research design one uses (longitudinal, cross-
sectional, experimental, quasi-experimental,
etc). It does not depend on the sample (e.g.,
American or Nigerian). Science is charac-
terized by testing and falsifying theories
(Meehl, 1978).

In light of this philosophy, it is unclear
why research on cultural context should be
considered more scientifically progressive
than research on basic processes. In fact, Ar-
nett’s (2008) description of cultural research
raises concerns that it could actually slow
progress in psychology. His vision of cultural
psychology does not invoke theory or the
importance of having testable hypotheses.
Rather, cultural psychology appears to be ex-
ploratory and descriptive in nature. Will cul-
tural psychology simply be an anecdotal
record of cultural differences or a collection
of replication studies? Will 100% of the
world’s population have to be studied before
psychology can be considered a “complete
science?” Arnett failed to provide any infor-
mation about how cultural psychology will
progress as a science.

From a philosophy of science perspec-
tive, Arnett’s (2008) distinction between cul-
tural context and basic processes is a false
dichotomy. The problem with human psy-
chology is not its focus on basic processes
rather than cultural context; it is the lack of
strong falsifiable theories (Meehl, 1978).
Cultural context cannot exist in a vacuum
isolated from basic processes such as cogni-
tion, perception, language, and so forth. If
cultural research is to take hold in psychol-
ogy, then it must be theory driven and inte-
grated into work on basic processes. It is not
enough to surmise that different cultures may
lead to different outcomes. Researchers need
to specify the conditions for when they would
and would not expect culture to affect basic
processes and behaviors.

Cultural context can serve an important
purpose in psychological science: It will en-
able us to test hypotheses about which fea-
tures of human behavior are acquired through
experience and which are basic (or innate).
Basic processes are mechanisms via which
humans—and other animals—are able to re-
spond adaptively to typical environments;
however, these processes can be distin-
guished from another kind of adaptation, ac-
quired associations or strategies (such as
reading), which vary across situations and
cultures. Within this framework, cultural ad-
aptations can be thought to arise from the
operation of basic processes, such as learn-
ing.4 For example, at one time it was thought
that language was acquired solely through
imitation of and reinforcement by models
within one’s sociocultural context (e.g., Skin-
ner’s, 1957, Verbal Behavior), until Chom-
sky’s synthesis of cross-cultural linguistic

variation revealed important similarities
across cultures, suggesting that language ac-
quisition also depends on a more basic struc-
ture or process that all humans share. Simi-
larly, conventional wisdom suggests that
abstract mathematical concepts are learned
through years of formal education and train-
ing; however, studies of hunter-gatherer cul-
tures (e.g., the Pirahã; Gordon, 2004) and
even of nonhuman animals (e.g., monkeys,
rats, pigeons; Gallistel & Gelman, 2000)
have shown that we all share a common
system for representing the abstract concept
of number. In clinical psychology, many as-
sume that eating disorders such as anorexia
nervosa and bulimia nervosa share a common
genetic etiology. However, recent research
suggests that the genetic diathesis for bulimia
nervosa may exhibit greater pathoplasticity
cross-culturally than the diathesis for an-
orexia nervosa; this finding indicates distinct
etiologies for these disorders (Keel & Klump,
2003). These examples highlight the impor-
tance of using cultural context to test theories
about basic and acquired human behavior.

Conclusion

Focusing on cultural context rather than
basic processes is not going to advance
American psychology, or psychology in
general. Neither are having students travel
abroad or take anthropology classes (as
recommended by Arnett), in and of them-
selves. Rather, science will advance by de-
veloping and testing theories. We believe
that psychological science can benefit most
by using differences in culture and context
to develop and test novel hypotheses about
basic human processes.

4 Note that this formulation of the purpose
of cross-cultural psychology differs markedly
from Arnett’s (2008), which espouses cultural
representativeness as a goal unto itself.

REFERENCES

Anderson, C. A., Lindsay, J. J., & Bushman,
B. J. (1999). Research in the psychological
laboratory: Truth or triviality? Current Direc-
tions in Psychological Science, 8, 3–9.

Arnett, J. J. (2008). The neglected 95%: Why
American psychology needs to become less
American. American Psychologist, 63, 602–
614.

