Toward a Socially Responsible Psychology for a Global Era

Part 1

Central Dimensions of Rethinking a Socially Responsible Psychology for a Global Era

Elena Mustakova-Possardt, Mikhail Lyubansky, Michael Basseches and Julie Oxenberg (eds.)International and Cultural PsychologyToward a Socially Responsible Psychology for a Global Era201410.1007/978-1-4614-7391-6© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Elena Mustakova-Possardt, Mikhail Lyubansky, Michael Basseches and Julie Oxenberg (eds.)International and Cultural PsychologyToward a Socially Responsible Psychology for a Global Era201410.1007/978-1-4614-7391-6_1© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

1. Focusing Psychology on the Global Challenge: Achieving a Sustainable Future

Elena Mustakova-Possardt¹   and Julie Oxenberg²  

(1)

Health Realization Psychotherapy & Consulting, 4229 16th Street South, Arlington, VA 22204, USA

(2)

Spiritual Psychology Associates, One Arnold Circle, #11, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Elena Mustakova-Possardt (Corresponding author)

Email: elena.mustakova@gmail.com

Julie Oxenberg

Email: Julieoxenberg@gmail.com

Abstract

To suggest that psychology needs to focus on our global challenge is in itself a paradox. Psychology as we have known it in the last 150 years of its development as a science has been focused primarily on the individual, particularly in Western contexts. Even as social psychology has expanded its interests to the study of the social units and determinants of behavior, the dynamic co-creating relationship between individual and broader socio-political and economic systems has remained mostly outside the scope of psychological study. This opening chapter explores the new zeitgeist as the context for the necessary emergence of socially responsible psychology via an analysis of the UDHR and the Earth Charter, which represent the broadest global consensus among the full diversity of human cultures, the scientific community, and world religious communities. We approach these documents as providing a comprehensive foundation from which to envision a concrete leadership role for psychology as a major intellectual and moral force for advancing the human condition (Pickren et al 2012, p.312).

Keywords

UDHREarth charterParadigm shift Zeitgeist Moral visionCulture of peace

The quintessential challenge of the global age… is to give rise to a complex and inseparable whole of unity and multiplicity… The problem… lies in the fact that thinking normatively of a whole of unity and differentiation, of global and local, requires a critical stance with respect to its existent configurations in order to reveal… its intrinsic pathologies.

Pulcini 2013, p. 2

To suggest that psychology needs to focus on our global challenge is in itself a paradox. Psychology as we have known it in the last 150 years of its development as a science has been focused primarily on the individual, particularly in Western contexts. Even as social psychology has expanded its interests to the study of the social units and determinants of behavior, the dynamic co-creating relationship between individual and broader socio-political and economic systems has remained mostly outside the scope of psychological study. Despite the important contributions of critical theorists Jurgen Habermas, Erick Fromm, Theodore Adorno, and many others throughout the twentieth century, broader socio-political and economic forces continue to be treated primarily as static contextual background, and are yet to be systemically understood as powerful dynamic factors in processes of individual and collective psycho-social development.

A decade ago, in the American Psychologist, Arnett introduced the concept of a ‘psychology of globalization,’ and proposed that globalization is likely to be one of the dominant forces in the psychological development of the people of the twenty-first century (Arnett 2002, p. 781). Before that, in 1998, APA award-winning international psychologist Anthony Marsella called for the development of a new psychology—a ‘global-community psychology’—to respond to the emerging challenges of the global era. He described such a psychology as a meta-discipline or superordinate discipline characterized as …a set of premises, methods, and practices for psychology based on multicultural, multidisciplinary, multisectoral, and multinational foundations global in interest, scope, relevance, and applicability (Marsella 1998, p. 1282).

What has happened in psychology as a discipline and a professional practice in over a decade since these early calls to recognize the rapidly changing needs of a globalizing world?

A growing number of psychologists have written on the need to redefine the basic assumptions and premises of psychology in order to accommodate the exigencies of a new era (May et al. 1996; Moghaddam 1987; Sloan 1996); and an increasing number of mental health practitioners have become involved in global humanitarian interventions. However as Marsella points out, despite emerging efforts on the part of psychologists to address global problems, the discipline does not yet address globalization as both a process and a product (Marsella 2012, p. 455). Calls to develop a psychological science of globalization continue (Gelfand et al. 2011), yet there seems to be a deep systemic challenge to expanding the field of psychology to encompass the needs of a globalizing world.

