986) writes that the human
costs of rapid economic growth have been extensive, creating inherently unstable
societies. Income gaps have not decreased but widened, and the price of austerity
measures necessary for growth is paid by the poor:
In reality, the dazzling high rates of growth of output, year in and out, were not achieved
by magic, nor by governments, nor by management; they required the musck, biain and
discipline and the unremitting toil of millions of collaborating workers. . . . One of the
most massive and continuing sources of subsidy to the growth of capital derives from a
failure to pay the full costs of the process, as seen in the workers' conditions of housing
and nutrition, water and drainage, in pollution, in the exhaustion of labour, in all the
casual savageries of police regimes. (Harris, 1986, p. 194)

Perhaps some psychologists have assumed that when the basic needs of
Third World citizens have been met, psychology will become more relevant since
it is equipped to deal with emotional needs that are somewhat secondary to
physical survival needs. This would be a logical assumption since the adjustment
and fine-tuning of the individual for education, work, and self-actualization has
been the primary role of psychology in the developed world. But by now it must
be dawning on us that emotional needs aie equally primary, that physical needs
are not likely to be met very soon in most countries, and that psychological
factors are intricately bound up with the capacity for survival of the world's poor.
Psychoideological factors also certainly play a role among the elites in the First
and Third Worlds as they justify their own positions of luxury in social systems
that have done little to relieve the suffering of the world's poor.
The importance of the psychological realm is also borne out by the fact that,
over the last decade, a key topic of debate among development experts has been
the role of "culture" in economic development (cf. Laszlo, 1985; and whole

Psychology for the Third World?

issues of the journal Deve/opwenr, 1981, No. 3/4; 1987, No. 1). Included under
this concept of culture are attitudes, motivational states, values, and knowledge,
all of which were previously seen as secondary effects of gross economic processes. The concept is often used in a problematic way, in a sort of mass
"blaming the victim" analysis, attributing a nation's failure to thrive to the
negative traits of cultural/emotional character of its citizens. (As an example of
this, see L. E. Harrison, Underdevelopment Is a State of Mind: The Latin
American Case, 1985). The entry of behavioral scientists into the culture-anddevelopment debate might correct some of these analytic problems.
Notable Absences
It may be a surprise to some readers that these obviously important issues
and questions have been raised only rarely in the behavioral science literature.
They arise from a set of concerns that apparently converge only sporadically. The
reasons for this are admittedly complex, but we can address some of the main
ones here by reviewing developments over the past quarter century.
Early psychological studies in Third World settings were conducted under
the disciplinary umbrella of anthropology, usually in connection with the largely
discredited, or at least out-of-fashion, "culture and personality" school (Bock,
1988) or by multidisciplinary teams (cf. Kluckhohn & Murray, 1953). Psychiatry
has a Jong record of concem about mental illness in the Third World (United
Nations, 1963; Argandona & Kiev, 1972). But the innovative book Thai Peasant
Personality by Phillips (1965) is probably one of the earliest North American
studies conducted in a Third World setting that can be recognized as operating
within contemporary limits of behavioral science.
From this reviewer's vantage point, it was the Journal of Social Issues that
broke ground for wider discussion of psychology's role in connection with several aspects of Third World problems when it devoted the April 1968 issue to social
psychological research in developing countries. The articles in that volume were
generated by an international conference on the topic in Ibadan, Nigeria (Kelman, 1968). Conference participants, most of whom had already given extensive
thought to the problem, charted a bold course for international scientific cooperation in applying social, motivational, and educational psychology to stimulate
national development. Despite a large proportion of North American social psychologists at the conference, the project was carried forward primarily by British
and Indian psychologists. It seems that North Americans who happened to be
internationalists at that time soon had their hands full with mobilization against
the war in Vietnam. Other psychologists, working on isolated Third World
projects, were busy trying to achieve practical effects, and thus tended not to
publish academic reports on their work. Others were distracted from concerns for
socioeconomic development by the abstract debates and more easily researched

