ABSTRACT
Developments in cross-cultural and indigenous psychology in Sub-Saharan Africa have important implications for the discipline. Findings in Euro-American cultures cannot be assumed to be universal. Scales and testing measures developed in the West may not be the most useful for studying non-Western cultures. This study examines the status of cross-cultural psychology from the viewpoint of the indigenous cultures, traditions, and needs of peoples in Sub-Saharan Africa. African cross-cultural researchers, psychology departments and journals with a cross-cultural focus, emerging movements towards indigenous psychology and their schools of origin, and controversies in the “First World versus Third World” psychological debate are identified. Contributions of African cross-cultural psychology to the global study of the discipline await exploration in the context of Berry & Kim’s 1993 framework for pursuing a universal psychology.