Nonetheless the global era is upon us. The paradigmatic shift needed for psychology to remain relevant to how humans manage life on our planet, is overwhelming. Critical to this shift is the rethinking of the relationship between psychology and culture.

1.1 Psychology and Culture: A Global Perspective

The development of psychological understanding has always been embedded in particular cultural, intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual traditions. People’s needs, strivings, social experience, and struggles to find meaning and purpose in their lives are socialized through socio-cultural, political, and economic determinants of human behavior. In that sense, as Pickren et al. (2012) point out, psychology has always been indigenous, and its history is the history of many indigenous and cultural psychologies.

Early psychological knowledge dates back to the very beginnings of human civilization, in Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, and later Greece, India, China. Yet, in its emergence as a science in the twentieth century in Europe and North America, psychology has been so deeply embedded in the Western context of rising capitalism and individualism, that for all practical purposes it lost continuity with earlier psychologies and dedicated itself to the Western psyche.

For all its significant contributions, this understanding of psychology has spread around the world in the form of cultural and psychological imperialism (Pickren et al. 2012, p. 312). The tension between psychology and culture was recognized by pioneers of cultural psychology, such as Margaret Mead and Joseph Campbell. Early efforts to break out of inadvertent cultural imperialism were profoundly enriched by the pioneering work of Isaac Prilleltensky, Kenneth Gergen, Tod Sloan, as well as by the emergence of movements developed in non-Western contexts such as the liberation psychologies of Martin-Baro and Paulo Friere. The unique genius of Russian scholar Lev Vygotsky led him to develop a more systemic understanding of the social formation of mind through the concept of shared goals and mental tools. His early efforts at a more dialectical vision were brought into North American psychology through the work of Cole and Scribner, Rogoff, Wertsch, Valsiner, and many others. Horizons have further expanded through evolving interests in post-modern, critical, emancipatory, and community psychology by scholars such as Michael Foucault and Jurgen Habermas; and in multi-cultural psychology through scholars including Paul Pedersen, Anthony Marsella, Fred Leong, Joseph Trimble, Guillermo Bernal, and Shinobu Kitayama.

Since the 1970s, ideas about culture and psychology have changed, as the dynamic and constructed nature of culture has been increasingly recognized, along with its significant influence on the way psychology is shaped (Azuma 1984; Berry et al. 1997; Marsella 1998). Domains that Western cultures identify as psychological (such as thought, behavior, emotion, psychopathology) have historically been explored by other cultures in the context of other disciplines, most frequently philosophy and spirituality (see for example Kitayama and Cohen 2007; Marsella and Yamada 2007).

In growing recognition of these realities, the later part of the twentieth century saw the infusion into mainstream Western and North American psychology of Eastern psycho-spiritual understanding through the work of humanistic and transpersonal psychology. Psychological understanding was also enriched by staggering discoveries in quantum physics, such as David Bohm’s holographic view of the universe, and Karl Pribram’s holographic model of the human brain. The implications of holographic understanding have begun to open up Cartesian Western psychology to a broader metaphysic, which provides a foundation for future more inclusive understanding of the diversity of spiritual worldviews prevalent worldwide.

All of these rapidly proliferating developments can be seen as historical expressions of an intuited need for psychology as the science of the human mind to expand beyond a narrowly constructed understanding of the Western and North American mind, and to encompass its full mission. Parallel to these efforts to develop a more comprehensive psychological understanding, we have also seen trends toward indigenization from without and indigenization from within (Pickren et al. 2012, p. 307). These trends reflect a growing awareness in many parts of the world of the perceived inadequacies of Western psychology for countries and cultures predicated upon different metaphysical assumptions about personhood and relationships (Pickren et al. 2012, p. 307).

