The Future of Psychology 265Psychological Power
Psychological power refers to the ways in which individuals and
groups internalise and reproduce Euro-American conceptions of the world,
in particular when these conceptions contribute to their own oppression. In
everyday contexts, it refers to the things that people do, say or believe that
maintain their social position in relation to others. Studies on the
educational achievements of black students have shown that ideas of
intellectual inferiority impact on students’ beliefs in their own abilities that
in turn affect their performance at university (Kessi & Cornell 2015).
People also project negative images onto others as a way of justifying their
own relative position. For example, young (black) women are often blamed
in their communities for draining social resources by getting pregnant in
order to access social grants (Kessi 2013). Such statements serve to shift
the responsibility of psychological inferiorisation onto the most vulnerable
groups.
Psychological power relates to the coloniality of being, the ways in
which people embody and perform their relative positions of material and
symbolic oppression towards others.
Material, symbolic, and psychological forms of power commonly
intersect. It is more likely that individuals and groups with lower access to
material resources will face higher levels of symbolic and psychological
oppression.
Similarly, individuals who live in societies where they are
symbolically excluded will find it more difficult to find access to material
resources which will impact their psychological wellbeing. These power
processes are not only complex but also intrinsic to human relations and
mediated by our relative social position in the modern world system.
Researching power often presupposes a focus on the problem of
oppression. However, it is also important to observe the processes by
which groups become over-privileged and through their privilege are able
to dominate others. In most contemporary societies, race, class, and gender
hierarchies are no longer sanctioned by law but are nevertheless
maintained through the power processes described above. Privilege