Critical Psychology Research Articles

Psychology and the question of radical democracy

Throughout its history, capitalism has undertaken its extractive, imperial, and expropriative operations under the sign of democracy. Psychology has played a part in the ideological consolidation of capitalist democracy, adapting people to this system while also legitimising it. However, what of radical democracy as an always-contested grassroots organisational form that stands in opposition to both capitalism and the capitalist co-optation of democracy? Radical democracy of this sort remains a psychologically fraught function of anticapitalist resistance, one that has the potential to produce fracturing among comrades building such democracy. In this article, I consider how critical psychologists can work with those undertaking the difficult work of building radical democracy into political and quotidian life. I consider what critical psychology praxis could mean for those practicing radical democracy and how critical psychology might reconstitute itself through radically democratic formations.

From dialogics to ecologics: when the how is the what

Mental health has traditionally been explained via medical knowledge, positioning biological pathology and pharmacological treatments as key in addressing psychiatric and psychological ailments. This article introduces the prospect of ecologics as a guide for communities committed to responding to mental health concerns in respectful and ethical ways. Significant features concerning ecologics are explained across three sections. The first proposes a revised take on ecological systems premised on constructivism arguing that student-centred approaches contribute to the continuation of predominantly individually focussed efforts within contemporary education settings. The second section draws from critical disability studies, critical psychology, and indigenous knowledges to engage with difference differently challenging the presence of ableism in contemporary society. The final section recaps five prospective conditions necessary for the application of ecologics: i) explicating orientation, ii) accepting not-knowing, iii) working transparadigmatically, iv) affirming relationality and v) respecting unfinalisability. Ecologics offer schools unorthodox means for going on together.

Critical psychology & education: Opportunities outside silos

Many psychologists working in schools acknowledge how their work contributes to the reproduction and mitigation of societal injustices. While professionals engaged in education systems and classrooms may hope to achieve the latter, disciplinary conventions can compete with best intentions. In response, psychologists working in schools have recently been encouraged to realize anti-oppressive schooling by practicing what is referred to as critical school psychology. Although potentially new for school psychology, critical work bridging education and psychology has been available for some time in North America and internationally. To encourage the use of psychology in support of justice and in resistance to oppression, we review some of this work and invite those interested to consider psychosocial justice as an ethical orientation to enmeshed theory∼practice. The purposeful engagement of critically informed work from outside traditional divisional silos will not eradicate every problem facing schools today, but such action will, at the least, provide concerned practitioners options for collaborative knowledge-making and more preferred ways of working.

From Critical Psychology and Cultural-Historical Psychology to “Culturally-Turned” Psychology

Critical psychology and cultural-historical psychology are two approaches emerging as critiques to mainstream psychology that is often perceived to be hedonistic and individualistic. Adopting the spirit of critical psychology and cultural-historical psychology that strive to break the grips of mainstream psychology as well as absorbing the inspiration from Thomas Teo’s psychological humanities, Svend Brinkmann’s cultural psychology, Richard Johnson’s cultural circuit, and Stuart Hall’s cultural studies, as a critical review this article proposes an approach coined as psikologi berhampiran budaya (culturally-turned psychology) based on the socio-cultural realities of the present-day Indonesian society. Psikologi berhampiran budaya offers four models of psychological research in the production of knowledge on both the subject and the society of the present-day Indonesia. The application of the four models in such culturally turned production of knowledge is expected to simultaneously and serendipitously produce a specifically Indonesian psychology.

Subjectivity and?

The aim of the paper is to give a brief presentation of an approach to developing the conception of subjectivity in psychology. This conception is developed on the background of the science of the subject of critical psychology as founded by Holzkamp (1983) which considers subjectivity as a core concept in human psychology. In the conception presented in this paper, it is argued that human subjectivity must be grasped as grounded in a subject’s ongoing situated participation and conduct of everyday life in and across various, structurally arranged social practices. It is argued why such a conception of subjectivity is necessary and its main concepts are briefly presented. A critical identification of methodological and conceptual inadequacies in narrower notions of the psyche and subjectivity paves the way for the line of arguments leading to this broader conception of subjectivity.