As social psychologist Eric Shiraev points out, to understand psychology fully is to recognize its social and cultural environment (Shiraev 2011, p. 4). Such recognition allows us to discern various historical configurations of what he identifies as the four deeply connected types of psychological knowledge—scientific, popular, ideological or value-based, and legal (pp. 7–15). Shiraev proposes that in different historic and cultural contexts, one or another of these four types of psychological knowledge, in varying combinations, profoundly impacts the development of overall psychological understanding. This perspective is also reflected in Pickren and Rutherford’s (2010) volume, A History of Modern Psychology in Context, which captures the complexity of many influences and changes in psychology.

The authors of this volume share Shiraev’s premise that psychology’s history is difficult to separate from specific social conditions within which it developed and that the zeitgeist , or the prevalent social climate, or the spirit of a particular time influences profoundly the type of psychology that develops (Shiraev 2011, p. 17). This volume explores in-depth the current configuration of dynamics among these four types of psychological knowledge, as well as the ways in which this dynamic needs to be revisited to meet the challenges of a global age.

In summary, we are witnessing a rapidly growing recognition of both the unity of human psychological needs and processes, and their local cultural differentiation and multiplicity. As the opening quote points out, we now need a comprehensive frame of reference, from which to perceive the normative and functional limitations of both. Such a comprehensive frame of reference, in the emergent radically new zeitgeist of the twenty-first century, can only be grounded in a global perspective.

The search for a genuinely global perspective is the central focus of this volume. As Asian Indian psychologist Girishwar Misra wrote in 1996,

The current Western thinking of the science of psychology on its prototypical form, despite being local and indigenous, assumes a global relevance and is treated as universal of generating knowledge. Its dominant voice subscribes to a decontextualized vision with an extraordinary emphasis on individualism, mechanism, and objectivity. This peculiarly Western mode of thinking is fabricated, projected, and institutionalized through representation technologies and scientific rituals and transported on a large scale to the non-Western societies under political-economic domination… When people from other cultures are exposed to Western psychology, they find their identities placed in question and their conceptual repertories rendered obsolete (Misra 1996, pp. 497, 498).

Anthony Marsella has pointed out how the ethnocentric education and training of psychologists in Western institutions limits their horizons of thought and application, keeping them captive to an obsolete and prejudicial worldview in our global era (Marsella 2009a, b, pp. 14, 15). Marsella et al. (2008) provide excellent examples of the current ethnocentricity of well-intentioned Western methods of assessment and intervention in the context of disasters. In the words of an interviewee: I don’t like to talk to strangers about how I feel, and it does not help, I prefer to go to the temple and pray (Marsella 2009a, b, p. 15).

Marsella summarizes succinctly the current condition of psychology as a science and profession, and the way it is being used in our rapidly globalizing world. He identifies the following trends:

(1)

ethnocentrically biased mental health assessments, services, and interventions;

(2)

limited applicability of psychological knowledge to the daily-life circumstances and challenges of people in developing countries;

(3)

inappropriate training of international psychologists in the USA and Europe;

(4)

limited attention to issues of peace, conflict, and justice associated with Western hegemonic globalization efforts;

(5)

suppression of critical debate because of perceived and experienced power asymmetries;

(6)

hesitancy to address the social, political, and economic determinants of thought and practice because these are ignored or minimally addressed in Western universities and colleges;

(7)

acceptance of North American and Western European psychology as the world standard for research and practice in many national and international organizations (e.g. WHO, Red Cross) (Marsella 2009a, b, p. 14).

The dynamics underlying these trends have been articulated in the work of critical psychologists Tod Sloan and Isaac Prilleltensky. Sloan writes:

… the major problem lies less in the theoretical limits of Western psychology, although these are serious, than in the social functions of Western psychology. As scientific psychology entrenches itself further in industrial nations, its function as a socio-political stabilizing mechanism has gradually become more obvious… psychological theory and practice embody Western cultural assumptions to such an extent that they primarily perform an ideological function. That is, they serve to reproduce and sustain societal status quo characterized by economic inequality and other forms of oppression such as sexism and racism. The core operative assumptions that produce this ideological effect both in theory and practice are individualism and scientism (Sloan 1996, p. 39).

Further, Prilleltensky elaborates, we believe that psychology’s traditional practices and norms hinder social justice, to the detriment of individuals and communities in general, and of oppressed groups in particular (Prilleltensky 1997, p. 1).

