Tracing the History of the Discipline of Psychology of Religion, Major Developments and Methodological Differences Utilised By Scholars in America and Europe

The psychology of religion has stemmed from mainstream psychology. Due to the increased interest by psychologists to study religion from a scientific perspective, gave rise to the study of religion from a psychological point of view. This essay endeavours to establish the history of psychology of religion; the major historical developments and methodological approaches used by the American and European scholars. The essay acknowledges the interesting journey the field of psychology of religion and spiritualties has taken from a philosophical conception to psychology. It highlights the methodological challenges it has and still faces from the American and European perspectives. The psychology of religion is both an interesting and challenging field, which has undergone a lot of changes, denials and shortcomings because of the nature of religion and spiritualties. However, this article establishes that a tremendous job has been done in both American and European efforts.

(Re)Thinking Young Men's Violence: a Discursive Critique of Dominant Constructions

<p>Legitimated and thereby dominant knowledges of youth violence that aim to explain its causes and develop ways of responding are primarily informed by a positivist scientifically-based mainstream psychology. The purpose of this thesis is to offer ways of (re)thinking youth violence outside of an objectivist paradigm. By examining the significant contextual issues and numerous complexities involved for young men who have been violent, this research critically analyses normative notions of youth violence. The theoretical and methodological foundation for this research employed a critical psychology framework along with a discourse analysis approach informed by poststructural concepts derived, primarily, from Michel Foucault. This research foundation has enabled the dominant constructions of youth violence that are reflected and (re)produced by mainstream psychology to be disrupted and hence the modernist assumptions in the positivist scientific basis of mainstream psychology are questioned. The participants in this study were seven young New Zealand men, aged between 14 and 17, who were incarcerated for violent offences. A poststructural discourse analysis of interviews with these young men critically examined the ways they spoke about their violence, their explanations for it as well as their ideas about intervention. My analysis shows that dominant constructions of youth violence that are (re)produced in mainstream psychology theories as taken-for-granted truths, can position violent young men as 'abnormal', 'deviant' and 'dangerous'. However, participants resisted these pathologising and demonising positions. Instead, they embraced the rational position of 'man'. Dominant discourses around traditional masculinity were identified as being of paramount importance to these young men and showed that successfully performing the subject position of 'man' took precedence for them. Being violent acted as a means for participants to achieve 'being a man'. Against this, therapeutic intervention designed to prevent future violence was viewed as irrelevant to these young men. In addition, the 'therapeutic subject' position made available within discourses of intervention did not enable young men to perform 'man' correctly. Contradictions are highlighted in this thesis, showing the multiple subjectivities of the participants, along with various effects of the differing discourses. This was most pronounced in the differences revealed in participants' talk of their general violence compared to their sexual violence. Since general violence was constructed as a way of 'getting it right as a man', participants spoke in considerable detail about their activities. However, participants were reluctant to talk about their sexual violence and silences predominated. As an alternative, they took up an 'unknowing' position about why they were sexually violent. Sexual violence was constructed as irrational and therefore unknowable. In contrast to not wanting intervention for their general violence, participants talked of a willingness to engage with therapeutic intervention. They positioned intervention experts as being able to make rational sense of their sexual violence and spoke of expectations that this would stop them from being sexually violent again. The limitations of traditional approaches to youth violence have been highlighted in this research. Such approaches are unable to attend to the contextual issues presented here or the complexities of multiple subjectivities. The construction of violence as a way to perform 'man' contests discourses of 'abnormality' that positions young men who have been violent as 'disordered' and 'deviant'. Future theorising about youth violence and subsequent intervention approaches require attending to the significance that normative notions of 'manhood' have in the (re)production of violence.</p>

(Re)Thinking Young Men's Violence: a Discursive Critique of Dominant Constructions

