Contributions of internationalization to psychology: Toward a global and inclusive discipline.

Abstract

In this article I define and describe the current state of internationalization in psychology. Internationalization refers here to the approach in which existing or new psychological theories, methods, procedures, or data across cultures are synthesized so as to create a more culture-informed, inclusive, and globally applicable science and profession. This approach is essential to advance psychology beyond its Euro-American context of development and to achieve a more global applicability of its theories and professional procedures. Internationalization already has led to a better integration of cultural aspects in various psychological theories, to more insight into how to deal with methodological aspects of intact group comparisons (such as bias and equivalence), and to the development of guidelines in areas such as test development, test adaptations, ethics codes, and Internet testing. I review systemic and scientific climate factors in psychology that thwart the progress of internationalization, and conclude by suggesting methods of enhancing internationalization, which is essential for developing a truly universal psychology.

The South African Personality Inventory (SAPI): A culture-informed instrument for the country’s main ethnocultural groups.

“…Following similar steps for every new instrument would pose a heavy burden on test developers, and it may often be unnecessary. Still, with the increasing internationalization of psychology (Van de Vijver, 2013), the issues these steps are aimed to tackle may gain relevance for practitioners and test developers. Our findings suggest that posing the requirement for structure replicability across ethnic groups in the development of a personality inventory can reduce the presence of idiosyncratic elements and increase the chances for subsequent factor replication.…”

“…The blind spots left by this approach are often emphasized by indigenous and cultural psychologists (Cheung, Cheung, Wada, & Zhang, 2006). The importance of incorporating indigenous and universal, or emic and etic, elements in the study and assessment of psychological constructs, and personality in particular, has been increasingly recognized over the past decades (Cheung, Van de Vijver, & Leong, 2011;Van de Vijver, 2013). Yet, little work has been done on combining emic and etic elements in personality research and assessment.…”

It may be copyrighted, but it still needs help: Improving research questionnaires by means of intralingual translation

“…Further to the argument in the introduction of this paper, when a questionnaire is translated cross-culturally, it is very important to start off with a comprehensible ST to ensure that the data gathered by the ST and its TTs are reliable, valid and comparable (Lenzner 2012;Van de Vijver 2013;Dorer 2015). Despite this fact, the client initially felt that she could not make the necessary amendments to the questionnaire that she planned to use due to the restrictions that the research trust holding the copyright placed on that questionnaire.…”

Putting Buddhist understanding back into mindfulness training

“…According to Van de Vijver (2013), the process of internationalization (i.e., making a program that is appropriate for people from many different countries and cultures) is essential for new psychological theories. The PMP is an innovative psychotherapy which combines the understanding of the three characteristics of existence with existing mindfulness programs.…”

“…There has been a recurrent criticism of psychology for its strong focus on ideas developed in the West, and that the discipline does not attend enough to being a universally applicable discipline drawing on ideas developed in a wide range of cultures (Van de Vijver, 2013). In the last decade, the emergence of positive psychology has focused attention on some similar ideas about promoting human well-being as embedded in the Buddhist tradition (e.g., Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000;Ekman, Davidson, Ricard, & Wallace, 2005;Wallance & Shapiro, 2006).…”