In the face of this growing understanding that despite its core commitment to human wellbeing, psychology as it now stands does not adequately serve social justice and the wellbeing of communities worldwide, the past decade has seen some substantively innovative proposals. Among them, Finkel and Moghaddam (2004) call attention to a new emphasis on the psychology of rights and duties. Ratner (2013) proposes a reorienting of human psycho-social, political, and economic life toward a cooperative social paradigm as the only viable systemic solution to the global crises that confront us. Carr (2013) explores the levels, places, and nexus points through which an anti-poverty psychology can take shape in the world. Hatcher (2007) puts forth a comprehensive spiritually informed understanding of the symbiotic dialectic of the individual development of an ever-expanding sense of self, and the collective social imperative to work toward the organic emergence of just world governance.

As we seek to understand what characteristics and values might define a socially responsible psychology able to serve the needs of the diverse human family in this new historical era of the emergence of a planetary civilization, the authors of this volume turn to two widely endorsed international documents—UDHR (UN General Assembly 1948), and the Earth Charter (The Earth Charter Initiative 2000). These two documents, and the accompanying, United Nations Millennium Goals (http:​/​/​www.​un.​org/​millennium) represent the broadest global consensus among the full diversity of human cultures, the world scientific community, and the full spectrum of world religious communities. Therefore, we believe that these documents can provide the most comprehensive foundation from which to envision a concrete leadership role for psychology as a major intellectual and moral force for advancing the human condition (Pickren et al. 2012, p. 312).

We view the Millennium Goals as the most important collectively identified indices that reflect the extent to which the substantive changes proposed by the two global documents have been carried out. Hence, we focus in the next section on a content analysis of the UDHR and the Earth Charter in order to identify key psychological implications for paradigmatic reorientation.

1.2 Key Global Documents that Provide the Ethical Underpinnings and Guiding Moral Vision for this Volume

In our age, human development occurs in the context of a new global zeitgeist. A critical way for the discipline of psychology to enhance wellbeing in this global era is through helping our global community recognize the comprehensive wisdom articulated in the UDHR and the Earth Charter, and become willing and able to act in alignment with their inspiring vision.

The fundamental values and principles outlined in these two documents reflect complex psychosocial dynamics, and, if implemented, can be expected to have increasingly profound psychosocial consequences. To illustrate the above premise, let us examine the opening words of the preamble of the Earth Charter, a document produced in consultation with thousands of individuals and organizations worldwide, intended to serve as a global consensus statement of values and principles for a sustainable world.

We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward, we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny.

What would it mean for psychology as a discipline to reorganize itself in such a way as to help the global community recognize the oneness of our human family and actually begin to live as one Earth community? Through what mechanisms and processes can psychological work be synergistically brought together and integrated with the work of other disciplines, to effectively contribute solutions to the world’s most pressing problems?

We begin by examining some key psychological insights articulated within these two seminal world documents.

1.2.1 Psychological Dimensions and Significance of the UDHR

Future psychologists would be well advised to study in-depth the many psychological and psycho-spiritual insights the UDHR articulates. It acknowledges the dignity, worth, and equal rights of all human beings. Most importantly, it recognizes that honoring them is the foundation for the prospect of peace in the world.

Many other international entities and documents, when speaking of issues of security, refer to constructs such as ‘mutual deterrence,’ ‘common defense,’ and military procurements as the foundation for achieving safety and strength in the world. In contrast, the UDHR identifies that respecting core universal psychological needs for human dignity, respect, recognition, basic rights, and justice, represents the actual path to achieving enduring security, strength, and peace in our world. Chapter 7 in this volume explores the psychological dimensions involved in shifting away from militarism as a mindset, and toward a much-needed global orientation to non-violence and the prevention of war.

Further, the UDHR recognizes that guaranteeing concrete economic, social, and cultural rights is critical to achieving human dignity and the full development of the human personality, as well as centrally related to individual and collective security, defense, and peace. The declaration also proclaims that everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living. Such a statement reflects a trust that, if resources are distributed fairly, there can be enough to allow everyone to meet his or her basic needs. Chapter 10 examines the inaccurate assumptions that help keep in place unsustainable, unjust, and unwholesome global economic and ecological attitudes and systems.

