Bulletin 30th Anniversary!
Harry C. Triandis
Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA
Editor's Note
This issue of the Cross-Cultural Psychology Bulletin marks its
30th Anniversary. The Bulletin was established as the Cross-Cultural
Social Psychology Newsletter in 1967, and its initial editors, contributors,
and subscribers became the foundation for the International Association
for Cross-Cultural Psychology. To commemorate this event, and to help encourage
a sense of history and perspective among our colleagues, I have asked individuals
present at the birth of the Bulletin and IACCP to contribute articles
discussing where they came from, what the intellectual milieu of the times
was that contributed to their development, and how that zeitgeist can be
compared to current conditions. I plan to publish the articles throughout
1997. I am honored that the founding editor of the Cross-Cultural Social
Psychology Newsletter, Harry Triandis, has contributed the first of
these articles.
Most of Issue 1 of the Cross-Cultural Social Psychology Newsletter is
reprinted in the History section of this
issue.
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The Cross-Cultural Social Psychology Newsletter
was the product of the Ibadan conference. That conference was organized by Herb
Kelman, who as early as 1964, when he was President of the Society for the Psychological
Study of Social Issues, had the idea that something needed to be done in 1965
(the International Cooperation Year) to increase collaboration among psychologists
around the world. While thinking along these lines, he received a letter from
Henri Tajfel who suggested a conference that would accomplish this goal. It
took quite a lot of effort to get funding, but eventually with funding from
the Air Force Office of Scientific Studies, the National Institute of Mental
Health, and the James Marshall Fund, the conference was organized.
About 40 people (from all continents, but more
heavily from Africa) attended, over the New Year vacation of 1966 to 1967.
Kelman was the conference chairman. Tajfel was already ill and unable to
be there. Many of the key players of the first generation of psychologists
interested in culture were there, including Angelini, Ayman, Berrien, Campbell,
Diaz-Guerrero, Doob, Heron, Jahoda, Klineberg, Kornadt, Fishman, Price-Williams,
Segall, and M. B. Smith.
The purpose of the conference was to stimulate
research that would help the economic development of less developed countries,
and establish mechanisms of international cooperation in social psychological
research. The aim was to establish long term research relationships, and
also to help develop the skills of indigenous social psychologists and provide
them with resources that will permit them to do research.
This was the first time I heard about "intellectual
colonialism." It was explained in the most eloquent French I have ever
heard by F. Stambouli, of Tunisia. He argued that collecting data in Africa
and taking them to Europe or North America and publishing the results without
the collaboration of indigenous scientists was morally reprehensible. I
was influenced by his arguments, and included many suggestions for avoiding
intellectual colonialism in The Analysis of Subjective Culture (1972).
Also, the document about the ethics of cross-cultural research (Tapp, Kelman,
Triandis, Wrightsman, & Coelho, 1974) took this issue very seriously.
During one of the sessions of the conference we
discussed the need for coordination of efforts, and dissemination of information
about research collaborations around the world. It was obvious that someone
should volunteer to establish a Newsletter, so I did. I had at the
time a contract with the Office of Naval Research for the research that
resulted in the Analysis of Subjective Culture, and I assumed that
a Newsletter fitted with the aims of the contract. I checked with
the monitors at ONR upon returning to the U.S., and they told me to go ahead
to send the money to print it and send it out. It was not a lot of money.
My contract provided me with a secretary anyway, and the paper and stamps
were not much. I do not remember, but I think it must have been something
like $200 per year (1969 dollars!).
I wrote to all social psychologists that I was
aware of and asked them if they wanted to get the Newsletter. The
response was enthusiastic. Some years later, when I asked the subscribers
to pay for the Newsletter, more than half dropped out! But by that
time the Newsletter was established.
The results of the conference were published by
Kelman, H. C. & Smith, M. B. (1968) Social psychological research in
developing countries. Journal of Social Issues, 24, No. 2,
1-287.
That issue also lists the names and addresses of
the participants. The French articles appear in French with English summaries
and the English have French summaries.
M. B. Smith has an interesting article that I just
read again, in which he points to the difficulties of communication between
the colonizers and the colonized. He pointed out that there were no difficulties
in communication between East (Poland and Yugoslavia) and West, but there
were difficulties between the French and Anglo participants, as well as
between the rich and the less affluent. He said (p. 264) that the nationality
problems of Yugoslavia are not different from the tribalism problems of
Africa! Did he know about the parallel events in Bosnia and Rwanda 30 years
earlier?
So, the world has not changed that much since the
Ibadan conference. Yet I think psychology has changed. In the 1960s I did
cross-cultural psychology as a "sideline" while my main focus
was on attitudes and attitude change and on industrial psychology. But gradually,
over the years, it became respectable to do cross-cultural studies as the
"main line". That is progress.
References
Tapp, J. L., Kelman, H. C., Triandis, H. C,. Wrightsman,
L., & Coelho, G. (1974) Continuing concerns in cross-cultural ethics:
A report. International Journal of Psychology, 9, 231-249.
Triandis, H. C. (1972) The analysis of subjective
culture. New York: Wiley.
March 1997 TOC