Banks, M. S., Aslin, R. N., & Letson, R. D.
(1975, November 14). Sensitive period for the
development of human binocular vision. Sci-
ence, 190, 675– 677.

Davis, M., Myers, K. M., Ressler, K. J., & Roth-
baum, B. O. (2005). Facilitation of extinction
of conditioned fear by D-cycloserine: Impli-
cations for psychotherapy. Current Directions
in Psychological Science, 14, 214 –219.

Gallistel, C. R., & Gelman, R. (2000). Non-verbal
numerical cognition: From reals to integers.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 59 – 65.

Gordon, P. (2004). Numerical cognition without
words: Evidence from Amazonia. Science,
306, 496 – 499.

Keel, K. K., & Klump, K. L. (2003). Are eating
disorders culturally bound syndromes? Impli-
cations for conceptualizing their etiology.
Psychological Bulletin, 129, 747–769.

Meaney, M. J. (2001). Maternal care, gene ex-
pression, and the transmission of individual
differences in stress reactivity across genera-
tions. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24,
1161–1192.

Meehl, P. E. (1978). Theoretical risks and tabular
asterisks: Sir Karl, Sir Ronald, and the slow
progress of soft psychology. Journal of Consult-
ing and Clinical Psychology, 46, 806 – 834.

Popper, K. R. (1959). The logic of scientific
discovery. London: Hutchinson.

Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal behavior. New
York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Stanovich, K. E. (2007). How to think straight
about psychology (8th ed.). Boston: Allyn &
Bacon/Pearson Education.

Correspondence concerning this comment
should be addressed to Gerald J. Haeffel, De-
partment of Psychology, 108 Haggar Hall, Uni-
versity of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556.
E-mail: ghaeffel@nd.edu

DOI: 10.1037/a0016723

The Neglected 95%, a
Challenge to Psychology’s

Philosophy of Science

Jeffrey Jensen Arnett
Clark University

My goal in writing “The Neglected 95%:
Why American Psychology Needs to Be-
come Less American” (Arnett, October
2008) was to fuel a conversation in psy-
chology about whether American psycho-
logical research should become more re-
flective of how human beings in different
cultures around the world experience their
lives. I am pleased to see that many of my
colleagues have taken up this conversation,
as represented in the four comments Amer-
ican Psychologist is publishing in this is-
sue. The four comments were well chosen
in that they represent quite different reac-
tions to my article. Two of the comments
were generally in support of my thesis that
American psychology is too narrow cultur-
ally, and sought to provide additional in-
formation on the issues I raised. The other
two comments were in opposition to my
thesis and presented the grounds for their

571September 2009 ● American Psychologist



opposition. In this rejoinder I address the
issues raised in each of the comments, first
the two supporting comments and then the
two opposing comments. Following this, I
address the more general problem that cuts
across the comments: American psychol-
ogy’s dominant philosophy of science.

Strategies—and a Caveat—for
Reaching the Neglected 95%

LoSchiavo and Shatz (2009, this issue)
agreed that my analysis of articles pub-
lished in APA journals shows that Ameri-
can researchers in psychology have fo-
cused too narrowly on Americans while
neglecting the other 95% of the world’s
population. However, they placed the ori-
gin of the problem not mainly on a mis-
guided philosophy of science, as I did
(Arnett, 2008), but on practical issues, spe-
cifically “a lack of viable options for con-
ducting research with international sam-
ples” (LoSchiavo & Shatz, 2009, p. 566).
To remedy this problem they suggested the
creation of a centralized network of multi-
national field sites “so that researchers can
partner with international colleagues and
collect data from samples that better reflect
the whole of humanity” (p. 566). They also
recommended increased use of Web-based
research methods, which could make it
possible to involve colleagues and research
participants around the world without the
expense and logistical trouble of interna-
tional travel.