All inside our heads? A critical discursive review of unconscious bias training in the sciences

AbstractIn response to persistent systemic gendered and racial exclusions in the sciences, unconscious or implicit bias training is now widely established as an organizational intervention in Higher Education (HE). Recent systematic reviews have considered the efficacy of unconscious bias training (UBT) but not the wider characteristics and effects of the interventions themselves. Guided by feminist scholarship in critical psychology and post‐structuralist discourse theory, this article critically examines UBT across STEMM and in HE institutions with a discursive analysis of published studies. Drawn from systematic searches in 4 databases, we identify three types of UBT reported in 22 studies with considerable variation in intervention types, target groups, and evaluation methods. Guided by limited cognitive problematizations of unconscious bias as a problem located inside individual minds, interventions follow established patterns in neoliberal governmentality and make available specific feeling rules and subject positions. These current Equality, Diversity & Inclusion practices present a new technology of power through which organizations may regulate affect and behavior but leave structural inequalities and barriers to inclusion intact.

The Integration of Psychology & Christianity: A Domain-Based Approach

The Integration of Psychology & Christianity: A Domain-Based Approach

“Ideology and simultaneously more than mere ideology”: On Habermas’ reflections and hypotheses on a further structural transformation of the political public sphere

“Ideology and simultaneously more than mere ideology”: On Habermas’ reflections and hypotheses on a further structural transformation of the political public sphere

Dekonstrukcja pojęcia gotowości szkolnej

The article presents a discussion of the notion of school readiness in the context of contemporary theoretical approaches and practical solutions, with a specific reference to the concept of Barbara Wilgocka-Okoń, who initiated research into the category of children’s skills in Poland and presented the evolution of her approach from school maturity to school readiness. The starting point is to refer to critical psychology as represented by Erica Burman and her concept of the child as method, allowing the concept of development to be deconstructed and applicable to the reinterpretation of the understanding of school readiness. She criticises developmental psychologists’ construction of a fictitious image of the child as a product of the educational system, abstracted from the environmental and cultural context. Burman’s approach is not a specific research method, but a concept that encourages a dialogue of innovative, creative approaches, spanning multiple scientific disciplines and empirical analyses. It creates an understanding of the child as a figure or trope of politics, of childhood as a social category, and of children as living individuals operating within a field of specific institutional practices with different geopolitical contingencies. The article undertakes a polemic against the traditional normalising diagnosis of school readiness present in educational practice, which exposes an adequate preparation of the child for school. It presents a critical analysis of school readiness assessment tools used in educational practice by teachers and researchers of this phenomenon. At the same time, the article points out an alternative approach of psychologists exposing the processual and interactional approach to the study of school readiness. The article concludes by drawing attention to the necessity of constructing methodological instruments for diagnosing school readiness to work with children with diverse developmental needs and to move away from monopolising their development by the educational institution.

Support needs around the time of diagnosis of parents caring for an infant with visual impairment or blindness in Denmark: a qualitative study

ObjectiveThe whole family is affected when an infant is diagnosed with visual impairment or blindness. We aimed to describe the support needs of parents around the time of diagnosis.DesignWe used...

Ground Down and Locked in a Paperweight: Toward a Critical Psychology of Caste-Based Humiliation

AbstractPsychology limits the scope of raising questions important in the caste context. While psychology focuses on why and how people feel humiliated, the question in the caste context is why and how people do not feel humiliated despite incessant and gratuitous attacks on their dignity and self-worth. This article argues that psychology needs to adopt a critical orientation to address the experience of caste-based humiliation. The anticaste perspective of B. R. Ambedkar provides a critical orientation and psychological insights to build a meaningful psychology of caste-based humiliation. Ambedkar rejected individualist, essentialized notions of human self and emphasized the dimension of intergroup emotions to understand caste relations. I develop this argument by analyzing the experience, impact, and resistance to caste-based humiliation among Dalits. I describe caste-based humiliation in extreme (caste atrocities) and less extreme (caste microaggressions) forms and show that the experience of caste-based humiliation is pervasive, direct, but also vicarious. I then examine the psychological impact of caste-based humiliation on the health, social vitality, and appraisal process among Dalits. I show that a caste-ridden context makes it difficult to interpret humiliation and affects Dalit life narratives through retrospective feelings of humiliation. Finally, I consider the issue of resistance to humiliation and show that mere appraisal of humiliation could also be a form of resistance. The article concludes with an emphasis on exploring the scope of psychological resistance to caste-based humiliation through individual and collective acts of meaning that interpret and transform a humiliating existence.

