Past, Present, and Future of a Mexican Ethnopsychology

Abstract

At the beginning of psychological inquiry, the need to form a biological and socio-cultural science of behavior was acknowledged. However, the objective of combining these perspectives to create an objective, generalizable, and culturally sensitive psychology is still a site under construction. The functionalist biopsychological position has valued internal validity and the discovery of universal laws of behavior that go beyond the limits of individual, social, cultural, eco-systemic, and historical mediators. In contrast, from the socio-cultural perspective, any proposition that excludes socio-cultural and ecosystem variables cannot achieve external validity. Considering the undeniable and deeply rooted social character of the human race, psychological science needs to incorporate both bio-evolutionary and socio-cultural variables to achieve internal and external validity. The growth of cross-cultural psychology, and later indigenous psychologies, has increasingly shown that understanding behavior requires a multitheoretical, multidimensional, and multimethodological approach. The research and theories emanating from Mexican ethnopsychology offer a blueprint of an enriched and generalizable yet specifically applicable science of human behavior. A path has been set to integrate global and local findings. Following the blueprint of rigorous empirical research that encompasses bio-evolutionary and eco-systemic and socio-cultural variables will give way to a really generalizable science.