Perspectives on the History of CrossCultural Psychology and Speculations
about its Future
W. J. Lonner, Professor Emeritus
Center for Cross-Cultural Research
Department of Psychology
Western Washington University
Bellingham, Washington U.S.A.
The Making of a Cross-Cultural Psychologist:
My Story (Violins, please)
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All dedicated cross-cultural psychologists are often asked why they
became cross-cultural psychologists. What do I say?
Background factors, traced back to my home town in Butte, Montana
with its multicultural population
Experiences at the University of Minnesota, especially in one
particular course entitled “Differential Psychology” (basically the
study of individual differences in a wide range of behaviour)
A resolve to avoid doing a “routine” Ph.D. dissertation in the United
States, leading to doing it in Europe (Data gathered in 1966-67)
Meeting my wife in Germany, marrying her in Switzerland (1966)
Job opening at Western Washington State College (now University)
in 1968. Accepted it on the condition that I would have a “blank
check” in devoting my career to cross-cultural psychology
The Modern Movement in Cross-Cultural
Psychology
• The first organized meeting in the modern movement may have
been in Bangkok, Thailand in August, 1958. UNESCO conference
titled: “Expert Meeting on Cross-Cultural Research in Child
Psychology.”
• A 1965-66 conference of social psychologists at the University of
Nigeria. Resulted in the augusration of the Cross-Cultural Social
Psychology Newsletter, edited the first year by Harry Triandis.
Now known as the Cross-Cultural Psychology Bulletin.
• A 1971 meeting in Istanbul, Turkey concerning the adaptation of
psychological tests for use in other cultures. Key figures: Lee
Cronbach, P. E. Vernon, Sid Irvine,
• The existence of a section called “Cross-Cultural Notes” in the
Journal of Social Psychology (no longer part of that Journal)
What Led to the Growing Interest in Cross-Cultural
Psychology?
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The “brain drain “ from Germany and other parts of Europe brought about
by Hitler’s plans and persecution resulted in the center of psychological
gravity relocating in the U.S. and certain other largely Western societies
(the U.K., including its various political extensions such as Canada,
Australia, New Zealand).
Post-War Efforts
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A sense of idealism and growing interdependence after two horrible wars;
Numerous financial- and education-related incentives such as UNESCO, the
Fulbright Program, and various other activities in many countries;
In several countries a growing sense of injustice, such as the Civil Rights movement
in the U.S., a review of the causes and consequences of the Holocaust, Apartheid in
South Africa, the Cold War, etc. etc. up to current struggles;
A rapidly shrinking world with unprecedented migration and relocation patterns and
nation-building, aided by tremendous growth in communication and transportation
networks;
The “maturing” of psychology as a science, which included the questioning of
mechanical objectification of what it studies (e.g., via behaviourism and other
reductionistic paradigms) where we might understand the person as an active agent
who helps to create his/her own world and tries to understand what he/she has
created.
Three Converging Factors that Led to the Modern
Movement of Cross-Cultural Psychology
• The publication of three directories of cross-cultural psychologists.
First in 1969 by J. W. Berry, revised in 1970 by Berry and Lonner,
and expanded in 1973 by Berry, Lonner, and Leroux.
• The founding of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology in
1970, which was sponsored and copyrighted by the Center for
Cross-Cultural Research, Department of Psychology, Western
Washington State College (now Western Washington University)
• The inception of the International Association for Cross-Cultural
Psychology in 1972, with the first meeting at the University of Hong
Kong. It was agreed at that meeting that JCCP would become an
official journal of IACCP (but still owned and copyrighted by
Western). Latest and 17th meeting was in Xi’an, China, with the 18th
2006 meeting in Greece. Regional meetings also part of the plan
Seven Reasons to Study Cross-Cultural Psychology?
1. To help students gain a better appreciation for the ways in which
culture, ecology, and behavior interact from a psychological
perspective and essentially shape all thought and behavior.