Sartre’s Ontology and its implications on Education in Kenya: Critical Reflections on Bhadra’s Phenomenology and Existentialism

Jean Paul Sartre, a French philosopher, was a prolific author of over 50 literary works. Some of his Philosophical essays include; The Transcendence of the Ego (1936), Imagination: A Psychological Critique (1936), Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions (1939), The Imaginary (1940), Being and Nothingness (1943), Existentialism and Humanism (1946), Existentialism and Human Emotions (1957), Search for a Method (1957), Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960, 1985), Notebooks for Ethics (1983) and Truth and Existence (1989). Sartre is considered to be the first Philosopher to use the term existentialism as a philosophical system. Existentialism in education is a teaching and learning philosophy that focuses on the student’s freedom and agency to choose their future (Ginny, 2012). Sartre first used it to describe his life and that of the postwar literary and philosophical output of his associates. Sartre argued for the different themes across his literary works, yet the bottom line of his thought was not only based on his ‘lived-experiences’ but also his view of reality, better considered as Sartre’s ontology. This paper therefore discussed Sartre’s ontology and its implication to educational practices and policies in Kenya.

Trauma Through the Lens of Colonial and Critical Psychology within an Indigenous Community and Favela in Brazil

This paper details two ongoing pilot studies exploring the perspectives of a group of indigenous Brazilian students and a group of dwellers in a Brazilian favela, who have experienced and continue to experience trauma. The paper explores the difference in perspectives, values, and trauma as experienced by these communities, when seen through the lens of colonial psychology and seeks to contribute to a dialogue within psychology that promotes critical psychology and dialogue

Rationalizing Fiction Cues: Psychological Effects of Disclosing Ads and the Inaccuracy of the Human Mind When Being in Parasocial Relationships

Aim/Purpose: Parasocial relationships are today established on social media between influencers and their followers. While marketing effects are well-researched, little is known about the meaning of such relationships and the psychological mechanisms behind them. This study, therefore, explores the questions: “How do followers on Instagram interpret explicit fiction cues from influencers?” and “What does this reveal about the meaning of parasocial attachment?” Background: With a billion-dollar advertising industry and leading in influencing opinion, Instagram is a significant societal and economic player. One factor for the effective influence of consumers is the relationship between influencer and follower. Research shows that disclosing advertisements surprisingly does not harm credibility, and sometimes even leads to greater trustworthiness and, in turn, willingness to purchase. While such reverse dynamics are measurable, the mechanisms behind them remain largely unexplored. Methodology: The study follows an explorative approach with in-depth interviews, which are analyzed with Mayring’s content analysis under a reconstructive paradigm. The findings are discussed through the lens of critical psychology. Contribution: Firstly, this study contributes to the understanding of the communicative dynamics of influencer-follower communication alongside the reality-fiction-gap model, and, secondly, it contributes empirical insights through the analysis of 22 explorative interviews. Findings: The findings show (a) how followers rationalize fiction cues and justify compulsive decision-making, (b) how followers are vulnerable to influences, and (c) how parasocial attachment formation overshadows rational logic and agency. The findings are discussed with regard to mechanisms, vulnerabilities, rationalizations and cognitive bias, and the social self, as well as the ethics of influencer marketing and politics. Recommendation for Researchers: The contribution is relevant to relationship research, group dynamics and societal organizing, well-being, identity, and health perspectives, within psychology, sociology, media studies, and pedagogy to management. Future Research: Future research might seek to understand more about (a) quantifiable vulnerabilities, such as attachment styles, dispositions, and demographics, (b) usage patterns and possible factors of prevention, (c) cognitive and emotional mechanisms involved with larger samples, (d) the impact on relationships and well-being, and (e) possible conditions for the potential of parasocial attachment.

Prec(ar)ious knowledge and the neoliberal academy: Towards re-imagining epistemic justice and critical psychology.

This epilogue is written in the ink of gratitude and provocation, reflecting on the essays that constitute the special issue on precarity. I briefly review the key gifts of the essays and then try to imagine how a social psychology of precarity could be theorized and engaged otherwise, with commitments to epistemic justice, designed with decolonizing methodologies and organized in solidarity with movements for social justice.

