In this article, we approach the relationship between neoliberalism and psychological science from the theoretical perspective of cultural psychology. In the first section, we trace how engagement with neoliberal systems results in characteristic tendencies-including a radical abstraction of self from social and material context, an entrepreneurial understanding of self as an ongoing development project, an imperative for personal growth and fulfillment, and an emphasis on affect management for self-regulation-that increasingly constitute the knowledge base of mainstream psychological science. However, as we consider in the second section, psychological science is not just an observer of neoliberalism and its impact on psychological experience. Instead, by studying psychological processes independent of cultural-ecological or historical context and by championing individual growth and affective regulation as the key to optimal well-being, psychological scientists reproduce and reinforce the influence and authority of neoliberal systems. Rather than a disinterested bystander, hegemonic forms of psychological science are thoroughly implicated in the neoliberal project.

No abstract

s (2015) research on implications of market participation for Maasai women's empowerment provides an important basis for rethinking liberatory standards of psychological science and international gender development. Drawing upon their research, we apply a decolonial feminist psychology analysis to the topic of empowerment. This perspective suggests that neoliberal interventions to promote empowerment and well-being in Majority-World spaces (i) may cause harm by depriving people of environmentally afforded connection and (ii) reproduce historical and ongoing forms of (neo)colonial domination in ways that are inconsistent with the broader empowerment of humanity in general.

In his address to the APA, King (1968) suggested that critical consciousness about racism, based on realities of African American experience, could serve as a tool for creative maladjustment: resistance to collective delusions and refusal to assimilate to pathological norms of a racist society. In this article, we summarize a program of research that applies decolonial perspectives of cultural psychology and a focus on the intentionality of everyday worlds to the topic of creative maladjustment. In particular, we consider the potential of critical historical consciousness, rooted in the experience of racially subordinated communities, as a resource for perception of injustice and support for policies designed to restore social justice. Hegemonic knowledge institutions (including psychological science) have evolved via cultural selection to protect White comfort and to promote White ignorance. An anti-racist response requires investment in knowledge forms that challenge White delusions and afford creative maladjustment to systems of oppression-a task that King highlighted for psychologists more than 50 years ago.The slashing blows of backlash and frontlash have hurt the Negro, but they have also awakened him and revealed the nature of the oppressor. To lose illusions is to gain truth.

Most research links (racial) essentialism to negative intergroup outcomes. We propose that this conclusion reflects both a narrow conceptual focus on biological/genetic essence and a narrow research focus from the perspective of racially dominant groups. We distinguished between beliefs in biological and cultural essences, and we investigated the implications of this distinction for support of social justice policies (e.g., affirmative action) among people with dominant (White) and subordinated (e.g., Black, Latino) racial identities in the United States. Whereas, endorsement of biological essentialism may have similarly negative implications for social justice policies across racial categories, we investigated the hypothesis that endorsement of cultural essentialism would have different implications across racial categories. In Studies 1a and 1b, we assessed the properties of a cultural essentialism measure we developed using two samples with different racial/ethnic compositions. In Study 2, we collected data from 170 participants using an online questionnaire to test the implications of essentialist beliefs for policy support. Consistent with previous research, we found that belief in biological essentialism was negatively related to policy support for participants from both dominant and subordinated categories. In contrast, the relationship between cultural essentialism and policy support varied across identity categories in the hypothesized way: negative for participants from the dominant category but positive for participants from subordinated categories. Results suggest that cultural essentialism may provide a way of identification that subordinated communities use to mobilize support for social justice.

No abstract

Dominant models of economic development reflect and promote the individualist psychological models prevalent in the most affluent settings in the world. We apply a decolonial approach to illuminate the violence associated with these models. In one direction, these models are the product of colonial violence and expropriation that enabled the affluence of modern societies. This affluence makes possible the sense of freedom from constraint and abstraction from context that constitutes the foundation for individualist patterns. In the other direction, these models (re)produce colonial violence by imposing ways of thinking and being that have emerged through Eurocentric global domination. The particular focus of this article is a construction of economic development as growth pursued by individuals, with an emphasis on poverty reduction interventions aimed at increasing personal capabilities and the psychological sense of power. A decolonial response reconceptualizes development as sustainable security with an emphasis on adjustment to ecological context and care-full navigation of responsibilities and obligations. These ways of being resonate with the relational conceptions of the person and society attuned to cultural ecologies of interdependence and embeddedness associated with settings in the Global South. What is the significance of this article for the general public?Psychological models of the person and of the relationship between the person and the ecological context inform our understandings of poverty, social class, and the intervention prescriptions aimed at eradicating poverty and reducing inequality. This article applies decolonial perspectives rooted in the knowledge and experiences of people inhabiting the less affluent contexts of the world to rethink the prevalent individualistic psychological models underlying common intervention efforts. It highlights the potential violent consequences of uncritical elevation of these models as context-free standards for all humanity, including the destruction of local knowledge and the disruption of valuable communal bonds that protect against uncertainty and material scarcity. The article also introduces directions for research and intervention rooted in a more relational conception of the person that considers the fundamental interconnectedness of people, communities, and ecologies. Based on relational psychological models of interdependence, practitioners can design and implement interventions that promote more sustainable patterns of well-being that emphasize care and obligations toward others and toward our shared environment.

In this paper, we discuss the ethical implications of AI applications in the Latin American context, focusing on the particular challenges relevant to the region. Although awareness of the ethical issues associated with AI has been increasing, the issues in Latin America are compounded by locally relevant concerns associated with the power differential between the developers of AI applications and the Latin American users; the lack of access to education in general, which restricts access to information about the actual capabilities and limitations of AI systems; and the relatively low importance of the voices and cultural patterns of communities that are culturally distinct from other settings in the Global South (e.g., overgeneralizing understandings of Latin America as similar to Africa or Asia). In this work, we present three general categories of ethical issues classified according to their association with the extent of understanding of AI and how it is trained, and to their societal impacts across Latin American societies. We highlight the need to further understand the challenges relevant to the region, which can serve as a reference for future conversations with diverse and underrepresented communities.