Psychological research in Africa: genesis and function

Chinweizu , The West and the Rest of Us: white predators, black slaves and the African elite (New York, 1975), p. 60.

Ibid., p. 58.

L. Doob , Becoming More Civilised: a psychological exploration ( New Haven, 1960).

See, for example, J.W.M. Whiting , 'The cross-cultural method', in C. Lindzey (ed.), Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. 1 ( Addison-Wesley, 1954); F. Strodtbech , 'Considerations of meta-method in cross-cultural studies', American Anthropologist (1964); N. Frijda and G. Jahoda , 'On the scope and methods of cross-cultural research', International Journal of Psychology ( 1966); J.J. Goodnow , 'Cultural variation in cognitive skills' , in D.R. Price-Williams (ed.), Cross-Cultural Studies (Baltimore, 1969 ).

H. Reuning and W. Wortly , 'Psychological studies of the Bushmen', Psychologia Africana, Monograph Supplement No. 7 ( 1973).

W. Rodney , How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London and Dar Es Salaam, 1972).

G. Jahoda , 'Psychology and the developing countries: do they need each other?', International Social Science Journal (Vol. 25, no. 4, 1973).

Reuning and Wortly, op. cit., p. 4.

S. Biesheuvel , 'Objectives and methods in African psychological research', Journal of Social Psychology (No. 47, 1958).

Psychologia Africana (Vol. 9, 1962).

S. Biesheuvel, op. cit.

V.M. Brattle and C. H. Lyons (eds), Essays in the History of African Education (New York, 1970).

S.G. Morton , Crania Americana, or a comparative view of the skulls of various Aboriginal nations of North and South America ( Philadelphia, 1839); Comte de Gobineau, Essai sur l'Inegalité des Races Humaines (Paris, 1853-5); P. Broca , 'Etudes sur le cerveau d'un Negre', Bulletin de la Societé d'Anthropologie de Paris (1860).

Quoted in Brattle and Lyons, op. cit., p.8.

L. Levy-Bruhl , Notebooks on Primitive Mentality ( Oxford, 1976).

For example, S.D. Porteus , Primitive Intelligence and Environment (New York, 1937); J. Van Rensburg , The Learning Ability of the South African Native Compared with that of the European (Pretoria, 1938); J.F. Ritchie , The African as Suckling and as Adult (Livingstone, 1943); J.C. Carothers , 'Frontal lobe function and the African ', Journal of Mental Science (No. 97, 1951) and The African Mind in Health and Disease: a study in ethno-psychiatry (Geneva, 1953).

J.W.C. Dougall , Characteristics of African Thought ( London, 1932) and Africa (No. 5, 1932).

Ritchie, op. cit.

Carothers, 1951, op. cit.

O. Mannoni , Prospero and Caliban: the psychology of colonisation ( New York, 1968).

In a chapter on 'The so-called dependency complex of the colonised', Frantz Fanon had clearly exposed Mannoni's erroneous interpretation of the colonial situation. See chapter four of Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks (London, 1960).

Mannoni, op. cit.

S. Biesheuvel , 'Science, arts and the nature of man', Psychologia Africana (No. 13, 1970 ).

M.T. Knapen , 'Some results of an inquiry into the influence of child-training practices on the development of personality in a Bacongo society', Journal of Social Psychology (No. 47, 1958).

P. Verhaegen and J.E. Laroche , 'Some methodological considerations concerning the study of aptitudes and the elaboration of psychological tests for African natives', Journal of Social Psychology (No. 47, 1958).

L.R.C. Haward and W.A. Roland , 'Some inter-cultural differences on the draw-a-person test: Part II, Machover series', Man (No. 55, 1955).

L.R.C. Haward and W.A. Roland , 'Some inter-cultural differences on the draw-a-person test: Part I, Goodenough scores', Man (No. 54, 1954).

P. Parin and F. Morgenthaler , 'Character analysis based on the behaviour patterns of "primitive" Africans', in W. Muensterberger (ed.), Culture and Man (1970).

D.R. Price-Williams , 'A study concerning concepts of conservation of quantities among primitive children', Acta Psychologia (No. 18, 1961).

G.V. Grant , 'Spatial thinking: a dimension in African intellect ', Psychologia Africana (No. 13, 1971).

G.V. Grant , 'Conceptual reasoning: another dimension of African intellect', Psychologia Africana (No. 14, 1972).

Levy-Bruhl, op. cit., Haward and Roland, op. cit., R. Ibbarola, 'Aportacion al estudio del nivel mental de los indigenas de Guinea', Arch. Inst. Est. Afr. (No. 18, 1951) and Carothers, 1953, op. cit.

V.W. Raubenheimer , 'Industrial psychology in South Africa', Psychologia Africana (No. 15, 1974 ).

D.H. Reader , 'African and Afro-European research: a summary of previously unpublished findings in the National Institute for Personnel Research', Psychologia Africana (No. 10, 1963).

S. Biesheuvel , 'The occupational abilities of Africans', Optima (Vol. 2, no. 1, 1952); T.L. Blunt , 'Aptitude testing of natives for gold mining ', Optima (Vol. 1, no. 3, 1951).

Biesheuvel, 1958, op. cit.

W. Hudson , A.I.W. Roberts , C.D. Van Heerden and G.G. Mbau , 'The usefulness of performance tests for the selection and classification of Bantu industrial workers', Psychologia Africana (No. 9, 1962).

Reader, op. cit.

M. Bennet , 'The wire-bending test applied to apprentice selection in Zambia', Psychologia Africana (No. 13, 1970 ).

Biesheuvel, 1952, op. cit.

W. Hudson , 'Psychological research on the African worker', Civilisation (Vol. 8, no. 2, 1958).

Biesheuvel, 1952, op. cit.

Bennet, op. cit.

A. Taylor , 'The development of personnel selection in the Institute of Education, University of Ghana', in A. Taylor (ed.), Educational and Occupational Selection in West Africa (London, 1962).

J.H.B. Vant , 'Aptitude testing in Kenya', Bulletin of the Inter-African Labour Institute (No. 10, 1963).

L.M. Biffot , 'Factors that make the Gabonese worker feel a part of or foreign to the company he works for', in F.R. Wickert (ed.), Readings in African Psychology: from French language sources (Michigan, 1967).

N. Xydias, 'Un test de situation applique au Congo Belge', Travail Humain (No. 18, 1955) and 'Aptitudes and training of Africans, and attitude to work', in the International African Institute, Social Implications of Industrialisation and Urbanisation in Africa, South of the Sahara (Paris, 1956); M.E. Morgaut, L'Afrique et l'Industrie (Paris, 1959), 'Un dialogue nouveau: l'Afrique et l'industrie', Bulletin du CEPSI (No. 51, 1960), Cinq années de psychologies Africaines (Paris, 1962).

Morgaut, 1962, op. cit.

P.A. Schwartz, Aptitude Tests for Use in the Developing Nations (Pittsburgh, 1961), 'The AID/AIR Test Development Project', Bulletin of the Inter-African Labour Institute (Vol. 9, no. 3, 1962), 'Adapting tests for the cultural setting', Educational and Psychological Measurement (No. 23, 1963).

In general, earlier psychological works on people of colour are so blatant in their racism that few individuals will have difficulty recognising their irrelevance to African realities. But more recent works, being relatively subtle and couched in technical jargon, require more careful, and critical, evaluation.