A Multicultural Psychology

The problem of doing justice to both uniformities and differences with respect to the structural aspects of behavior is addressed. The implications of the Significance parameter of behavior are developed in the form of a conceptual framework for a multicultural psychology. Problems of delineating and differentiating cultural perspectives in nonethnocentric ways are addressed. The exemplification of cultural perspectives in scientific methodology is touched upon. Problems of uniformity and multiplicity have been with us since before the days of ancient Greece, and there is no reason to suppose that we will shortly have outlived or outlasted them. Thus, an essential constituent of our scientific apparatus consists of conceptual and technical ways of dealing with these issues. From a formal standpoint, a major resource for doing so is the use of Paradigm Case Formulations, Parametric Analyses, and Calculational Systems (Ossorio, 198la). These conceptual-notational forms also serve to introduce psychological subject matter in a nonreductive way. With such devices we have dealt with the issues of uniformity and multiplicity in a variety of contexts. For example, in the major task of dealing formally with the general reality concepts of Object, Process, Event, and State of Affairs (Ossorio, 1971/1978), the Transition Rules provided the universal formulation, and the descriptive formats enabled us to distinguish one object, process, etc., from another. A similar situation holds for behavior and persons. The universal formulation for behavior is given by the calculational system associated with the Intentional Action formula. The various behavior formulas, being parametric analyses, directly provide canonical formats for distinguishing and characterizing different behaviors or types of behavior. Likewise, with respect to persons, the life history definition provides a universal formulation, and the associated parametric analysis, the system of personal characteristics, provides the capability for distinguishing one person or one kind of person from another. It would appear, therefore, that the formal problems of sameness and difference in regard to persons and behavior has been sufficiently dealt with. However, one could argue otherwise, and it is this possibility which is of present interest. The opening wedge for this argument is given by the customary explication of Descriptive Psychology as "A set of distinctions designed to provide formal access to all the facts and possible facts concerning persons and their behavior." The operative Copyright 1982 by Peter G. Ossorio – Page 1 A Multicultural Psychology phrase here is "provide formal access to". A conceptual-notational system provides formal access to a phenomenon when it provides everything needed for an explicit, systematic delineation of that phenomenon in its various aspects. For example, formal access to the game of chess is provided by a system which enables us to distinguish between chess and other forms of behavior, and to designate the elements of the game (e.g., White, Black, board, bishop, pawn, etc.), and the constraints on what is allowable. And similarly for formal access to any other form of behavior. In contrast, it is observation which provides access to historical states of affairs. No conceptual-notational system by itself would allow us to conclude that chess is actually played today and is called "chess", that it was invented where and when it was, that it spread in the ways and to the places it did, and that the option of playing without a visible board and pieces is one which people do take, and so on. But if we did not have these already available conceptually as possibilities, we could not establish them observationally as actualities. If we did not have the concept of "game" and of chess as a particular game, we could not establish by observation that the game of chess is actually played. To the extent that our conceptual-notational system does provide formal access to all the possibilities concerning persons and their behavior, we have some assurance that what we conclude on the basis of observation is, to the greatest extent possible, a reflection of the phenomenon itself rather than of an idiosyncratic set of theoretical or taxonomic concepts. With this preamble, then, we can say that the most extensively developed portions of Descriptive Psychology give us most effectively a classificatory access to the possibilities concerning people and their behavior. What is equally important is to provide adequate structural access. The contrast can be exemplified with familiar examples. Consider, for example, that both "red" and "drawer" are categories for classifying objects. For example, we can say of a given object that it is or isn't red or that it is or isn't a drawer. Moreover, we can go on to distinguish shades of red and types of drawers. However, implicit in the category of drawer is a structural description of the larger object(s) that a drawer is part of. It is the part-whole relation that makes a drawer a drawer rather than, say, a shallow box, and that is why that part-whole description is implicit in classifying something as a "drawer." In contrast, "red" has only categorical contrasts (blue, yellow, etc.); it has no corresponding structural implications or commitments. The general formula for behavior does have such commitments, and it is these which need to be articulated effectively: = = The Personal Characteristic (PC) parameter provides some formal access to one partwhole relationship, that is, the relation of a given behavior to the life history of which it is a part. Such a relationship is also implied by the Identity (I) parameter, for if every behavior is someone's behavior, then every behavior must have some place in some person's life. Of more direct concern here, the Significance (S) parameter provides an opportunity to represent the part-whole relation between a given, historically occurring behavior and the historical, societal, and cultural configurations within which it can and does take place. The Significance parameter is one whose values are specified by specifying the behavior or behavior patterns which are enacted by enacting the behavior in question.