FQS 6(3) Lars Allolio-Näcke: How Much Culture is Psychology Able to Deal With?. Conference Report: "The 100 Years of the German Society of Psychology"

Volume 6, No. 3, Art. 11 – September 2005

How Much Culture is Psychology Able to Deal With?

Lars Allolio-Näcke (Germany)

Conference Report:

"The 100 Years of the German Society of Psychology"

26th-30th September 2005, Georg-August-University Göttingen
organized by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie [German Society of Psychology]

Abstract: The 44th Conference of the German Society of Psychology in Göttingen was the first forum for cultural psychologists to criticize the praxis of cross-cultural research in psychology and the methods and methodologies that are used. These problems have been discussed primarily in the context of the contemporary international school assessments (TIMSS, IGLU, PISA). As main themes they focused on the problem of finding the right functional equivalence and equivalence of meaning (tertium comparationis) as well as the problem of the usage of the category "culture" itself. Both problems will be discussed here in detail. As result it will be proposed to renew psychology as a science that is based on culture and is not conceptualized as focusing on the individual alone. It will then be proposed not to use quantitative data as the basis for psychological methods, the better "tool" to grasp psychological functioning would be to focus on sense and meaning making.

Key words: cultural psychology, cross-cultural psychology, culture, methodology, qualitative research methods, quantitative research methods, sense and meaning, functional equivalence, tertium comparationis

This contribution is only available as a full text in the German language. German text

Last update: 20.02.2006

Volume 6, No. 3

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