Is There a “Psychology of the Deaf”?

Abstract

Striking similarities between the traits attributed to Africans by European colonizers and those attributed to deaf people by hearing experts lead to the hypothesis that the trait attributions of the “psychology of the deaf” reflect not the characteristics of deaf people but the paternalistic posture of the hearing experts making these attributions. Five kinds of evidence support the hypothesis: the attributions reveal paternalistic universals and ethnocentrism, and a claim to a civilizing burden that fails to mask the paternalist's economic interest. Moreover, a review of the literature of “the psychology of the deaf” finds it gravely flawed in test administration, language, scoring, content, norms, and subject groups.