Social Psychology in Malawi: Historical or Developmental?

Abstract

AustraliaIt is now over two decades since Gergen (1973) argued that social psychology is historical, and this paper re-examines his arguments in the light of more recent social changes in Tropical Africa. Malawi has experienced major sociopolitical upheavals and from the outside, with much of the agenda based on foreign historical foundations, Gergen's hypothesis implies that social psychology should be radically inappropriate. From the inside, however, the discipline has garnered substantial student enrolments, sustained by four possible modes of applied research in addition to cross-cultural refutation ( for instance, similarity-attraction), namely, rejuvenation (of observer bias, among aid donors), realisation (that "aid" is transactional), reconstitution (into a principle of incremental improvement), and restatement (of competitive motives, reflecting clashes with collectivist peers and security conscious superiors). In contemporary Malawi, social psychology is "developmental" rather than "historical", casting doubt on the universality of Gergen's historicity hypothesis. Two decades ago, Gergen (1973) published a paper which sparked &dquo;the crisis&dquo; of confidence in social psychology, partly because it implied, in its extreme form, that social psychology was built entirely on sand. The paper contained two main arguments: (a) that most social processes &dquo;...are dependent on acquired dispositions subject to gross modification over time&dquo; (p.318); and (b) that knowledge of social processes &dquo;increases alternatives to action, and previous patterns of behavior are modified * The author was Head of the Psychology Department at the National University of Malawi in Zomba, where he worked from 1989 to 1993. He is grateful to Don Munro and Jack Schumaker of the University of Newcastle for their very helpful reflections.

A brief history of Social Psychology and its contribution to health in Malawi

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The Internet and indigenous language use: A Filipino case study

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