Explain Why Human Diversity Is Important To Researchers In The Field Of Psychology

Introduction

Despite new movements in psychology that are supportive of human diversity, there is no general framework for relating significant social-psychological markers like gender, race, age, sexual orientation, and other aspects of human diversity to theory, research, and action in community psychology.

This paper reviews perspectives that can contribute to a general psychology of human diversity and systems analysis and the dynamics of oppression), cross-cultural psychology (emphasizing culture, and inter- as well as intragroup methods), and ecological psychology (emphasizing the dynamics of specific settings and the people in them). Using tenets of social constructionist philosophy and an emphasis on social equity and cultural relativism to create a value stance, the relevant concepts from each perspective are discussed. The implications of this emerging diversity-conscious worldview for research, action, and theory in community psychology are also considered.

Review

During the last 25 years, psychology has struggled with the reality of human diversity. Sometimes the struggle was dramatic, as when a number of frustrated African American psychologists left the American Psychological Assocation to create the Association of Black Psychologists ". . . charg[ing] that the APA has not responded to the needs of Black psychologists nor to the needs of the Black community at large" (Association of Black Psychologists 88). Other breaks with tradition included the birth of community psychology and its emphasis on social change and cultural diversity. In other instances, recognition of human diversity issues was more evolutionary, such as in the formation of new APA divisions: the Psychology of Women, the Society for the Study of Gay and Lesbian Issues, and, most recently, the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues.

Despite these revolutionary and evolutionary changes, the field in general, and community psychology in particular, remains without a comprehensive framework for understanding how gender, race, age, sexual orientation, and other aspects of human diversity relate to psychology. Nonetheless, there is evidence of a growing sophistication about human diversity. Population-specific psychologies on major, socially defined populations have flourished. We now have treatises on Black psychology (Nobles 25),'

the psychology of women (Gilligan 21), Asian-American psychology (Sue & Morishima 36), the mental health of the aged (Kermis 10), and so on. There are also a number of edited books where each population of interest receives a chapterlong treatment focusing on their distinctive historical and cultural attributes (e.g., Chunn, Dunston, & Ross-Sheriff 54; Gibbs, Huang, & Associates 10; Sue 32). As a further sign of the penetration of human diversity into all areas of psychology, books on a variety of psychological topics now include a chapter or two on the cultural, gender, or class aspects of the topic under study.

The pioneers of population-specific psychologies (PSPs) have done much to help psychologists recognize the origins and limitations of an unhyphenated, ostensibly generic "psychology" by their use of hyphenated qualifiers like "Anglo," "European-American," "middle-class," and "male" to denote the worldview imbedded in theory, research, and practice. These modifiers have helped to increase our awareness of the ...