Incorporating “Culture” in psychology research from the indigenous perspective - based on the paper “Indigenous, cultural, and cross-cultural psychology: 
A theoretical, conceptual, and epistemological analysis” ( Uichol Kim, 2000)

1. Indigenous
Psychology
Incorporating “Culture” in psychology research
from the indigenous perspective
Prof. Dr. Hora Tjitra & Gao Li, Zhejiang University
Hangzhou, March 2011

2. Research approaches to explain cultural differences
The universalist approach The contextualist approach
It aims to discover abstract, Each culture should be understood
nomothetic, and general laws of Cultural from its own frame of the reference,
human functioning (Koch &Leary, including its own ecological, historical,
1985; Shepard 1987).
differences philosophical, and religious context.
An example of etic approch An example of emic approach
Integrationist approach
Recognizes the importance of
integrating the context and content of
psychological knowledge in our
research for universals.

3. Outline
 Research approaches to explain cultural
differences
 Two types of Indigenization
 Analysis of culture
 Religion, culture and science
---Confucianism
 Three impositions of psychology and the
indigenous psychologies approach

4. Prof. Dr. Hora Tjitra - Cross-cultural and Business Psychology
14
years
in
Germany
7
years
in
China
Dipl.-Psych., Technical University of Braunschweig
Organizational Psychology and Human Resource Management
Born
and
grew
up
in
Indonesia
Dr. Phil., University of Regensburg
Intercultural Psychology and Strategic Management
Executive Education, INSEAD
HR Management in Asia
Evaluation
Studies
of
Cross-­‐Cultural
Training
4

5. Two types of Indigenization
Indigenization from without Indigenization from within
 Transporting psychological theories,  A shift in the scientific paradigm, a
concepts, and methods and modifying transformative change in which
them to fit the local cultural context theories, concepts, and methods are
developed from within, using a bottom-
 Derived etic approach is an example up approach.
 External imposition  The indigenous psychologies
 Accommodative paradigm advocated by Kim and colleagues is an
example
 Indigenous knowledge is treated as an  Advocate examining knowledge, skills,
auxiliary source, not as the primary and beliefs which people have about
source of knowledge. themselves, and studying these
 Translate traditional philosophical and aspects in their natural contexts
religious texts into psychological  The goal is to create a more rigorous,
concepts or theories, and then systematic, universal science that can
empirically verify. be theoretically and empirically verified,
 The current psychological knowledge rather than naively assumed.
can be described as the psychology of
psychologists, not the psychology of
the lay public.

6. Analysis of culture
Culture outsider
Culture Insider
 Cultural products
( e.g. music)
 Psychological constructs
( e.g. attitudes)
 Organized bodies of knowledge
( e.g. language) Participate in the creation and
re-creation of these products
e.g. burn a piece of cloth vs. a USA flag

7. Understanding culture from without (1)
Traditional psychology: culture was considered to be contextual
factor and not included in the research design. The goal of the
psychology is to discover objective, abstract, and universal
relationships between independent variables and dependent variables.
Independent Intervening Dependent
1. Stimulus 1. Black Box 1. Response
2. Culture 2. Subject 2. Behavior
3. Central
3. information Processing unit 3. response
Positivistic model of causality

8. Understanding culture from without (2)
 Cross-cultural psychology: culture is
treated as a quasi-independent variable
and behavior as a dependent variable.
 Indigenous psychology: culture is an
emergent property of individuals and
groups interacting with their and human
environment. It’s through culture that we
think, feel, behave, and interact with
reality.

9. Understanding a culture from within
 The indigenous psychologies approach recognized two types of
knowledge:
1. Analytical, semantic, and declarative knowledge
2. Phenomenological, episodic, and procedural knowledge
 The indigenous psychologies approach advocates a transaction model of
the causality that focus on the generative and proactive aspects.
Agent
Situation Action
Causal Causal
Linkage Linkage
1 Meaning
2
Intention Performance
Event
Goal
Transactional model of causality

10. Religion, culture and science ---Confucianism
• Dao constitutes the very
essence, basis, and unit of
life that perpetuates order,
goodness, and
righteousness.( Lew,1977)
e.g. Xiao Dao
• Dao manifests itself in the
harmonious opposition of
yin and yang, and in
humans through te (virtue,
goodness, moral
excellence).

11. Confucian developmental stages
Context Character Age
XIN ( )
Adult 19
Society
ZHI ( )
Adolescent
9
School
LI ( )
Child 6
Family
YI ( )
Infant 2
Self
Ren ( )

12. Limitations on using Confucianism
to explain behavior
 Confucianism can be used as a descriptive
model, but it should not be used to as an
explanatory model. Translate to psychological
concepts and then empirically verified.
 There are blind spots and biases in all
philosophical traditions.
 The lay public may not be fully aware of basic
Confucian concepts such as ren, yi, li, zhi and
xin.
 Within a particular culture, there can be
competing philosophies and worldviews.

13. International Project References in the Research Areas of
Culture Diversity, Talent Development, and Strategic Change
• Building Global Competence for Asian Leaders
• Applying Social Medias (Web 2.0) in Learning & Development.
• International Employability: Development of Intercultural 14
years
in
Germany
Competence of German and Chinese Young Professionals.
• Cross-Cultural Learning Behavior:
Effectiveness of the Western Technology Transfer and Learning
Approaches in China.
• Comparative Studies of Chinese-Indonesian Intercultural 8
years
in
China
Competence and Sensitivity.
• Dynamic Decision Making in Chinese and Multinational Teams.
• Intercultural Perspectives of International Post-Merger
Integration in Europe.
Born
and
grew
up
• Intercultural Synergy in Professional Team. in
Indonesia
• Complex Problem Solving in Small Groups.
• ...
Evaluation
Studies
of
Cross-­‐Cultural
Training
13

14. Three impositions of psychology and
the indigenous psychologies approach
 First, researchers in the field of psychology imposed the natural
science model to study human beings.
 The second imposition is the assumption of the universality of
psychological theories.
 Third, expert or professional knowledge have imposed on the
lay public.
 The indigenous psychologies approach advocates liberation
form these external impositions advocates the experience of
phenomenon as an insider, for the first time.
 The indigenous psychologies approach advocates a linkage of
humanities (which focus on human experience ) with social
sciences (which focus on analysis and verification).

15. Thank
You
Contact us via …
Mail: hora_t@mac.com
Follow: twitter@htjitra
Website: http://horatjitra.com
Summary presentation based on the paper
“Indigenous, cultural, and cross-cultural psychology: A theoretical, conceptual, and
epistemological analysis” ( Uichol Kim, 2000) and our group discussion. Zhejiang
University,
Hangzhou
(China)