South African Journal of Psychology

Intellectual and political separatism have propagated two ideas deeply damaging to psychology in the developing countries, and in Africa in particular. One is that the working class of the developing countries — the poor, the ill-educated, and the rural — inhabit a third world that is at a lower evolutionary level than the glittering first world of psychologists and other professionals. The second is that until an indigenous third world (or African) psychology has been developed, psychology and its practitioners will remain irrelevant to the people and problems of the developing countries. In this article the author argues that both the world and psychology are unitary, and that this one psychology is indeed relevant to the developing countries, and that psychology's curriculum in these settings can be enriched not by ‘relevance’, but by human welfare applications derived from psychology as it now exists.

The development of psychological services for South Africa's 30 million black people has been stunted by the mystical view, allegedly derived from cross-cultural psychology, that ‘first-world’ psychology is culturally inappropriate for a ‘third-world clientele’, and that for effective service delivery, psychologists must undergo a radical acculturation process before they can join with the epistemology of this clientele. A theoretical base is developed to challenge the simplistic and desocialized notions of culture and race advanced by the cross-cultural mystics, and to propose a pragmatic alternative by drawing attention to the dynamics of oppression and cultural transformation, and to issues of power and social class. It is argued that empowerment in the process of psychotherapy lies in creating a shared language of negotiation and respect which in turn allows for the appropriate use of a problem-oriented family therapy model.

Twenty-two black South African boys who had histories of prolonged glue sniffing, but who were currently not abusing solvents, were evaluated by means of neuropsychological and neurological procedures. On the neuropsychological procedures the group demonstrated multiple deficits which included visual-spatial difficulties, visual scanning problems, language deficiencies, motor incoordination, memory deficits, and attention and concentration problems. The neurological examination showed that two boys had cerebellar signs. Nine of the recorded electroencephalograms were found to be abnormal. The backgrounds and personality profiles of the group together with the circumstances which led to their glue-sniffing activities are discussed.

A factor which is often cited in textbooks as causing or precipitating riots is temperature. The support given for this contention is usually the finding of the US Riot Commission relating to the role of the ‘long hot summer’ in riots and the archival study by Baron and Ransberger of the relationship between temperature and riots in the late 1960s in the USA. In this article the authors report a replication of Baron and Ransberger's study in a South African context. The relationship between temperature and riots in South Africa in the period 1960–1984 was examined. No relationship between temperature and riots was found and the seasonal distribution of riots was the obverse of that found by Baron and Ransberger. Possible social and climatological factors are proposed to account for the discrepancy in findings.

With the increasing knowledge and understanding of psychological disorders as well as the psychological concommitants of physical disease, the need for general hospital clinical psychological services is growing. These primary care centres serve mainly patients from the lower socioeconomic group who are unable to afford private psychological consultation. Many of these patients are also unaware of the psychological nature of their illness. It is certainly necessary for these patients to have access to psychological services (other than that in psychiatric hospitals), and the general hospital could serve this function. The establishment of a part-time clinical psychological service at a local general hospital is discussed together with referral rates and types. It is clear that part-time services are insufficient and that more resident psychological services are necessary.

Research on cross-cultural counselling and psychotherapy began to receive emphasis in the 1970s in the United States. In South Africa the need to devise relevant help for the majority black population and to contextualize psychological services is being increasingly addressed in the literature. In the present study differences in world view between black and white South African adolescent pupils (n = 200) were investigated. The use of a scale to assess world view across culture indicated significant differences in black and white adolescent pupils’ world view in the areas of Human Nature, Human Relationships, People-Nature, Time Orientation, and Activity. The effect of age and sex on individual variation in scores within groups was also investigated. The implications of the findings of the study for cross-cultural counselling are discussed as well as recommendations for further research using the World View Scale.

Cardiovascular effects of several physical and psychological stressors were investigated. Indirect continuous blood pressure as well as heart-rate were recorded. Systolic, diastolic, and mean blood pressure as well as heart-rate were recorded. Different patterns of cardiovascular activation during different stressors were obtained. The Valsalva manoeuvre evoked a basic negative feedback baro-receptor response. Physical exercise (bicycle ergometer stress) evoked an overriding of the baro-reflex sympathetic stimulation to fulfil metabolic needs. Psychological stressors such as a TV-game (‘space invaders’), a binary choice program and mental arithmetic produced a pattern of autonomic nervous stimulation which can be described as extra-metabolic or psychophysiological. Possible differences in reaction patterns between psychological stressors are discussed in the light of a literature study. ‘Active’ and ‘passive’ coping may be of importance.

An integrated model of market segmentation for furniture buyers in South Africa was developed and tested. The model was derived from broad segmentation categories used by researchers in the field. Hypotheses relating to value and life-style groups suggested in the model were formulated and tested on a sample of white and coloured households in the Eastern Cape. Results indicate that the instrument developed for testing the model shows modest reliability. Four life-style groups which were identified in the model emerged from the empirical data. This suggests the applicability of the model as a guideline for furniture market segmentation in South Africa.

The validity of Mednick's Remote Associates Test (the RAT) is critically evaluated. First, Mednick's theoretical conceptualization of creativity and his explanation of the derivation of the RAT are briefly reviewed. Thereafter, the theoretical, predictive, convergent and discriminant validity of the RAT are critically examined in the light of both theory and empirical findings.

Rating procedures typically require several raters to rate individuals on several items so that the consistency of two facets (raters and items), each of which has more than two levels, need to be examined. Classical test theory is inadequate to describe reliability in this context because the presence of errors of severity, leniency and central tendency violates the assumption of parallelism. Cronbach's generalizability theory is eminently suited to the reliability estimation of ratings because it does not require this assumption. Apart from yielding intraclass correlations as generalizability coefficients, it provides for the separate estimation of the variability of raters and items and presents explicit guidelines for deciding whether generalizabililty should be raised by increasing raters or items. These theoretical implications are demonstrated in terms of a numerical example published in the South African literature.

Intergroepkontak en bepaalde voorwaardes waaraan kontaksituasies moet voldoen om gunstige etniese houdings tot gevolg te hê, het reeds baie aandag in navorsing gekry. Daar is egter meestal gefokus op oppervlakkige kontaksituasies, terwyl noue kontaksituasies tussen swart en witmense nie bestudeer is nie. Die doel van hierdie ondersoek was om 'n noue kontaksituasie, naamlik, die huisvrou-huishulp situasie, te bestudeer en om te bepaal watter veranderlikes in hierdie kontaksituasie gunstige houdings teenoor swartmense in die algemeen sal voorspel. Twee-en-negentig ewekansig geselekteerde plattelandse Afrikaans-sprekende vroue wat 'n swart huishulp in diens gehad het, het aan die ondersoek deelgeneem. Data vir die opnamestudie is met behulp van vraelyste ingewin. Dit blyk uit die resultate dat gunstige houdings teenoor swartmense in die algemeen betekenisvol voorspel word deur noue kontak en die sluit van vriendskapsbande tussen die wit huisvrou en haar swart huishulp; 'n gunstige houding teenoor die huishulp; die ervaring van kontak met swartmense as gunstig; en 'n toekomspersepsie van gunstige verhoudinge tussen wit en swartmense in Suid-Afrika.