I support these suggestions. However,
I would only raise the caution that multi-
national studies would have to be based on
diverse culturally grounded theoretical per-
spectives and methods in order to be suc-
cessful in addressing the problems I de-
scribed in my article. For example, it would
be a mistake to believe that taking Ameri-
can-based questionnaires and using them in
10 different countries would be an ade-
quate way of representing the cultural con-
texts of all 10 countries. Questionnaires are
laden with cultural assumptions, in the items
chosen and the response options offered, so
the methods used would have to be adapted
to the range of cultural contexts involved,
even if doing so would make it more difficult
to compare the samples. Similarly, it would
be pointless to use the same experimental
laboratory methods in 10 different countries.
If experimental laboratory methods strip
away cultural context in one country, they
will do so in other countries as well. What
needs to change is not just the cultural range
of samples used in psychology but the dom-
inant philosophy of science.

Is American Psychology Already
Becoming More International?

Like LoSchiavo and Shatz (2009), Web-
ster, Nichols, and Schember (2009, this
issue) agreed with the thesis of my article.
However, their appraisal of American psy-
chology’s current international representa-
tion was more favorable than mine. They
conducted a journal analysis to supplement
the one I presented and concluded that
“substantial progress has been made over
the last 30 years” (Webster et al., 2009, p.
566) in APA journals, toward representing
a broader portion of humanity.

Their analysis included three journals
that mine did not—Journal of Experimen-
tal Psychology: General (JEP: General),
Psychological Bulletin, and Psychological
Review—and they excluded two journals
that had been part of my analysis, Health
Psychology and Family Psychology. My
analysis was over 20 years in 5-year incre-
ments; their analysis went back 30 years in
10-year increments. Furthermore, they an-
alyzed national institutional affiliations of
editors, associate editors, and consulting
editors across five time points from 1980 to
2008. In contrast, my analysis of APA’s
editorial representation was for only one
year, 2007. This is an impressive analysis
that Webster et al. (2009) have conducted,
with admirable swiftness (presumably in
the few months since my article was pub-
lished in October 2008). Perhaps only they
and I can truly appreciate the tolerance for
tedium that such an analysis requires.

Although I now consider Webster et
al. (2009) my comrades in tedium, I do not
share their sanguine interpretation of their
results. As I see it, there are three problems.
First, although they stated hopefully that
the “glass” is now “half full” (p. 568), in
my reading of their results it appears that
three glasses are actually 37% (authors),
18% (consulting editors), and 21% (edi-
tors/associate editors) full, in terms of in-
ternational representation in APA journals.
Second, and more seriously, their analysis
did not specify the proportion of non-
American authors, editors, and consulting
editors who were from English-speaking or
European countries, as mine did. If, as in
my analysis, nearly all non-American rep-
resentation was from English-speaking or
Western European countries, the cultural
areas most similar to the United States,
then the increased international representa-
tion they reported for recent decades is
not as comforting as it appears. Adding
English-speaking and Western European
countries to the United States may raise
APA journal representation to about 12%
of the world’s people (Population Refer-
ence Bureau, 2006), up from less than 5%

for the United States alone, but a human
science that neglects 88% of the species it
purports to study remains a dubious one.

Third, and most serious of all, it is not
enough for a growing proportion of authors
and editors to be non-American if nearly all
of them, American and non-American
alike, share a narrow philosophy of science
that focuses mainly on basic processes and
ignores or strips away cultural context. In
Webster et al.’s (2009) analysis, the journal
with the highest international representa-
tion was JEP: General, less than 50% of
whose first authors in 2008 were American.
However, JEP: General articles all use ex-
perimental methods that cast little or no
light on the cultural context of the persons or
the phenomena being studied. Similarly, in
my analysis, the highest proportion of non-
American authors and samples was for the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-
ogy (JPSP), but virtually all of the studies in
that journal, no matter where they were con-
ducted, involved samples of university stu-
dents taking introductory psychology classes,
and even non-American studies ignored the
cultural context of the samples.

It is a dangerous illusion to assume
that the mere presence of international au-
thors, editors, or samples in APA journals
would be enough to do justice to the cul-
tural breadth and richness of the world’s
peoples. International representation is a
necessary but not sufficient condition for a
cultural perspective in American psychol-
ogy. For this, a change in philosophy of
science is necessary.

Psychological “Laws” and Theories

Stroebe and Nijstad (2009, this issue) be-
gan their comment with a startling decla-
ration: “It is a fundamental assumption of
psychological science that, unless specified
otherwise, our theories apply to all of hu-
manity” (p. 569). This is a bold state-
ment—and a remarkably ethnocentric one.
Given human cultural diversity, how can it
be justified to assume that a theory devel-
oped on the basis of research on a tiny
proportion of the world’s population can
“apply to all of humanity”? As I noted
(Arnett, 2008), this is certainly a strange
way to conduct science.