The UDHR proclaims that everyone has the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. This position invites research and reflection on the psychological impact of being able to trust that one’s basic needs will be taken care of in any situation of crisis or vulnerability versus the psychological impact of fearing that one may be on one’s own under such conditions. How do such considerations affect daily human experience, including the manifestation of psychiatric symptoms of distress, individually and collectively? And how can such an approach to collective welfare incorporate the issue of personal responsibility, so that it avoids creating a social welfare state? These questions are taken up in Chap.​ 5, which explores the emergent concept of social health, and examines how we may envision a healthy society as a holding environment for individual and collective health. The principle of the right to security highlights an important aspect of social health—that to the extent that we organize ourselves to work wisely with the natural environment and the resources of our planet, a sustainable and secure existence for each human being can and must be ensured. Chapter 6 explores ways to cultivate the socially responsible global consciousness that underlies such choices.

Other psychological dimensions of the UDHR include the recognition that peace and fulfillment can best be achieved when everyone has the right to take part in the governance of their country, and when the will of the people forms the basis of the authority of government. This raises the question of what constitutes an authentic, living democracy (Shiva 2005, p. 6). In this spirit, Chaps.​ 8 and 9 examine current practices of psychological ‘silencing’ of vast sectors of the population worldwide, and focus on the need to overcome racism, discrimination, persecution, bigotry, and violence against women.

Further, Article 28 recognizes that the only way for all to be guaranteed the rights set forth in this Declaration is through the establishment of a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized. This statement recognizes the inherent connection between individual wellbeing and the collective social and international order that we create. Consistent with this idea, the closing chapter examines the psychological process of overcoming the clashes of civilizations, and moving toward a collective psychology of interdependence and unity in diversity.

Article 29 brings into focus the inter-relatedness between individual and community wellbeing. It states that everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. This article speaks of the responsibilities that arise from realizing our fundamental interdependence. It brings to attention the fact that exercising responsibility toward the collectives of which we are a part, and finding a role in caring for the commons, are essential conditions for achieving the full development of our personality. Chapter 5 returns to this theme as a major characteristic of a healthy society, while the closing chapter of this volume explores the theme of interdependence, and the dialectics of unity across our diversity as we work together with globally conscious religious, philosophical, and spiritual communities across the globe.

Embracing the vision of the UDHR entails aspiring, as psychologists, to help people recognize the psychological and psycho-spiritual perspectives embedded within the UDHR, and their essential connection to the possibility for achieving a sustainable and peaceful future. Therefore, most of the chapters within this volume explore at length the central themes of the UDHR.

1.2.2 Psychological Dimensions and Significance of the Earth Charter

As already mentioned, the Charter starts by identifying that we have reached a critical moment in Earth’s history, one that holds great peril and great promise, in which humanity must make a choice toward oneness to achieve that promise and avoid that peril. The Charter highlights principles and perspectives that must be honored in order for humanity to create a sustainable future. It identifies numerous psychologically significant constructs that must be better understood by our global community, as well as behavioral requirements and responsibilities we must meet.

1.2.2.1 Central Principles

The Earth Charter posits that a sustainable global society—in other words our very survival—must be founded on four principles: respect for nature, respect for universal human rights, economic justice, and creating a culture of peace. Each of these principles needs careful psychological elaboration.

Chapters 5 and 6 examine the principle of respect for nature as fundamental to social health and global consciousness. Chapters 8 and 9 present a thorough psychological examination of the issues and processes involved in honoring universal human rights. Chapter 10 is devoted to the psychology of economic justice and global sustainability. Chapters 7 and 11 explore psychological processes that can lead global society toward evolving a collective culture of peace. Such a culture does not imply a utopian global society devoid of conflict. Rather, the question of how our increasingly globalizing civilization can learn to deal with conflict constructively and non-violently will be examined.

1.2.2.2 Constructs

Some of the most thought-provoking constructs and behavioral requirements presented in the Earth Charter are briefly examined below, as an invitation for the reader to begin to consider the rich possibilities of the psychological shift we are called to in the current historical moment.