Constructing the ADHD Child in Historical Children’s Literature

In this article, debates around ideas of childhood and disability will be engaged through the close reading of the retrospective diagnosis of a child with ADHD in an early work of German children’s literature (also widely translated, including into English in 1848), Heinrich Hoffmann’s poem Struwwelpeter. ADHD is one of the most widely diagnosed and medicated childhood developmental disorders of the present day. At the same time, recent debates have raised questions about the diagnostic criteria, the potential side effects and efficacy of medication, and the impact of the current political context on the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s classic arguments about bio-power (2008), as well as the most recent work of critical psychology on childhood developmental disorders, the article draws out both how retrospective diagnoses of ADHD and other disorders, including Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), are defined by current criteria within the political context of the current psychological, cultural, and medical controversies.

Precarious engagements and the politics of knowledge production: Listening to calls for reorienting hegemonic social psychology.

In this paper, we invite psychologists to reflect on and recognize how knowledge is produced in the field of social psychology. Engaging with the work of decolonial, liberation and critical psychology scholars, we provide a six-point lens on precarity that facilitates a deeper understanding of knowledge production in hegemonic social psychology and academia at large. We conceptualize knowledge (re)production in psychology as five interdependent 'cogs' within the neoliberal machinery of academia, which cannot be viewed in isolation; (1) its epistemological foundations rooted in coloniality, (2) the methods and standards it uses to understand human thoughts, feelings and behaviours, (3) the documentation of its knowledge, (4) the dissemination of its knowledge and (5) the universalization of psychological theories. With this paper we also claim our space in academia as early career researchers of colour who inhabit the margins of hegemonic social psychology. We join scholars around the world in calling for a much-needed disciplinary shift that centres solutions to the many forms of violence that are inflicted upon marginalized members of the global majority. To conclude, we offer four political-personal intentions for the reorientation for the discipline of hegemonic social psychology with the aim to disrupt the politics of knowledge production and eradicate precarity.

Crisis, Ψ-trauma, refugees

Since 2014 the situation in the Mediterranean Sea has been named and tackled as a ‘refugee crisis’, and in the name of this ‘crisis’ migrants have been accommodated in ‘hotspots’ and camps. Within these spaces, their experiences have often been articulated by the humanitarian sector and the discipline of psychology as traumatic, with refugees being described as traumatised. In this article, I critically discuss the politics of psychology and trauma within the European territory of aid, with a specific focus on Greece, amid the current, so-called ‘refugee crisis’. I start by situating crisis and trauma as concepts and their role within humanitarian and state governance. I continue by discussing how the terms ‘hotspot’ and ‘camp’ emerged in state and humanitarian discourse and practice, to explore then the politics of psychology and trauma there. Both space and time are important elements for understanding the role of psychology, as they comprise the material landscape of migration amid ‘refugee crisis’. At the same time, the discourses of psychology and trauma are implicated in the very production of these spaces. Approaching critically their interconnection through the lens of critical psychology and the work of Frantz Fanon, the article concludes that the gaze of humanitarian aid and psychology, besides medicalising refugees, psychologises the inherently political issues of migration and life lived in hotspots and camps. In so doing, it substitutes the latter with a managerial discourse.

Just Research: Advancing Antiracist and Antioppressive Social Work Research.

The Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) created its Research Capacity and Development Committee in 2017 to build research capacity across the careers of social work scholars. The committee has initiated multiple conferences and webinar sessions that have increasingly focused on antiracist and antioppressive (ARAO) research, including "Mentorship for Antiracist and Inclusive Research" and "Strategies for Supporting Antiracist Pedagogy & Scholarship: Reimagining Institutional Systems & Structures." This commentary integrates themes from these sessions and other discussions among committee members about strategies to advance ARAO research. Although SSWR board members reviewed and approved this submission, it is not an official statement of SSWR or its board of directors.

A Literature Review of Huaping Girls’ High School in Educational Psychology

It begins by comparing the role of mainstream psychology and critical psychology in pedagogy, where educational psychologists are often combined with neurological disciplines in the development of educational research under the influence of mainstream psychology, while critical psychology maintains a critical perspective in research to challenge existing thinking. Based on the case of Huaping in a girls' high school, the literature from 1990 to 2021 is cited for a literature review in three areas: community psychology, discursive psychology, feminist psychology.