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issues that arose in the budding field of cross-cultural psychology (cf. Triandis et
al., 1980, for a comprehensive summary of this work). The psychological literature of the 1970s is thus strikingly silent about ongoing research in connection
with development projects or Third World problems, ftychological variables
played a role in the work of Inkeles (1983) on modernization, and McCkUaud
(1977) continued exploring applications of his need-for-achievement model to
societal development. Yet it seems that most of the research and action energies
of Western behavioral scientists who might have contributed directly to Third
World problem solving flowed into the cross-cultural paradigm, or perhaps into
nonpsychological administrative or investigative roles in development-related
work.
Later, in the 1980s, we begin to see the fruits of the British and Indian work
(Blackler, 1983; Sinha & Holtzman, 1984; Sinha, 1986) as well as a North
American recognition that a major task had been ignored (Rosenzweig, 1984;
Kennedy, Scheirer, & Rogers, 1984; Cole, 1984; Wagner, 1986; Bond, 1988).
We also see the emergence of Latin American perspectives on possible roles for
psychology (Ardila, 1982; Salazar, 1984; Diaz-Guerrero, 1984; Montero, 1987;
Sanchez & Wiesenfeld, 1987). Many of these authors question the appropriateness of Western-style behavioral science for Third World settings, while others envision fairly direct importation of models and methods.
It is striking to note that the majority of these articles discuss the potential
contributions of psychology. For instance, Sinha (1986)., in his review of psychological work in India, concluded with frustration that, for all their activity,
psychologists had done little to solve "real-world" problems there. As reasons
for this, he cited the following: (1) overdependence on the Euro-American
worldview; (2) a distorted sense of scientific priorities; (3) irrelevance of models
and findings of the "modem" world in the "traditional" world; (4) lack of
petspective on larger soc\a\ structures and processes', (5) lack of interdisciplinarity; (6) absence of a problem-focused approach; (7) constraints of naturalscientific, mathematical, and hypothetical-deductive research methods; (8) lack
of appropriate instruments for use with an uneducated and illiterate population;
and (9) fragmented research programs. One may hope that interdisciplinary,
problem-focused, methodologically flexible projects will lead to more successful
interventions. But there is a major obstacle to overcome first: at the heart of the
psychological enterprise (particularly in the United States), few seem to care.
The reader may have noted that many of the key articles cited above were
published in recent editions of the International Journal of Psychology (e.g.,
Sinha & Holtzman, 1984) and the American Psychologist. They should be commended for bringing articles about the global challenge to our attention. Their
efforts, however, have had little impact in the United States, where the psychology industry is the largest in the world. As evidence of this, consider what
happened when one of two special themes of the 1988 convention of the Ameri-

Psychology for the Third World?

can Psychological Association in Atlanta was "Psychology and Developing Nations." Numerous sessions were planned on intriguing and important topics
ranging from therapeutic work with torture victims to the psychological impact
of apartheid. While hundreds packed halls to hear presentations on selfhood or
creativity, sessions with a Third World component were poorly attended. Organizers of those symposia were extremely discotiraged by the lack of interest
evidenced by their colleagues at the convention. Similarly, there are few signs
that psychology department hiring efforts and curriculum requirements intend to
go beyond an occasional obligatory (often APA-mandated) nod toward multicultural, interdisciplinary, and international perspectives. On the bright side,
certain textbook publishers seem to have caught the multicultural and international vision (inspired by developments in other disciplines) and may be able to
prod the field along through progressive publishing programs. Furthermore,
excellent examples of constructive psychological studies by North Americans are
beginning to appearfor example, Aptekar's (1988) work on street children in
Colombia.
I would argue that the lack of concem for the Third World among behavioral
scientists, as well as inability to translate whatever concem they do have into
effective action, is primarily the product of ideological processes that shape the
self-understanding of the 20th-century psychologist. Psychology has been, and
for the most part still is, a Eurocentric science. Its contours are established by the
horizons of the Judeo-Christian worldview. The presuppositions of this worldview have been only partially masked by positivist methods that attempt to screen
out ideological bias through operationalization, quantification, probability testing, and supposedly value-neutral reporting of findings (Habermas, 1971; Parker, 1989; Sullivan, 1990). Yet the positivist outlook has been so successful in
portraying itself as providing the only adequate basis for studies of human
behavior and social action that most social scientists regard it as the scientific
method.
The question of appropriate behavioral science epistemology and methodology is one that is raised repeatedly by the authors in this issue. Their
responses, it seems to me, converge around the idea that the appropriate science
would redefine the relationship between theory and practice. Rather than conceiving of knowledge in temis of an adequate correspondence between social
scientists' cognitive maps and social reality, knowledge would be assessed in
terms of dialogue with participants in real-life situations, aiming toward understanding and, if necessary, transformation of social reality.
A second core characteristic of the ideological conditions in which psychology emerged as a science is individualism. In general, the enterprise of psychology has supported the goals of adjustment rather than social transformation,
therapy rather than prevention (or revolution), and private solutions to collective
problems (Albee, 1986). The globalization of psychological perspectives to en-