Home. The Charter speaks of the psychologically significant concept of home, and recognizes Earth as our one shared Home. Psychologists usually address issues related to ‘home’ in the narrower sense: for example, what does it take to create a loving home, a safe home, a peaceful home, a fair and just home, a sustainable family and home, a home conducive to fostering the self-esteem of all its members, a home in which all members can develop their gifts and strengths as fully as possible. A shift in focus now may entail developing the expertise and practice toward answering these questions not only for the wellbeing of individual families, but for the wellbeing and survival of our global family as a whole. Some early examples of such a refocusing can be found in studies such as Common Fire: Lives of Commitment in a Complex World (Dalos et al. 1996), where a team of psychologists and sociologists described a trend among socially responsible people to redefine the meaning of ‘home.’

Security. The Charter speaks to the psychologically significant concept of security by warning that the very foundations of our global security are currently threatened. Psychologists usually address issues of ‘security’ in the more narrow sense, as in what type of values, attitudes, priorities, and behaviors tend to foster a sense of security versus insecurity in our children, in our relationships, in our homes, in our communities. The shift entails now focusing expertise and practice toward answering these questions not only for the emotional health of individuals, families, and local community, but for the emotional health and survival of our global community and our planet at large. Early examples can be found in the literature on sustainability and education for sustainability, which links global sustainability with consciousness development and the cultivation of particular dispositions (O’Dea 2012; Podger et al. 2010).

The questions of rethinking the concepts of home and security are taken up again in Chap.​ 5, when we examine emergent understanding of social health.

1.2.2.3 Behavioral Requirements

The Charter recognizes as significant the following behavioral requirements and responsibilities.

Choice. The Charter highlights that The choice is ours to either form a global partnership to care for Earth and one another or risk the destruction of ourselves and the diversity of life. Psychologists have in many ways expressed their expertise in helping people recognize areas of choice within their own lives, in circumstances where they may have formerly perceived themselves as helpless, or their situation as hopeless, fixed, or unchangeable. Some psychologists have claimed that people often automatically, even unconsciously, take the current parameters of their situation as a given, as something to which they simply must learn to adjust (Lerner 1986). A shift now may entail focusing research and practice on recognizing areas of choice and potential empowerment with regard to human social arrangements, including national and international policies and agreements that may be unjust, unhealthy, or unsustainable.

Some psychological resources that can be more comprehensively applied in this effort include the insights of Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy, as well as spiritual psychology and mindfulness studies. Each of these areas of knowledge can help individuals and families recognize important areas of choice in their personal lives. They can also help national and global communities recognize the critical choices we all now face vis-à-vis the global values and attitudes we adopt, the global priorities and policies we implement, and their impact on the sustainability of our civilization and our planet. Chapter 6 will explore these issues at length on the level of consciousness, while Chaps.​ 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 will take up questions of choice, individual and collective, as they play out in the critical social issues of this age.

Change. The Charter warns, that fundamental changes are needed in our values, institutions, and ways of living. There is a vast body of psychological knowledge about the process of change, including processes and stages of development, resistance, and fears of change, and ways to understand and work constructively with such resistance. A shift now may entail focusing this expertise not only toward helping to support change that both decreases suffering and fosters liberation for individuals, but also toward increasing awareness about the urgency, nature, and potential means of change on a scale needed to decrease suffering and foster liberation across our planet. Additionally, psychologists could help all sectors of society to confront and work through the challenges of developmental change and the predictable fears and resistance that accompany any major change process.

Challenge. The Charter identifies the challenges ahead for our global community, related to the choices that must be made, and the change that must occur in order to achieve a sustainable future for us all. Psychologists know some things about the support people often need to be able to face major challenges, along with various attitudes, beliefs, skills, and practices that can help people persevere through challenge, in order to meet their long-term goals (Snyder 1999). The shift entails now considering systematic approaches to create holding environments (Kegan 1982) in communities across the globe that can nurture participants as they increasingly mindfully negotiate choice and change. In this endeavor, psychologists have much they can contribute, and much they can learn in collaboration with builders of communities, such as economic cooperatives, social and medical service structures, educational institutions, emergency responders, and faith and spiritual communities across the globe. Chapter 11, our closing chapter, examines more closely what may be entailed in ensuring the existence of such holding environments worldwide.