Stroebe and Nijstad (2009) acknowl-
edged that it is a scientific standard that the
results of research can be generalized only
to the population from which the partici-
pants were drawn. Nevertheless, they as-
serted that sampling from a diverse range
of humanity is necessary only if the results
of a study are expected to be moderated by
other variables. “If no moderation is ex-
pected, any subgroup of the population will
do equally well, even the often maligned

572 September 2009 ● American Psychologist



undergraduate students” (Stroebe & Nij-
stad, 2009, p. 569).

The problem with this position is that
our theoretical expectations, and the vari-
ables we consider as possible moderators,
are shaped by our cultural assumptions,
whether we realize it or not. For example,
a long-standing finding on parent– child
relations in American research is that
from middle childhood to adolescence,
conflict increases and closeness decreases
(Laursen, Coy, & Collins, 1998). On the
basis of these findings, an American psy-
chologist proposed a theory that “distanc-
ing” between parents and adolescents may
have an evolutionary basis, in that it would
be adaptive for young people to move away
from closeness to their parents once they
reach sexual maturity, so that they would
mate and reproduce with persons outside
the family (Steinberg, 1989). Yet among
adolescents and parents in countries in-
cluding India, Brazil, and Indonesia—all
sharing the evolutionary history of homo
sapiens— conflict does not increase and
closeness does not decrease; adolescents
enjoy being with their parents and feel
closer to them than to their friends (French,
Rianasari, Pidada, Nelwan, & Buhrmester,
2001; Larson, Verma, & Dworkin, 2003;
Schlegel & Barry, 1991; Van Horn &
Cunegatto Marques, 2000). Thus a re-
searcher with knowledge of cultural varia-
tions in parent–adolescent relations would
develop much different theoretical expec-
tations, and search for much different mod-
erators, than an American researcher who
focused on the American pattern and yet
assumed that a theory developed from this
singular case applied to all of humanity.

Similarly, Stroebe and Nijstad (2009)
argued that “a major weakness of Arnett’s
(2008) argumentation is that he failed to
distinguish between research that tests gen-
eral laws of behavior and research aimed at
describing the impact of societal factors on
behavior” (p. 569, emphasis in original). As
an example, they named AIDS research, ar-
guing that for gay American men as for het-
erosexual African women, a theoretical
model like the theory of planned behavior
would apply equally well. The problem with
this view is that often what psychologists
proclaim as “general laws of behavior” are
actually general “laws” of American behav-
ior or, worse yet, general “laws” of American
undergraduate introductory psychology stu-
dent behavior (Norenzayan & Heine, 2005).

Theories are essential to good psycho-
logical research, but to be widely applica-
ble—much less “laws”—they would have
to be based on a broad knowledge of cul-
tural practices, not just the ways of one
culture. It would be a grave error to import

American-based theories and measures into
cultures around the world and assume that
they were based on “laws” that applied
equally well to all peoples. To continue
with the AIDS example Stroebe and Nij-
stad (2009) invoked, research has shown
that a key factor in the transmission of
AIDS in Africa is that men often migrate to
urban areas in search of work, where they
have sex with HIV-infected prostitutes be-
fore returning to their rural villages and
unknowingly infecting their wives (Kali-
peni, Craddock, Ghosh, & Oppong, 2008).
Knowledge of this cultural pattern would
be far more useful in developing interven-
tions for HIV prevention in Africa than
would applying an American theory like
the theory of planned behavior advocated
by Stroebe and Nijstad, which, in its Amer-
ican way, focuses entirely on individual-
level variables of knowledge, beliefs, atti-
tudes, and perceived behavioral control
without attending sufficiently to social or
cultural context.

What Is Science? What Is
Scientific Progress?

The most extensive of the four commentar-
ies is the one offered by Haeffel, Thiessen,
Campbell, Kaschak, and McNeil (2009,
this issue), who took the position that
“Theory, Not Cultural Context, Will Ad-
vance American Psychology” (p. 570).
Their main goal was to defend the value of
research on basic processes (e.g., cogni-
tion, perception, learning) and question the
value of culturally diverse research.