jQ

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compass the Third World will probably entail further critiques of Western individualism of the sort that have become increasingly urgent in recent years (e.g.,
Sampson, 1989).
The Globalization of Psychology
Given that behavioral scientists have generally ignored the crucial task of
understanding and aiding the Third World, it will be useful to consider why those
who are already engaged in aspects of that task have become so. The following
considerations seem to be relevant:
First, we must consider the grov/ing psychological concem for Th\td WOTW
development as part of the general movement toward global awareness produced
by the development of international communication and transportation systems.
Solutions for First World problems are increasingly understood as the cause of
new problems in the Third World. To consider just one current example, the
North American appetite for hamburger beef can be linked to the deforestation of
the Amazon basin to create grazing ^and. This not only interrupts the natural
cycles of atmospheric self-regulation but also has a more direct human cost in the
displacement of indigenous peoples from their natural habitats. The list of such
social, ecological, and political interconnections grows longer each day, as social
and natural scientists adopt holistic worldviews. This wave of new science has
revolutionary political implications, most of which were hotly debated first in
environmentalist circles, and now in the broad "Green Movement" which began
in Europe and is already becoming an important political factor in the Americas
(Bahro, 1986; Porritt, 1984; Spretnak & Capra, 1986). The Green Movement can
be understood sociohistorically as an umbrella movement for many groups
whose interests are not being met by the economies, security systems, and
political institutions of the Western social formationespecially women, children, the Third World poor, and nature (Galtung, 1986).
Second, current psychological interest in the Third World is also part of a
search for postcolonial and postimperial relations between the core and peripheral states (Clark, 1986). Memmi (1965) and Fanon (1968) alerted European
and African intelligentsia about the psychological damage caused by colonial
relations. Their viev/s, in fact, have provided foundations for alternative psychologies that promise greater relevance to Third World societies (Bulhan, 1985).
Third, psychology's budding interest in the Third World reflects the internationalization ofthe social sciences in general (Tiryakian, 1986), and is an echo of
developments in theoretical (Taussig, 1980) and applied (Bastide, 1971) anthropology, which themselves were triggered by geopolitical developments.
Western concem for the development of the Third World first arose in the
vacuum created as colonialism collapsed with World War II (Alavi & Shanin,
1982). The movement of "developmentalism" aimed to reduce the gap between

Psychology for the Third World?

"traditional" and "modem" societies through capitalist economic processes.

However, the failure of numerous development programs led to a politicaleconomic outlook called "dependency theory," which emphasized the systemic
need for subordinate, exploited countries in the capitalist world order. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the very banks responsible for
Third World development, were accused of sponsoring underdevelopment because they stood to benefit from maintaining the repressive political structures
that characterize peripheral capitalist nations. Economic progress for a few was
frequently bought at the price of socioeconomic devastation for the masses. The
social sciences have played roles both in analyzing and criticizing these developments. Psychologists doing international work could not ignore them.
Fourth, while Western governments placed their hopes in gradual political
and economic transformation of the developing societies, many European and
European-trained intellectuals favored a more radical position, which has been
termed "Third Worldism" (Harris, 1986; Rangel, 1982). Third Worldism has
many facets, but it was more prominent in the late 1960s and early 1970s when
these Western scholars and activists looked to the peripheral "proletarian nations" of the world as the source of revolutionary energy that would finally
destroy the order of the "Center" (cf. Marcuse, 1969). They supported national
liberation movements of various sorts, in particular the struggle of the Vietnamese against France and the United States. They longed for a new world unity,
but found themselves increasingly disenchanted with the "revolutionary myth."
They felt deceived by tyranny and incompetence in Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam,
and African socialist nations (Gamier & Lew, 1984). These disenchanted intellectuals now search for more concrete and limited ways of making a difference in
the Third World.
Fifth, a partial paradigm shift within the traditional methodological approach of "cross-cultural psychology" has opened room for discourse about
practical roles for psychological intervention in Third World settings (Chems,
1984; Creekmore, 1986; Durojaiye, 1979; Trimble, 1988). Related to this is the
very important movement among both First and Third World theorists toward
"indigenous psychologies." These are viewpoints that appreciate the value of
indigenous culttiral systems as guides to understanding human action along dimensions and distinctions relevant to each particular culture (Heelas & Lock,
1981).
Sixth, the professional maturation of a 1960s-inspired activist generation,
particularly within the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, has
brought fresh attention to possible roles of psychologists in human rights
monitoring and research. United Nations and other development programs, and
peace research.
Seventh, at a metascientific level, an emerging interdisciplinary attitude
seems to be carrying with it a concem for the practical relevance of research in

