The Changing Face of Psychology Paper Example

Introduction

The article focus on various areas in international psychology, The Authors begin by providing two different definitions of international psychology from the encyclopaedia of psychology and division 52 of the American psychology association. According to the Authors, "these definitions only touch on the linguistic and social implications of the terms international and psychology". The paper further differentiates international psychology from other confusing psychologies. They include global community psychology, global psychology, cross-cultural psychology, cultural psychology, and indigenous psychology. The Author notes that there are only a few academic programs in international psychology offered both in America and abroad. In fact, there is only one institution in America that offers graduate program in international psychology. However, they note that some international institutions have started to offer this program and provides examples of such universities. Moreover they provide an example of how international psychology has been applied in a clinical setting at the wraparound program in Santa Cruz. According to Nausheen and Barbara (2012) the program has led to a decrease in detentions and the number of minority youth in juvenile. They further highlight four challenges in developing international psychology programs and provide recommendations to help it become a true international science, they include the utilization of online and blended learning, moving beyond the national boarders, exposing local students to international experiences and adjusting current programs to provide a global focus (Nausheen and Barbara).

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Reflection

There are three parts of this article that are interesting, first is the application of international psychology. The Authors have given an example of how this new branch of psychology was applied to reduce juvenile detentions in California. But what are the other education pathways for this emerging branch of psychology? Technology advancement is opening up collaborative interactions with people across the globe, psychologists should respond by increasing their scope of care. This way, international psychology will create opportunities to improve quality of life by promoting behavioural wellness worldwide.

Second, the challenges of developing an international psychology program. Here, the Authors have discussed three challenges. One of the challenges according to these Authors is creating a balanced curriculum. For these challenges the Authors point out that "most researches and practitioners still consider the western psychology as the mainstream to which other psychology are compared to". I think this is dangerous because it limits our understanding of international psychology. To create a balanced curriculum, psychologist must adopt and integrate an encompassing global perspective. I think it will be difficult to do so if we continue to regard the western psychology as being superior to others. Another challenge is getting approval from institutional review Board, since the guideline for this requires local government approval for researches involving human subject. In understand why this is a problem, sometime the local government may be uncooperative, furthermore psychological enquiries that may be in conflict with the values of communities and societies can create tension and dilemma. In such a situation Institutional review board might be hesitant to grant approval. The final challenge involves recruiting an international faculty. This is a big problem even in the business world, Ensuring that a faculty reflects regional diversity can be tough, considering that in some regions the elites dismiss marginalised people as lacking qualification. Furthermore, there might also be a problem of creating cohesion between the locals and the international employees. Psychological enquiries sometimes involve field research, the local employees represent an element of continuity in field offices, if there is no cohesion between international employee and the local employee it might negatively affect a psychological research.

Finally, the Authors provide five recommendations for developing an IP program, first they recommend the use of online and blended learning. This is a very good idea, technology has welcomed fundamental structural changes that can be important in achieving significant progresses in education. Online learning opportunities can increase educational productivity by reducing the cost associated with learning materials, and program delivery. The idea can be helpful especially in local areas where blended learning can help overcome the distance between the teacher and the students.

The Authors acknowledge that not all places have access to internet that is why they recommend learning institutions to establish campuses in different parts of the world and work with other universities around the world. Today there is an increased number of research papers co-authored internationally. Communication and ease of travel has made it easier to collaborate making the exchange of academic ideas simple to organise. Learning institutions partnership offer huge amount of partnerships for staffs and students alike. In terms of teaching benefits include collaboration in curriculum development. Students can also enjoy international experience including study abroad programs. The Authors also recommend for the modification of the existing psychology programs to include more inclusive research. Furthermore, to move the profession forward, I think there is need for more exploration for the implication, applications and definitions of international psychology, as discussed in the article there are only two definitions so far.

References

Nausheen, Pasha-Zaidi and Lutz Barbara. "International Psychology Program Development: the changing face of psychology." Psychology Learning and Teaching 11 (2012).