All Psychologies are Indigenous: Addressing Historical Grounding of WEIRD Social Psychological Knowledge in Colonialism and Racism

Abstract When observing that theories of social behavior are primarily reflections of contemporary history, Gergen (JPSP 26:309–320, 1973) could have also noted that it was an error to consider these theories to reflect universals. This paper reviews developments concerning the recognition that social psychology is based on artifacts created through specific methods, and it is related to a very particular population, of undergraduate students with Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) backgrounds. Although the resulting implications are known, the adoption of measures to rectify these issues is slow, especially in contexts that retain the notion that psychological sciences should rely on quantitative/experimental methods, and use theoretical frameworks developed with WEIRD research samples. Gergen (JPSP 26:309–320, 1973) suggested that social psychology should collaborate with the discipline of history and other relevant sciences, and the benefits of interdisciplinary research have been recognized widely. However, social psychology has not yet addressed as much as the historical grounding of its knowledge, together with its reliance on deficit models, based on racism and colonialism. Future social psychology should become able to discover “the human psyche” in its diversity, and highlight the cultural grounding of human psychological characteristics. Future research has to consider the culturally specific worldviews and practices pertaining to the populations involved, together with the socio-ecological, histo-cultural, and economy-political dynamics within which the research participants have been embedded. In addition, social psychology should strive to translate the resulting theory into practice, in order to address crucial questions that pertain to people’s lived experiences.