Psychology in Developing Countries: Reassessing its Impact

Abstract

The last global review of the role of psychology in developing countries was edited by Sinha and Holtzman in 1984. This paper evaluates journal publications appearing in the Psychlit database in the decadefollowing Sinha and Holtzman's review, focusing on studies which contain scientific evidence of practical out come. There are three categories of such research, namely, social/organisational, health/welfare, and educational/developmental, with clear evidence of reliability, validity, and utility in each category, but largely in health and welfare. Despite this relative imbalance however; there are signs of what Sinha has defined as true indigenisation, namely, progressing beyond assimilation of, and anti-conformity against, the so-called "mainstream ", towards a more pluralistic search for a psy chology that works.