12

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the human sciences (Bernstein, 1983; Fay, 1987; Gergen, 1982; Giddens, 1987;
Mendel, 1980; Parker, 1989; Polkinghome, 1983; Riegel, 1976; Rosenwald,
1988; Wexler, 1983).
Eighth, interest in Third World populations and related topics has increased
recently because new forms of cultural and ethnic diversity (due to immigration,
refugees, migrant workers, and so on) in industrialized societies have created
thorny problems in schools, workplaces, and communities. Interethnic violence
has not subsided, and racist attitudes seem to be on the rise.
Last but certainly not least, there have been important influences, through
collaboration and academic exchange, of Third World social scientists on the
interests and concerns of First World psychologists. For instance, D. Sinha has
worked tirelessly to bridge between the two worlds (D. Sinha, 1984, 1986; D.
Sinha & Kao, 1988). Similar roles have been played by J. Sinha (1984), Salazar
(1988), and Pareek, who reviews his work in this journal issue. Perhaps the most
prominent new voice of this sort, arguing with increased urgency and incisiveness for an appropriate Third World psychology, is that of Moghaddam
(1987; Moghaddam & Taylor, 1985, 1986). His most recent formulation of the
issues follows this introduction.
Confronting all these reasons for increased psychological interest in the
Third World is the fact that adoption of a global perspective can throw one off
balance. It requires a new view of personhood (Sampson, 1989). Familiar analytic frameworks can begin to feel irrelevant. Fbr example, if one is accustomed to
understanding behavior as a function of person and environment, what happens
to that framework when the person is no longer one's vague image of a middleclass "rational actor" and the environment is not the usual small group, family,
or classroom? What if we consider the "person" as the 40,000 children who die
daily of curable illnesses such as diarrhea (UNICEF, 1989)? How do we understand the "environment" or "situation" when it includes the complex web of
international economic decisions, migrations, and local political structures that
set up the immediate conditions experienced by those children? And what is the
relevant "behavior" in this example? The example would feel even more absurd
if we tried to apply other favorite psychological concepts and topics: heredity vs.
environment, gender differences, factors in attractiveness and liking, categories
of psychopathology, cross-national personality comparisons, and so on. Countless behavioral science concepts and issues are simply irrelevant when we confront them with social realities that do not mesh with the ideologically conditioned concerns of behavioral scientists in industrial societies. Certain of our
established concepts will undoubtedly be useful, but perhaps only as temporary
tools, and certainly not as the career-making "entities" they have become in
mainstream social science. It seems likely that entirely new visions of what it
means to be a psychologist or a social scientist, perhaps merging political activism with consultation and networking, will have to be hammered out (Hamnett
& Porter, 1983; Parker, 1989; Petras, 1978).

Psychology for the Third World?

13

Contents of This Issue

As co-editor Maritza Montero and I began planning this volume, we were
constrained by several factors. The most important constraint was that most of
the people who are engaged in employing any sort of psychological knowledge in
the solution of Third World problems usually do not have the time to write
articles, and especially not ones that conform to the editorial/scientific norms of
leading Anglo-American journals. They are concerned with the practical problems of day-to-day project coordination, administration, political work, crisis
management, and personal maintenanceall of which are much more timeconsuming in Third World settings than in modernized conditions.
Readers accustomed to the systematic, "value-neutral," and apolitical articles of, for example, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology may
frequently raise their eyebrows as they read through this issue. For a variety of
reasons, the styles of research and writing that produce such articles are often
either impossible or undesirable in Third World contexts. As a result, some of the
articles that follow may seem relatively abstract or concrete, sketchy or detailed,
theoretical or politically motivated, and so on.
However, it seems significant, especially in light of the way this issue had to
be pieced together across disciplines and intemational frontiers, that the pieces
converge around a few central themes.
First, the theme of psychology's possible orientations toward the Third World
are examined by the next two articles in the first section. Fathali Moghaddam calls
for a "generative" behavioral science that attempts to initiate and influence
changes in society, but that simultaneously raises critical questions about the goals
and beneficiaries of programs for national development. Maritza Montero presents
a psychosocial analysis of ideological processes that function in society, and which
need to be explicitly recognized and studied by social scientists in order to help
understand otherwise confusing or contradictory behavior.
The second section discusses various contextual determinants of the course
of "modernization" or development, and of the political repression that often
accompanies it. Vanaja Dhruvarajan describes how even extensive legal changes
in modem India have largely failed to improve the status of Hindu women
because of the predominant male-centered religious ideology, and she proposes
possible ways to approach the goal of gender equality. Gary Gregg describes the
psychocultural conditions that have led to increasing peripheralization and underdevelopment, not greater development, in a North African rural society, and he
draws broader lessons conceming obstacles to or facilitators of change. Ignacio
Martin-Baro, in a posthumous paper, also stresses the role of ideological processes by showing, with empirical public opinion data, how people's religious
views infiuence their postures of criticism of or acquiescence to the social order.
As a result, religion can become both a target and a weapon in psychological
warfare.

