Since psychology purports to define itself as the scientific study of behavior,most of the time the behaviors that are under scrutiny are mostly that of white folks and attempts to generalize classroom psychology to other cultures are very restricting.It would not be a problem if instead of looking for generalized principles to apply to all humans,the classroom psychology of today would issue a disclaimer that the ideas are restricted to U.S culture and its correlative affiliated Western societies and that it is not intended to be relevant to the cultural psychology of other countries,for example,Latin American. The distinction that is often made is that the cultures of the Americas are collective and the U.S society is individualistic.Both have different dynamics and orientation toward what constitutes appropriate human growth and development,and self-fulfillment. One distinction I have found is what I call the Eurocentric Cognitive Reinforcing System.This means that white folks seem to get some kind of pleasure from cognitive rectitude domains like critical thinking skills. and so called" intellectual activities".It is as if being cognitively right is a might for white folks.As a matter of fact most Eurocentric based cultures operate under this system.And this has become functionally autonomous and self-aggrandizing. But there is a new emerging Latin American psychology that rejects that Eurocentric paradigm of Cognitive might imerialism.But in the Americas,cognition and emotion interplay.The West has a penchant for minimizing emotional factors,but emotions are to the Americas what apple pie is to the United States. And interesting enough, the new emerging Latin Americam psychology is not led by Latin American psychologists but by political leaders and governments.Among the forefront are Chavez of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.Evo Morales of Bolivia,Correa of Ecuador,the Humala dynasty in Peru,and and the Catholic bishop who heads the government in Paraguay. Some of the elements of this new emerging Latin American Psychology are : respect for one's unique identity and less emphasis on Eurocentric norms.Chavez always emphasizes his indigenous and African roots and has built a bond with the African -American community, Evo Morales of Bolivia-the first indigenous president of that country returns to emphasizing indigenous elements for health,education,and welfare,but the dude who really wants to revamp and build a new Latin American psychology,even going so far to apply the term copper-centric is the grand daddy of the Humala dynasty in Peru-Isaac Humala,who believes that European descendants should be second class citizena\s and the indigenous descendants first class citizens.But Ecuador holds the key to forming a truly multiracial identity society through its new constitution. So it should be obvious that the psychology of the Americas is more realistic in including social,political, and cultural elements.Remember John Donne "No man is an island unto himself". U.S -centric psychology is like an island,round and round and round we go. ( To be continued).Similar contemplations will be found in my book (in preparation) THE CROSS-CULTURAL JOURNAL OF MICHAEL J. SYLVESTER Michael "omnicentric" Psychology,PhD DAytona Beach,Florida Daytona Beach,Florida --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=2144 or send a blank email to leave-2144-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