<p>Legitimated and thereby dominant knowledges of youth violence that aim to explain its causes and develop ways of responding are primarily informed by a positivist scientifically-based mainstream psychology. The purpose of this thesis is to offer ways of (re)thinking youth violence outside of an objectivist paradigm. By examining the significant contextual issues and numerous complexities involved for young men who have been violent, this research critically analyses normative notions of youth violence. The theoretical and methodological foundation for this research employed a critical psychology framework along with a discourse analysis approach informed by poststructural concepts derived, primarily, from Michel Foucault. This research foundation has enabled the dominant constructions of youth violence that are reflected and (re)produced by mainstream psychology to be disrupted and hence the modernist assumptions in the positivist scientific basis of mainstream psychology are questioned. The participants in this study were seven young New Zealand men, aged between 14 and 17, who were incarcerated for violent offences. A poststructural discourse analysis of interviews with these young men critically examined the ways they spoke about their violence, their explanations for it as well as their ideas about intervention. My analysis shows that dominant constructions of youth violence that are (re)produced in mainstream psychology theories as taken-for-granted truths, can position violent young men as 'abnormal', 'deviant' and 'dangerous'. However, participants resisted these pathologising and demonising positions. Instead, they embraced the rational position of 'man'. Dominant discourses around traditional masculinity were identified as being of paramount importance to these young men and showed that successfully performing the subject position of 'man' took precedence for them. Being violent acted as a means for participants to achieve 'being a man'. Against this, therapeutic intervention designed to prevent future violence was viewed as irrelevant to these young men. In addition, the 'therapeutic subject' position made available within discourses of intervention did not enable young men to perform 'man' correctly. Contradictions are highlighted in this thesis, showing the multiple subjectivities of the participants, along with various effects of the differing discourses. This was most pronounced in the differences revealed in participants' talk of their general violence compared to their sexual violence. Since general violence was constructed as a way of 'getting it right as a man', participants spoke in considerable detail about their activities. However, participants were reluctant to talk about their sexual violence and silences predominated. As an alternative, they took up an 'unknowing' position about why they were sexually violent. Sexual violence was constructed as irrational and therefore unknowable. In contrast to not wanting intervention for their general violence, participants talked of a willingness to engage with therapeutic intervention. They positioned intervention experts as being able to make rational sense of their sexual violence and spoke of expectations that this would stop them from being sexually violent again. The limitations of traditional approaches to youth violence have been highlighted in this research. Such approaches are unable to attend to the contextual issues presented here or the complexities of multiple subjectivities. The construction of violence as a way to perform 'man' contests discourses of 'abnormality' that positions young men who have been violent as 'disordered' and 'deviant'. Future theorising about youth violence and subsequent intervention approaches require attending to the significance that normative notions of 'manhood' have in the (re)production of violence.</p>

Promoting New Psychological Understandings by Use of an Indigenous American Psychological Paradigm

Indigenous Americans are not well represented by mainstream psychology and its reductionistic tenets. As psychology developed, it could not help but to be implicitly biased by the surrounding hierarchical colonial culture—a culture in which Indigenous people and many others were conquered, oppressed, dehumanized, devalued, neglected, and excluded. An Indigenous worldview views humans as co-equal partners of an interdependent holistic system. Striving for healthy relationships with others is foundational to psychological health and well-being from an Indigenous perspective. Discrete entities (including self), independence, autonomy, and hierarchy are considered artificial mainstream conceptualizations that have negatively impacted the well-being of humans and the natural world. Indigenous American psychology appreciates the sacred nature of the whole and its entities, approaching professional psychology with the humility and respect that interacting with sacred entities warrants. Essential tenets of an Indigenous American Psychological Paradigm (IAPP) are discussed therein as an alternative to existing mainstream beliefs. An IAPP offers the ability to address intergenerational psychological problems holistically across time in ways that mainstream psychology has been unable. Psychology is ultimately strengthened by an ability to conceptualize psychology through the new lenses of alternative paradigms such as this one.

Alternate Cultural Paradigms in Psychology: Long Overdue Recognition and Further Articulations

Many ethnic-acknowledging psychology researchers, practitioners, and their allies have expressed dissatisfaction with Eurowestern, mainstream psychology in the United States as it shows serious shortcomings when used to understand and serve minoritized communities. Eurowestern psychology has been criticized for its imperialistic, one-size-fits-all view of humanity. Accordingly, we challenge the neglect of the history and value of ethnic acknowledgment in psychology perpetrated and maintained by Eurowestern psychology, including mainstream psychology in the United States. We operationalize such challenge by articulating the construct of alternate cultural paradigms, by following it with a series of contributions authored by leading figures from each of the Ethnic Acknowledging Psychological Associations (EAPAs) in the United States, and by closing with a commentary by a renowned scholar in the field. The current article, followed by five separate and distinct articles from authors identified with each of the EAPAs (i.e., the Association of Black Psychologists [ABPsi], the National Latinx Psychological Association [NLPA], the Society of Indian Psychologists [SIP], the Asian American Psychological Association [AAPA], the Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African Psychological Association [AMENA-Psy]), together with a concluding commentary conforms the Special Issue on alternate cultural paradigms in psychology in the United States.