Haeffel et al. (2009) are on shaky
ground from the beginning. They showed the
limits of their perceptions in asserting that
“the problem of generalizability is often
overstated” (p. 570), offering in support of
this statement the assertion “Studies using
one sample of humans (e.g., Americans) of-
ten generalize to other samples of humans
(e.g., Spaniards)” (p. 570). Even adding
Spaniards to Americans (and throwing in Ca-
nadians for good measure) still makes for less
than 5% of the world’s population. Psychol-
ogists are far too quick to jump from one
study of Americans and one study of Span-
iards to a declaration of a universal psycho-
logical principle. It is not the problem of
generalizability that is overstated but the re-
search findings of psychologists based on a
tiny and unusual segment of humanity.

There may be an effective case to be
made for the value of psychological re-
search on basic processes, but Haeffel and
colleagues (2009) did not make it.1 They
claimed that I suffer from a “fundamental
misunderstanding about basic research”
and that my position is “akin to asking why
medical research continues to focus on

growing stem cells when there are more
daunting problems such as Alzheimer’s
and Parkinson’s disease” (p. 570). If only
the connection between psychological re-
search on basic processes and real-world
human problems were as clear as the rela-
tion between stem cell research and dis-
eases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s!
The relation between stem cell research
and treatments for Alzheimer’s and Parkin-
son’s disease is evident even to the nonsci-
entist. The relation between basic research
in psychology and real human problems is
far less clear even to a research psycholo-
gist. There may be value in psychological
research on basic processes, especially
when the results are linked to cultural con-
texts, as Haeffel et al. suggested. It is just
that research on basic processes alone is
not enough for a science of humanity. This
approach to research leaves out too much
about cultural beliefs, cultural practices,
and social relations.

Haeffel et al. (2009) accurately iden-
tified the heart of the difference between
my perspective and theirs as a divergence
in views of “how to define science . . . and
how to evaluate scientific progress” (p.
570). They hold to a philosophy of science
they attribute to Popper (1959) and Meehl
(1978): “If a theory is falsifiable, it is by
definition scientific” (Haeffel et al., 2009,
p. 570). To some extent, I agree with this
view. Certainly testing falsifiable hypothe-
ses is one part of psychological science.
However, restricting research to falsifiable
theories alone is far too narrow a view of
psychology as a human science. A focus on
falsifiable theories narrows psychology’s

1 Haeffel et al. (2009) claimed, “Basic re-
search in psychology has clear implications for
real-world issues” (p. 570), but the examples
they provided fall flat. Research on information
processing and behavioral activation has not “led
to the creation of highly effective treatments
(e.g., cognitive behavior therapy) for disorders
such as depression and anxiety” (p. 570). Cog-
nitive behavior therapy was developed in the
1950s and 1960s by Albert Ellis and Aaron
Beck, and its roots are in ancient Greek philos-
ophy, not basic research on information process-
ing and behavioral activation. To find an exam-
ple of basic research related to any of the
problems I suggested that psychology should
address (e.g., religious fundamentalism, terror-
ism, international ecological crises, war), the
authors are forced to go back half a century to
Milgram’s obedience studies and Zimbardo’s
prison experiment. I agree about the value of the
Milgram and Zimbardo studies, and I regard it as
a great pity that psychological research today is
rarely as creative in its methods as those studies
were. As for research on “abnormal binocular
experience such as esotropia” (p. 570), this seems
more in the realm of optometry than psychology.

573September 2009 ● American Psychologist



intellectual and scientific scope mainly to
the laboratory, where experimental situa-
tions can be carefully controlled. The prob-
lem with this focus is that laboratory stud-
ies are often ecologically invalid and have
little relation to how people actually live
and how they experience their lives. There
are many aspects of human development,
behavior, and experience that are worth
investigating even if they cannot be re-
duced to falsifiable theories (Rogoff,
2003). Psychology needs to get over its
“physics envy” and adapt its methods and
theoretical approaches to its uniquely hu-
man topic, in all its cultural complexity and
diversity, rather than endlessly and fruit-
lessly aping the natural sciences.

