International psychology

International or global psychology is an emerging branch of psychology that focuses on the worldwide enterprise of psychology in terms of communication and networking, cross-cultural comparison, scholarship, practice, and pedagogy (Stevens & Gielen, 2007). Often, the terms international psychology, global psychology, and cross-cultural psychology are used interchangeably, but their purposes are subtly and importantly different: Global means worldwide, international means across and between nations, cross-cultural means across cultures. In contrast, the term “multicultural” is more often used to refer to ethnic and other cultural differences existing within a given nation rather than to global or international comparisons.

International psychology is concerned with the emergence and practice of psychology in different parts of the world (Stevens & Gielen, 2007). It advocates committed involvement in worldwide and regional psychology and policy-making organizations such as the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS includes 87 national psychology associations and more than 20 international/regional associations), the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP), the International Council of Psychologists (ICP), the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA: it includes 36 national psychology associations), the Sociedad Interamericana de Psicología (SIP), the recently founded Pan-African Psychological Union (PAPU), and others. In addition, there exist more than 100 international psychology organizations each focusing on a specific subdiscipline. The goal is to establish psychology as a global discipline that in its theories, research practices, applications, and ethical aspirations is focused on the psychological study of humanity as a whole while avoiding as much as possible ethnocentric biases and preoccupations (McCormick & Constantable, 2015; Stevens & Wedding, 2004). For an annotated bibliography on international psychology that covers 156 publications, see Takooshian, Gielen, Rich, and Velayo (2016).

In contrast, the term “global psychology” is more frequently used to refer to the worldwide investigation of global issues and phenomena from a psychological and psychocultural point of view. Examples include the investigation of subjective well being, identification and treatment of mental health problems, the psychological dimensions of family systems, gender roles and gender-typed behavior, childrearing practices, cognitive and emotional functioning, international attitudes, value systems, intergroup conflicts, threats to the natural environment, societal transformation and national development, the struggles of disempowered groups (such as women, children, immigrants, and refugees) as seen in a global perspective (Stevens & Gielen, 2007).

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