Ethics of Cross-Cultural Research Viewed from Third World Perspective

Abstract

This presentation has been organized to put across briefly what a psychologist from a third world country has perceived, over many years of professional activities in several parts of Africa and the western world, as issues in ethics of cross-cultural research for the third world. It should be admitted straightway that one third-world country cannot make the third world any more than one swallow can make the summer. There are, however, other qualifications which might make the attempt to speak for the third world less pretentious. First, as a member of the Executive Committee of the International Union of Psychological Science, I have the opportunity of coming across opinions and issues from different countries of the third world. Secondly, as the current President of the International Association for Cross-Cul-tural Psychology, I have the opportunity of meeting and exchanging views with colleagues from Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Also as the President of the Nigerian Psychological Society, I have made it a point of duty to inform members of the Society about events in ethics of psychology in other countries of the third world about which I am aware. My presentation, nonetheless, will be a personal one. It will be a product of reflection on information, knowledge, and feeling I have on ethical considerations in cross-cultural research. As such it will not be a catalog of events and rules observed from different countries of the third world; instead it will be considered synthesis of the different information available to me.