Growth. The Charter highlights that when basic needs have been met, human development is about being more, not having more. Although the assumptions of capitalism have thus far demanded and rewarded ever-expanding, interminable material growth in market share, profitability, sales, wealth, as well as production, the main form of growth to which the Charter claims humanity must now aspire in order to have a sustainable future, is a growth in consciousness. Of course, the domain of consciousness is a core area of focus for psychology (Grof 2000; Weber and Weekes 2009). Psychologists research the nature of consciousness as well as techniques to foster the development of individual and small group consciousness. The shift entails now addressing research on consciousness and techniques for developing consciousness to a broader level. Psychologists could suggest improved ways to use both public and private sector mechanisms and media to promote this latter form of growth. Once again, it would be wise and fruitful to enter collaborations with other communities and traditions concerned with effecting large-scale consciousness change. Chapters 6 and 11 focus directly on the central question of the development of global consciousness.

To summarize our discussion on the Earth Charter’s significance for a socially responsible psychology for a global age, we draw from one of the most significant recent analysis of the peace process ahead, the roadmap offered by prominent peace activist and former Director of Amnesty International James O’Dea (2012). This roadmap integrates science, spirituality, and social healing. O’Dea summarizes the key memes provided by the Earth Charter as:

Rights and responsibilities, and the need to recognize how they support each other in ways that create synergy among structures, law enforcement, and engaged citizen participation.

Local and global community, and the need to work locally to avoid the violence and dislocation that come from loss of community vitality and health.

A common destiny, which is to discover the depths of our unity.

Shared responsibility, in the sense that every individual is a part of a resonant whole, because of which we are called to a consciousness that understands how each part has responsibility for supporting the whole.

The need to learn humility in the context of all life. This particular meme calls on us to recognize that we are embedded in larger systems that, in our arrogance, we have begun to disrupt at alarming rates. Hence, we must learn to accurately perceive our relationship to all other life forms and the reality of our Earth habitat’s eco-design (O’Dea 2012, p. 45).

O’Dea poses a question, which we view as central to socially responsible psychology in our global era How does this new vision fit your comfort zone? Can you embrace this in a way that fits your belief system?

He acknowledges that this new center of meaning, which is rapidly emerging worldwide, is also met with strong opposition and even at times with intense hostility. What, then, will be the role of psychology in this defining tension of our age?

1.3 A Vision of Psychology in an Explicit Normative Context

In our view, psychologists, as well as people at large who embrace values of social responsibility, are currently functioning in a context in which systemic forces are maintaining ‘social irresponsibility.’ We also see prevalent current implicit and explicit assumptions as creating a central psychological focus on adaptation to existing conditions, in which these systemic forces remain strong or become increasingly powerful. As Prilleltensky (1997) writes,

Despite an increased awareness of the role of values in psychology, psychologists lack clear guidelines to appraise the moral implications of their work. … Social forces in and outside the discipline contribute to the confusion over values. At the societal level, liberal philosophies of self-determination and rugged individualism generate fears of moralizing or intruding into somebody else’s moral space…. This apprehension degenerates into … moral inertia (Prilleltenksy 1997, p. 517).

Legitimate fears of dogmatism, fanaticism, and authoritarianism continue to maintain significant confusion in our field regarding the moral obligations of psychologists, and a tenuous at best commitment on the part of psychologists to articulate the moral vision behind their work. This tendency often results in a narrow and sometimes legalistic interpretation of ethics, and a lack of prominent dialogue about transforming vision into action. However, every discourse and practice has a moral dimension, and if it is not explicitly articulated, it is simply advanced without open scrutiny.

A fundamental premise of this volume is that what aspects of our human condition are assumed to be given, and therefore unchangeable, and what aspects are assumed to be changeable, shapes the nature of research, teaching and practice in psychology? Hence, Chap.​ 2 invites critical reflection on prevalent implicit and explicit ideologies, which have penetrated the fabric of the social sciences with assumptions regarding the inevitability of social inequality and exploitation, war, and other forms of social conflict, and of the exploitation of the natural environment for short-term human benefits. Chapter 3 considers the constraining influence on research methodology of epistemological assumptions related to ideologies discussed in Chap.​ 2. It also envisions what psychological research might look like as it becomes based on social epistemologies, and employs an emerging panoply of research methods selected for their potential to address urgent global challenges.

