Psychological Impact

This paper will define the meaning of multicultural psychology. One will also provide an examination of the history of multicultural psychology also giving a rationale for the establishment of multicultural psychology as a subspecialty in psychology.

Multicultural Psychology overall is a basic examination of the way cultural effects have on the way individual's feel, think and act. To understand the definition of culture one can characterize a group of individual's by their values, customs and behaviors. The mental process of human behavior has both invariance and variability in diverse cultural conditions. To expand research in the methods of multicultural psychology one would have to recognize the variance in the meaning, language and behavior of the individuals in order to transform psychology. In conjunction with multicultural psychology cross cultural psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes, including both their variability and invariance, under diverse cultural conditions.

In difference, cross-cultural psychology includes a search for possible universals in behavior and mental processes (Lonner, 2000). Cross-cultural psychology can be thought of as a type research methodology, rather than an entirely separate field within psychology (Lonner, 2000). To explain the history of multicultural psychology one can look at it as a normative term, referring to the policies and ideologies which promote institutionalization and diversity in societies that express the own identities of individuals as it see fit (Bloor , 2010). Such policies and ideologies differ extensively which include country to country that range from the advocacy of equal respect among various cultures in society. For example, a policy of promoting the maintenance of cultural diversity, policies in which people of various religious and ethnic groups are addressed by the authorities as defined by the group they belong to (Bloor , 2010). However there are a couple of main and different inconsistent strategies that developed government policies. The first inconsistent would be on interaction and communication among different cultures (Marsh, 1997). For example, the interactions of cultures provide opportunities for cultural differences to communicate and interact to create multiculturalism. The other focus on cultural uniqueness and diversity, for example, cultural isolation can protect the uniqueness of the local culture of a nation or area and also contribute to global cultural diversity (Cotter, 2011). In spite of the fact that multicultural psychology has mainly been defined as the disadvantaged groups, including gays and lesbians along with African American women and disabled, many theorist aim their theories on indigenous people, immigrates, and religious minorities (Cotter, 2011).. Needless to say most of the debate over multiculturalism centers around whether or not public multiculturalism is the appropriate way to deal with diversity and immigrant integration (Cotter, 2011).

To provide a rationale for the establishment of multicultural psychology as a subspecialty of psychology one will attempt to explain it through different government policies and procedures. First, one would have to examine the works of individuals that are now known to be the fore fathers of psychology. For example, Wilehm Wundt the man who established the first psychology laboratory and the way he theorized. To take a look into Wundt theory one will explain the structuralism of his theory. Structuralism in psychology Wundt would refer it to the theory of consciousness. In other words Wundt used the methods of self report, sensations, emotions and views to theorize his findings (Vilen, 2011). To go more in debt one will give an example of the other theorist that worked along with Wundt called Edward Titchener. The goal of psychology was the study of the consciousness and mind Titchener believed. To understand the structure