Toward a Broader Philosophy
of Our Human Science

The four comments on my article (Arnett,
2008) are diverse, but together they suggest
a need for a reexamination of psychology’s
dominant philosophy of science. Even the
two comments that were sympathetic to my
thesis did not fully grasp the crux of the
problem. Both assumed that a cultural un-
derstanding of human psychology could be
attained through cross-cultural research,
not realizing how transporting American-
based theories and methods to other cul-
tures might result in missing the most dis-
tinctive and essential features of those
cultures. The two opposing comments rep-
resented well the traditional approach to
psychological research, with its confident
assurance that progress in psychology is
best served by following the model of the
natural sciences, investigating basic pro-
cesses in search of universal laws, with
limited or no attention to that distracting
variable, cultural context, that actually
means the most to how people behave, how
they function psychologically, and how
they understand and interpret their lives.

I advocate a broader, more intellectu-
ally vibrant and inclusive philosophy of
science. The goal of the human sciences
should not be simply the pursuit of univer-
sal laws and the falsification of theo-
ries—no matter how dull or trivial the the-
ory, no matter how little relation the theory
has to how people experience life outside
the laboratory. The goal of the human sci-
ences should be to use the tools of the
scientific method to illuminate our under-
standing of human behavior, human func-
tioning, and human development. The tools
of the scientific method in psychology should
be construed broadly to include not just lab-
oratory tasks but any systematic investigation
of human phenomena. In this philosophy of
science, the structured interview and the eth-
nography are no less legitimate as tools of the

scientific method than are the laboratory or
the questionnaire. Many diverse methods are
welcome, and all contribute valuable pieces
to the mosaic that makes up a full under-
standing of humanity.

That mosaic is still missing many
large and essential pieces, over a century
after psychology was first established as a
field. However, many research psycholo-
gists are working daily to fill it in, using a
wide range of theories and methods
(Jensen, in press). What we need now in
American psychology is not a narrowing of
theories and methods to those that seem
best to mimic the methods of the natural
sciences, but a wider range of new, creative
theories and methods, synthesizing cultural
perspectives from all over the world, that
will broaden our understanding of the end-
lessly fascinating human experience.

REFERENCES

Arnett, J. J. (2008). The neglected 95%: Why
American psychology needs to become less
American. American Psychologist, 63, 602–
614.

French, D. C., Rianasari, J. M., Pidada, S., Nel-
wan, P., & Buhrmester, D. (2001). Social sup-
port of Indonesian and U.S. children and ad-
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Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 47, 377–394.

Haeffel, G. J., Thiessen, E. D., Campbell, M. W.,
Kaschak, M. P., & McNeil, N. M. (2009).
Theory, not cultural context, will advance
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gist, 64, 570 –571.

Jensen, L. (in press). Bridging developmental
and cultural psychology: New syntheses in
theory, research, and policy. New York: Ox-
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Kalipeni, E., Craddock, S., Ghosh, J., & Op-
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Beyond epidemiology. New York: Wiley.

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gist, 64, 566 –568.

Correspondence concerning this comment
should be addressed to Jeffrey Jensen Arnett,
Department of Psychology, Clark University,
950 Main Street, Worcester, MA 01610. E-mail:
arnett@jeffreyarnett.com

DOI: 10.1037/a0016593

Teaching White Privilege to
White Students Can Mean

Saying Good-bye to Positive
Student Evaluations

Su L. Boatright-Horowitz and
Sojattra Soeung

University of Rhode Island

As faculty and instructors working to re-
duce racism in our students and ourselves,
we certainly know about the phenomenon
alluded to in the title of this comment.
Many of us have discussed it with our
colleagues and administrators, but we lacked
empirical evidence to support our views.
Teaching antiracism can have a negative
impact on our careers when students eval-
uate our teaching efforts and abilities (in
fact, teaching antiracism has been called
“the kiss of death,” Nast, 1999, p. 105).
The published literature abounds with an-
ecdotes about negative student reactions to
antiracism teaching, particularly when it
involves teaching White students about
White privilege (McIntosh, 1988). Some
scholars have reported that their classroom
teaching experiences were negatively im-
pacted, and their professional legitimacy
questioned, because they discussed racism

574 September 2009 ● American Psychologist