Citation

Christopher JC, Wendt DC, Marecek J, Goodman DM. Am. Psychol. 2014; 69(7): 645-655.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/a0036851

PMID

24841336

Abstract

The number of psychologists whose work crosses cultural boundaries is increasing. Without a critical awareness of their own cultural grounding, they risk imposing the assumptions, concepts, practices, and values of U.S.-centered psychology on societies where they do not fit, as a brief example from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami shows. Hermeneutic thinkers offer theoretical resources for gaining cultural awareness. Culture, in the hermeneutic view, is the constellation of meanings that constitutes a way of life. Such cultural meanings-especially in the form of folk psychologies and moral visions-inevitably shape every psychology, including U.S. psychology. The insights of hermeneutics, as well as its conceptual resources and research approaches, open the way for psychological knowledge and practice that are more culturally situated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Language: en