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Sloan

The final section presents several examples of practical interventions, drawing from such diverse areas as organizational development, housing improvement, and human rights work. Roberto Briceno-Leon, Silverio Gonzales, and
Mauricio Phelan describe an action program for improvement of housing conditions aimed at disease control in a rural Venezuelan community, and tUey draw
conclusions about the psychosocial and situational factors that motivate personal
involvement in such programs. Udai Pareek reviews his action research projects
in the sphere of organizational development, which led him to emphasize the
importance of several aspects of a society's culture, and to aim at developing
organizational interventions that strengthened the culture's functional aspects and
reduced or managed its dysfunctional aspects.
David Becker, Elizabeth Lira, Man'a Isabel Castillo, Elena Gomez, and
Juana Kovalskys describe the principles behind their therapeutic work with victims of torture and political repression in Chile, and they posit that an overall
societal acknowledgment and reparation are critical for the psychological recovery of victims and the future of a democratic society. Finally, M. Brinton Lykes
and Ramsay Liem summarize human rights work in which U.S. psychologists
have collaboi-ated with colleagues in Latin America on varied projects both here
and abroadinvolving, for instance, educational programs in the U.S., exchanges and conferences, therapeutic assistance, material aid, research on torture
and state-sponsored violence, and documentation of human rights violations.
Among the distressing aspects of this work has been the frequent realization that
U.S. foreign policy has often contributed substantially to the problems that
psychologists are trying to allay.
These articles can be seen as the beginnings of bridges across the gulfs
between the three worlds, not as signs of what future scientific practice will
necessarily bring. They warn us about dead ends and-pseudo issues. They explore new possibilities and encourage nevj participants to begin to contrib-ate to
the monumental task ahead.
The themes in this issue are interconnected in a simple way and build upon
each other logically. In the absence of a critical notion of ideologyone that sees
beliefs and social practices as having key functions in systems of unequal
powerpsychology has been unable to consider ways that individuals and society are meaningfully related. Hence, it has itself functioned ideologically, allowing an ethnocentric individualism to predominate, and largely preventing us from
considering how our efforts as psychologists might contribute to the betterment
ofthe world's poorer half (Higginbotham & Connor, 1989). The task of confronting "Eurocentrism" in social science theory and practice still lies ahead (cf.
Amin, 1989). It may be that some of it will be worked out in the process of
developing appropriate modes of First World participation in the solution of
Third World problems.
Once we get beyond the blinders of life in the modem First World won-

Psychology for the Third World?