In the view of a growing number of progressive thinkers worldwide, psychological practice in our global society is profoundly influenced by many core automatic, unconsidered implicit values and assumptions. They can be seen as derived from the logic, laws, rules, and interests in the accumulation of wealth, associated with corporate globalization, as Chap.​ 2 proposes. For the most part, these assumptions foster neither adequately wholesome and sustainable nor fulfilling ways of life. In fact, the root causes of many seemingly ‘individual’ symptoms psychotherapists in the West see in our offices—such as loneliness, alienation, anxiety, low self-esteem, depression, relationship distress, addictions, ADD, eating disorders, etc.—are no doubt at least partly influenced by the beliefs, behaviors, and lifestyles such implicit values generate. Chapter 4, which examines the question of socially responsible clinical practice, adopts the view that it is a profound form of moral dysfunction to perpetuate the assumption that we have no other option but to collectively live in a manner centered upon limiting beliefs and values reflecting the interests of the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the needs of all. It is this pathology above all else that mental health practitioners as a whole, moving forward, must set out to diagnose and to heal. In many respects, the future of our planet depends upon it.

Marsella (2011) offers a cogent summary of the prevalent Western cultural beliefs and societal themes that currently stand as barriers to creating a global culture of peace. This volume examines these themes in-depth and seeks to propose concrete ways to move forward toward fulfilling the vision of the UDHR and the Earth Charter. Marsella identifies these beliefs and themes in their competing tension with their opposites, which, as we have seen, are central values embedded in the two global documents examined earlier:

1.

Consumerism versus Sustainability

2.

Materialism versus Spirituality

3.

Commodification versus Human worth

4.

Violence and power versus Peace

5.

Individual self interest versus Social interest

6.

Celebrity identification and preoccupation versus Attachment to ordinary life

7.

Competition versus Cooperation

8.

Financial greed versus Sharing

9.

Rapid and constant change versus Tradition and continuity

10.

Hedonism versus Self-denial and endurance

11.

Transgressive ideology versus Civility, Decency, Respect (Marsella 2011, pp. 160, 161).

It is clearly no longer sufficient to carry on arguments on both sides of these tensions between essentially sustainable and essentially unsustainable beliefs, as the UDHR and the Earth Charter make clear. The next step is to develop a systemic approach to transform them into a viable new level of dialectical synthesis as we move forward.

1.4 Toward a Psychological Science of Globalization, a Global Community Psychology

A basic psychological premise is that life is motion; that forward motion always entails a tension between a healthy assimilation of challenges to the existing equilibrium, and some accommodation of these challenges through further development; and that excessive resistance to the forward motion of life leads to pathology. What applies to individual development also applies to the evolution of collective endeavors, systems, and societies. Every time a collective endeavor, system, or society becomes entrenched in existing notions and organizing principles, and unwilling to examine and rethink these in the context of changing realities, it becomes ideological, and thereby less relevant to the changing context. Thus it loses its ability to speak effectively to the wholeness of life.

As this chapter has made clear, we believe that the time has come for a new level of psychological integration around clearly re-thought central aspirations for the field. Such integration, however, is understood by the authors of this volume to be an organic process that corresponds to a new level of societal organization—a process fundamentally different than the often-contemplated consolidation of psychological knowledge into a unified theory, which many writers (for example, Leong et al. 2012; Marsella 2011; Shiraev 2011) and others see as potentially creating a monopoly on knowledge.

This volume proposes that a psychology for a global era would include as a central aspiration to apply its vast expertise to serve the goal of achieving a sustainable global future for humanity; and to realize the collective vision expressed in such central and inspirational historical documents as the UDHR and the Earth Charter. It is our conviction that every branch of psychological knowledge developed thus far, including varying approaches to the study of human experience, along with numerous multi-disciplinary approaches to the exploration of individual and collective human life, will all be needed to meet the goal of infusing psychological insight into global decision-making on the most pressing issues of our day. We believe global decision-making, whether on international, national, organizational, or individual levels, should be informed by