516 International Psychology
speculated that most of the psychologists who ever lived and
who are now living can be found in the United States.
Rosenzweig (1984) noted that whereas the American Psycho-
logical Association was only one of 44 member societies
belonging to the International Union of Psychological
Science, “membership of the APA comes close to equaling
the membership of all the other 43 associations together.”
Within this context it was hardly surprising that U.S. psy-
chologists were accused of being “provincial, insular, and
ego-centered” (Sexton & Misiak, 1976). Brandt (1970)
asserted that U.S. psychology disregards almost completely
research done in other countries and published in languages
other than English. In his view, there was no English-
language market for research that conflicted with U.S. psy-
chology. Few university libraries subscribed to journals
published abroad, and even fewer U.S. psychologists regu-
larly read non-English publications. More recently, Draguns
(2001) contended that the development of international psy-
chology is obstructed by the “massive disregard” of contribu-
tions published in languages other than English.
In 1977, Diaz-Guerrero (1977) wrote that “the average
American psychologist, in spite of having the greatest re-
sources and possibly the highest levels of technical training,
may be much more ethnocentric and parochial than others”
(p. 935). Ardilla (1982b) commented that many of the values
and assumptions in English-speaking countries seem alien to
the Latin American way of thinking. Russell (1984) recalls an
incident when, in toasting colleagues at an international din-
ner, a Mexican psychologist said, “We Mexican psycholo-
gists are very humble because we are so far away from God
and so close to the United States” (p. 1021). Such remarks
may have been made only partly in jest. More recently, Jing
(2000) noted that “what goes in the name of psychology
today mainly reflects the theories and ideas of the United
States” (p. 579).
While the perceptions of U.S. psychology were often
mixed, efforts persisted to keep open and widen the channels
of communication (Rosenzweig, 1979). Russell (1984) re-
calls how at the 1957 Congress of International Psychology
in Brussels, a time when he served as APA executive officer,
he was approached by A. R. Luria, the representative of the
Society of Psychologists in the USSR. Luria expressed con-
cern not about Soviet psychologists receiving an adequate
number of U.S. publications (which were translated by the
USSR government for those of his colleagues who could not
read English) but about the fact that very few Soviet publica-
tions were available in translation for U.S. consumption. The
Brussels exchange was eventually followed 20 years later by
an article in the American Psychologistcomparing American
and Soviet approaches to clinical neuropsychology (Luria &
Majovski, 1977).
In recent years, fostered by the IUPsyS and the IAAP, the
trend from Americanization to internationalization has be-
come ever stronger. One example is the growth of European
associations and international journals published in English
(Lunt & Poortinga, 1996). Another example is the European
Psychologist,which began publication in 1996 under the
auspices of the European Federation of Professional Psychol-
ogists Associations. Journals produced by the American
Psychological Association have invited non-U.S. colleagues
as associate editors and peer reviewers. The number of arti-
cles by authors residing outside the United States has steadily
increased (Fleishman, 1999). Psychology’s knowledge and
practice base is expanding through ever growing electronic
links with colleagues in developed and developing coun-
tries (Mays, Rubin, Sabourin, & Walker, 1996; Pawlick &
d’Ydewalle, 1996). Electronic communication “supplies the
means for geographically distant but intellectually close col-
laboration” (Fowler, 1996, p. 6).
Echoing Cattell (1930), Fowler (1996) noted on the 50th
anniversary of theAmerican Psychologistthat “collaboration
and contributions to the same bodies of literature by psychol-
ogists who work in different countries are at times more
difficult than in other disciplines, some of which have long
histories of international collaboration” (p. 5). As the chief ex-
ecutive officer of the APA, he pledged that “unifying the field
by forging among psychologists many long-lasting coopera-
tive efforts that span international boundaries is a goal we have
adopted and will continue to pursue vigorously” (p. 6).
Particularly noteworthy in the new millennium is the
launching of a “publication” by the International Union of
Psychological Science. As described by Rosenzweig et al.
(2000),Psychology: IUPsyS Global Resourceis congruent
with electronic computer capabilities coming online through-
out the world. Disseminated in CD-ROM format, it includes
brief descriptions and histories of the state of psychology in
84 countries, contact information for national psychological
societies, a directory of international psychological societies,
an international directory with postal and electronic ad-
dresses for scholarly institutions in 147 countries, a coded
bibliography of published papers about psychology in each
country, and abstracts of all papers presented at the quadren-
nial International Congress of Psychology beginning with
1996 and to be continued into the future. Psychology, like
music, is adapting new technologies to facilitate communica-
tion of a universal message.
Table 25.1 presents a chronology of milestones in interna-
tional psychology.