2. To demonstrate that much of Western psychological thought and
theory has been ethnocentric, and that the reduction of
ethnocentrism is essential for the development of a truly universal
psychology as well as a genuinely sensitive and personal
perspective on the world;
3. To help develop an appreciation for the wide variations there are
in human behavior, but also to appreciate that there is a common
thread among all humans in most aspects of behavior;
4. To encourage an appreciation for the mutual relevance of
psychology and other disciplines (such as anthropology and
sociology) in studying human behavior in broad international
perspective
Seven Reasons to Study Cross-Cultural Psychology
(Continued)
5. To help students prepare for other courses where culture and
human ecology may be important variables. For instance, almost
any course in psychology can be generously enriched by taking
culture into account in theory, research, and applications;
6. To aid in the process of being better able to deal with and
understand variations in human behavior, thus making cross-cultural
interactions more productive and enjoyable.
7. To give you, the student, more insight into your behavior,
attitudes, and values because probably more than any other factor
beyond your unique biological heritage your culture has both
directly and indirectly molded you into the person you are today.
This is true for you and is true for everybody.
The Many Ways to Understand the Pervasive
Influence of Culture
• Anthropology (Cultural, Medical, Forensic)
• Psychological Anthropology – The use of an anthropological
background along with the operationalising of psychological terms
(e.g. John and Beatrice Whiting in the “Six Cultures” study)
• Indigenous psychology – Understanding a specific group of people
who live in a specific time, place, and context.
• The psychology of “diversity” – Understanding various people in
their contexts, all of whom live in a pluralistic society
• Cultural psychology – Non-comparative, non-reductionistic,
somewhat phenomenological and ideographic
• Cross-Cultural Psychology – Using the whole of psychology, extend
the range of variation, and enrich psychology in the process
• Experiential – Simply living elsewhere and understanding the “rules
of the game” in faraway forests
Some Things to Consider – Part 3
Two key questions:
1. Is it important to take culture into account when
trying to understand human behaviour? Yes or No.
2. Are there continuities in human behaviour that
transcend culture? Yes or No
Four options:
Scientific Nihilism – A Double No
Absolutism – No to #1, Yes to #2
Relativism – Yes to #1, No to # 1
Universalism – Yes to both #1 and #2
Two of the Most Pervasive Methodological
Problems that Must be Solved in Cross-Cultural
Psychology
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Sampling – That is, taking respectable and defensible groups of people for
the sake of testing hypotheses, making comparisons, and contributing to
psychology’s “data base”
Which cultures, and why
Which communities, and why
Which people, and why
Which behaviours, and why
Equivalence – That is, ascertaining or justifying that the basic procedures
and rationale are “fair” for all. Different types:
Conceptual/Cultural
Functional
Stimulus
Linguistic (translation)
Psychometric (scalar)
Some Things to Consider – Part 1
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Cross-Cultural Psychology has a long history but a short past.
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Let’s not forget our ancestors such as New Zealand’s Ernest Beaglehole
and many others that go back far into antiquity. Theophrastos (about 320
B.C.) may have been the first psychologist who showed a serious interest in
understanding intrerindividual differences:
“I have often applied my thoughts to a perplexing question – which will
puzzle me forever – why, while all Greece lies under the same sky
and all Greeks are educated alike, we have different personalities? I
have been a student of human behaviour for a long time, and have
observed the different compositions of men. I thought I would write a
book about it”
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“There are truths on this side of the Pyrenees that are falsehoods on the
other”.
---Blaise Pascal
Some Things to Consider -- Part 2
• In many ways all people are alike;
In other ways some people are alike;
But in certain ways no two people are alike.
Kluckhohn and Murray, 1950
• “Nothing butism” – That is, cross-cultural psychology is “nothing but”
an extension of logical positivistic ways of the EuroAmerican
tradition of psychology.
• Or, “Context Rules”, and all human thought and behaviour occurs in
specific contexts – contexts that have been shaped by numerous
historical, political, religious, and linguistic factors and forces, all of
which are unique to each culture.