Interesting numbers: An ethnographic account of quantification, marketing analytics and facial coding data

This article asks why facial coding, a method for understanding emotions that was rejected by mainstream psychology for over century, has emerged as a popular method in contemporary marketing. Reading ethnographic, historic and technical data sets, the article argues that facial coding works because it shifts the task of quantification from humans to computers. This grants facial coding an appearance of objectivity that allows marketing practitioners to open up new ways of understanding, talking about and acting in markets that go beyond the data itself. Informed by science and technology studies, the article offers the concept of interesting numbers to illuminate these contradictory tendencies in the quantification of consumer behaviours. It alerts us to the importance of the agents and forms of quantification in selling a measure to marketers. In short, the article shows that, when it comes to marketing measures, the numbers count.

Celebrating 30 years of Feminism & Psychology

Feminism & Psychology ( F&P) was launched in 1991 with a sense of possibility, enthusiasm and excitement as well as a sense of urgent need – to critique and reconstruct mainstream psychology (theory, research methods, and clinical practice). Thirty years have now passed since the first issue was produced. Thirty volumes with three or four issues have been published each year, thanks to the efforts of many. On the occasion of F&P’s 30th anniversary, we, the present and past editors, reflect on successes, changes and challenges in relation to the journal. We celebrate the prestigious awards accruing to the journal, its editors, and authors, and the significant contributions the journal has made to critical feminist scholarship at the interface of feminisms and psychologies. We note some of the theoretical and methodological developments and social changes witnessed over the last three decades. We highlight challenges facing feminist researchers in academia as well as international feminist publishing. We conclude that the initial enthusiasm and excitement expressed by the then editorial collective was justified. But, there is still much work to be done.

Decolonizing moral injury studies and treatment approaches: An Africentric perspective

This article draws from an Africentric perspective to engage the ways in which the notion of moral injury is approached within psychology. The paper argues for the need to interrogate dominant Eurocentric approaches to moral injury and calls for more openness towards non-Western belief systems. The paper attempts to show how rituals that are perceived in the African context to be healing and transformative continue to be absent in the mainstream psychology literature and theorization. For this reason, there is a call for the centring of Indigenous healing rituals if the discipline is to make a positive and inclusive contribution in the scholarship of moral injury. The article is significant given its potential to contribute to the body of knowledge on the importance of centering African perspectives when engaging the notion of moral injury.

Crisis” and “re-foundation” of psychology – outmoded topics of theoretical-psychological discourse?

In the 1970-80ies critical assessments of the problematic state of psychology as science were flourishing, stressing the theoretical disintegration and practical irrelevance of psychological basic research and connecting both defects to a misplaced dependence of mainstream psychology on a scientistic notion of scientific cognition. Talks of a crisis in psychology were gaining ground again. Controverting the paradigmatic maturity vs. the pre-/non-paradigmatic state of our discipline or, alternatively, its necessarily multi-paradigmatic character, the quest for unification as against a programmatic theoretical pluralism became a top issue of scholarly dispute. The institutionalisation of ISTP in 1985 and its initial epistemological and meta-theoretical core themes clearly reflected this pervasive trend. Some 35 years later, it has become noticeably quiet about such concerns, and there is no evidence of a renewal of large-scale discussions on a foundational crisis in psychology, let alone of ambitious attempts at theoretical unification or re-foundation – despite the fact that none of the “epistemopathologial“ (Koch, 1981) diagnoses of traditional variable-psychology have been refuted or lost strategic importance. Combining historical retrospection with an exemplary analysis of topical theoretical-psychological subjects, the aim of my paper is to get a clearer idea of where Theoretical Psychology currently stands in regard to the meta-scientific study of psychological theory-problems.