15

derland, the task is to do something effective about Third World realities. In this
effort, the focus of development planners has been shifting away from broad
national development projects toward smaller scale, community-centered programs. Westem calls for "participatory research" in "community development"
projects have been more and more frequent recently (e.g.. Gran, 1983;
Hirschman, 1984; Brown, 1985; Rosenwaid, 1988; Sullivan, 1990), and Third
World social scientists from Puerto Rico to Brazil have extensively analyzed and
documented successful projects of this sort (Barreiro, 1974; Fals Borda, 1981,
1988).
However, as one begins to work with individuals and local communities on
practical problems of the Third World poor, serious obstacles can arise. One may
encounter the opposition of those who benefit from the continued exploitation of
the masses in developing societies, and who therefore resent and fear efforts to
organize them. Local achievements are thus often erased by bureaucratic tangles
or deliberate foot-dragging by administrators (Derman & Whitford, 1985). For
example, the impact of the community development work for self-improvement
of housing reported by Briceno-Leon, Gonzales, and Pheian (this issue) was
partially undermined by subsequent gifts of housing by the state to individuals
who had not participated in the housing improvement program.
In worse cases, change agents themselves can become targets of established
power, as was the case for one of our authors, Ignacio Martin-Bar6, to whom this
volume is dedicated. Martin-Baro was a Jesuit priest, social psychologist, and
university administrator who, among many other activities, ran an independent
public opinion polling institute in war-tom El Salvador. Martin-Bar6 linked his
calls for social justice, peace, and respect for human rights to objective public
opinion data, speaking truths that the govemment wished to hide. His life had
been threatened on many occasions, so it was with little surprise, although with
great horror, that we leamed of his mutilation and execution, along with five
similarly dedicated fellow priest-scholars, and their housekeeper and her
daughter, in November 1989. Subsequent investigations proved that the atrocity
was carried out by an elite U.S.-trained squad of the Salvadoran military. Which
higher authorities may have been involved is still being determined.
The example of Martin-Baro's murder raises the general question of neocolonial complicity with political repression and social injustice (Burbach,
1986), and in particular, of the very questionable roles played by academics and
universities in these activities (Feldman, 1989). We need to find ways for psychologists, in coordination with others, to contribute effectively to confrontations with the authoritarian, antidemocratic state. Some valuable lessons can be
leamed from the expanding networks of "human rights and mental health"
advocates such as those described by Lykes and Liem (this issue).
If we could have published 40 rather than 10 articles in this issue, we would
have wanted to include work representing several more of the distinct regions of

15

Sloan

the Third World, for example, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, central Asia
(undeveloped regions of China and the Soviet Union), and so forth. We also wish
we could have included more work on a long list of topics, for example, the
specific problems of Third World children (Ennew & Milne, 1990; MacPherson,
1987), women (ISIS, 1983; Obbo, 1985), refugees, workers (Fuentes &
Ehrenreich, 1983; Johnson & Bemstein, 1982), the mentally ill (Sonntag et al.,
1977), indigenous peoples (cf. any issue of Cultural Survival Quarterly), and the
elderly; and on psychocultural aspects of poverty (Leacock, 1971), the global
economic crisis (ftobel et al., 1985), primary health care with the poor, population control, war trauma (Martin-Bar6, 1990), comiflunity participation (Bambetger, \9%%), envitonmetvlaV ptoiecl\OT\ ^Dwmmg, \9%9\ wrtjaii ttowAi-ng
(Roberts, 1978), tourism (Buck-Morss, 1987; de Kadt, 1979), foreign policy
(Shapiro, 1988), literacy (fteire, 1985), and many other pressing topics.
Overwhelmed? A useful place to start is the handy resource guide for
"linking citizens of the First and Third Worlds" prepared by Benjamin and
Freedman (1989).
My personal conclusion about all this is that the First move toward Third
World involvement by Westem-trained behavioral scientists must be a selfpurging of individualistic and scientistic thinking (Habermas, 1971). This
would entail a shift from "pure" research focusing on individual behavior to
applied research/intervention of the sort normally associated with primary prevention programs, public health education, family systems approaches, community mobilization strategies, program evaluation, and even world systems
analysis. These approaches adopt nonindividualistic perspectives, but they
nevertheless hold quality in individual human lives as an ultimate value. Most
psychologists hold this value at least implicitly, but are prevented by current
ideological and practical limitations of their discipline and profession from
being as effective as the^ might be ^IA tealvxmg It. Mtw tU\% pVv'j&e, o? cntk'zA
self-refiection, very careful thought must be given to the most effective ways of
getting involved in the solution of practical problems in the developing world.
For some, this will mean building on existing technical or language skills, and
redirecting them; others will have to start from scratch, retool, retrain, and
reconnect. I cannot imagine a greater challenge for a contemporary social scientist. Nor is there an area m which sustained engagement could potentially
affect so many lives.
The articles in this issue struggle toward new approaches, both at the theoretical level and in the practical realm. Aware that the issues raised above and
throughout this volume are exceedingly complex, the authors do not pretend to
have resolved them. Their work, however, gives clear evidence that many avenues are open to those who wish to reflect on and modify their own scientific
activities in light of the global perspective that now forces itself upon us all, and
calls for us to work toward meeting the basic needs of all humanity.

Psychology for the Third World?

17

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TOD S. SLOAN is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Tulsa.

He received his Ph.D in personality psychology at the University of Michigan.
Following his interest in "critical psychology," he has published on decision
making, moral development, and personality theory. Recently he conducted
Fulbright-sponsored research on the psychological impact of modernization in
Venezuela, completed the book Modernity and the Psyche, and co-edited
Rafaga: The Life Story ofa Nicaraguan Miskito Comandante.