Emics and Etics in Cross-cultural Psychology: towards a Convergence in the Study of Cognitive Styles

Introduction Psychology, including cross-cultural psychology, as well as other social sciences including anthropology, are born and have grown up in the last century mainly in Europe and North America. Hence they are inculturated in the Western “minority” world, disregarding what Kagitçibasi (1996) has called the “majority word” in which most of the human populations live. As such, we cannot hold this against these sciences; after all, each one of us is born and raised in a particular group, of which we learn the rules and the tricks, and which gives us our identity. It only becomes a problem when we compare these rules and tricks to those of others, and believe that our own are better, if not the only valid ones, and when we try to set them up as models and impose them on others. Ethnocentrism is surely one of the most universal processes! How can we overcome it? Unfortunately, most textbooks of psychology are based on Western theories and research, and it is therefore difficult to decide what is and what is not appropriate in Africa. Until there are truly African textbooks of psychology, some elements of (cross-)cultural psychology should be useful.