Generalizations, concepts, and pseudoconcepts: The subjective content of epistemic violence

Barbara Held’s article (2020) challenges the “for/about prepositional divide” (p. 349), which is presumed by critical and Indigenous psychologies, at two empirical and epistemological levels. I argue that Held’s critique can be further strengthened empirically, with reference to Lev Vygotsky’s analysis of the relation between spontaneous and scientific concepts, and epistemologically, with reference to Evald Ilyenkov’s treatment of concepts in contrast to mere notions.

The dangerous tendency to essentialize cultural categories in academic psychology

This commentary welcomes Held’s (2020) article on epistemic violence in psychological science. When psychologists employ social categories, such as “Black people” or “the Japanese” as “fixed factors” in their experiments, they may ignore the social construction of these categories within a cultural context. This can lead to cultural conceptions being enshrined in a methodology that has a tendency to essentialize social categories, with their inferred psychological attributes simply becoming a question of their “accuracy” or “inaccuracy” and not about the history and ideologies within which they are formed. Cultural psychology and Indigenous psychologies challenge this ideological neutrality of social categories, which is illustrated by Hinton’s cultural model of stereotypes. Ignoring the evidence that traditional academic psychology is a cultural psychology (rather than an objective science) simply maintains the dominant ideological structures of epistemic violence within it.

Some clarifications on critical and Indigenous psychologies

This comment responds to Held’s (2020) analyses of Indigenous and critical psychologies, not by providing line-for-line refutations of arguments, but by laying out some of the larger issues in those areas of research and practice. The argument clarifies assumptions and misunderstandings by looking at the relationship between critical and Indigenous psychologies, power and violence, objectivity, and the regulative role of prepositions. It is hoped that a clearer and broader understanding of those psychologies can emerge.

History of Cultural Psychology

Chapter 2 explores the individuals, disciplines, and historical forces that contributed to the emergence of cultural psychology. It discusses central themes and types of historical approaches, ancient Greek contributions, late 19th and early 20th century thinkers, Wilhelm Wundt, sociology and anthropology’s early contributions, the psychologists Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, and the anthropologists Franz Boas and D. Price-Williams. It explores cross-cultural psychology and the contributions of Marshall Segall, Geert Hofstede, and Harry Triandis. Finally, it discusses cultural psychology and the contributions of Richard Shweder, Jerome Bruner, Michael Cole, and indigenous psychologies. This chapter includes a case study, Culture Across Disciplines box, chapter summary, key terms, a What Do Other Disciplines Do? section, thought-provoking questions, and class and experiential activities.