Social and Cross-Cultural Psychological awareness in Germany:
A historical perspective The main intention of this article is to give the readers a subtle view of psychologically impacting the relevance of social and cross-cultural facets. It is advised to do extensive research for further empirical information as it is deemed by the author to be partly subjective in terms of the levels of awareness each individual gains and already has and to assess the usefulness of the historical perspective for further, contemporary research in the fields of Social and Cross-cultural Psychology and also study the impediments of pervasive German cross-cultural encounters.
The term Cross-Cultural Psychology dates from the 1960s. However, it is to be considered that few German Psychologists have been a part of the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology since 1972 and have laid foundations for the social-psychological awareness and cross-cultural awareness and led to extensive research on the phenomenon of “problem of the relationship between the individuum and culture“. Which serves as a classic theme in German Social Psychology. Wilhelm Wundt (1911-1920) the founder of VölkerPsychologie or EthnoPsychology based his book, specifically ten volumes of it on “problem of the relationship between the individuum and culture”.
In this book, he commemorates the cultural privileges and or primitive cultures and the functioning of the psychological processes. Wundt’s study of Völkerpsychologie indefinitely laid foundations for an evolved and enriched view of the German psyche, the relations between the societies, its subunits and the individuum. His studies also heavily and considerably influenced anthropologists like Boas, Benedict and Malinowski to further study culture and personality.
Freudian implications:
Sigmund Freud, an Austrian Psychologist with German roots, at about the same time worked on his universal theory of human behaviour and individual development. In Totem and Tabu, he demonstrated similarities in the origin of the strange behaviour of civilized and the primitive. These factors serve an insightful purpose in understanding the levels of social psychological awareness of the Germans. We should note that he also heavily influenced the psychological anthropological side, especially with his viewpoints on personality development.
Umwelten et al., :
A few years later, the study of person/culture relationships was enriched by Umwelten and Hellpach. They viewed psychological processes as aspects that are heavily influenced by natural, social and cultural aspects of one’s environment.
Kurt Lewin’s views:
A historical note on German roots in social and cross-cultural psychology would remain incomplete without mentioning the contributions of Kurt Lewin. Especially, his conception of human behaviour as a result of and as a determinant for environmental conditions laid the theoretical foundation for modern, cross-cultural psychology and the realm of social psychology.
Relevancy in today’s German world:
These early studies may be conceived and regarded as highly relevant even today’s context to determine the relationship between human beings and the cultural environment and these ideas further guide the German-speaking scholars in cross-cultural research to understand the difference between their culture and other cultures. These views have laid foundations for several disciplinary fields such as
- Developmental Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
- Ethology &
- Educational Psychology.
