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Worldview

The human psyche represents a complex constellation of activity that impacts how people perceive and respond to reality. Culture firmly impacts the human experience, and worldview is subsequently one of the most studied constructs in the field of cultural, cross-cultural, and multicultural psychology. Worldview has been defined as a person's perception of his or her relationship with the world. More specifically, world-view is a by-product of the way in which a person is socialized to perceive, think, feel, and experience the world. It attempts to make sense of life experiences that might otherwise be construed as chaotic, random, and meaningless. Worldview articulates the basic philosophical assumptions, values, and beliefs underlying culture and is expressed through its various structural or institutional manifestations. Moreover, worldview is a by-product of culture that affects, and tends to determine, behavior.

Historical Synopsis

The construct of worldview is one of the earliest cultural variables to be integrated into psychological research, theory, and practice. Worldview represents a unifying thread in the psychological literature that suggests practices to guide culturally competent research and psychotherapy with culturally diverse communities. In 1970, J. L. White wrote the first article—“Toward a Black Psychology”—that questioned the utility of applying mainstream psychology toward African Americans. This article, which was published in Ebony, argued that it was difficult—if not impossible—to understand the African American experience by using traditional psychological theories that were developed by European American psychologists to explain European American behavior. Implicit in this assertion was the position that world-view differences exist between these two groups and that a psychology that is rooted in Western philosophy could lead to conclusions that could be harmful in the scientific research, clinical diagnosis, and prescribed treatment of African Americans.

This investigation into the implications of world-view differences was advanced more broadly by D. W. Sue and his colleagues. In 1982, they published a position paper in The Counseling Psychologist. Ten years later (1992), Sue and his colleagues followed up with a call to the profession, which was published in the Journal of Counseling & Development. This body of work represented an initial step toward articulating a set of competencies that each culturally skilled psychologist should be able to wield in psychotherapy. Such competencies were organized along the dimensions of beliefs, knowledge, and skills. For the first time, the implications of worldview differences in psychotherapy were clearly delineated and therapist self-exploration was promoted. Two decades after the original position paper was published, in 2002, the American Psychological Association Council of Representatives adopted a set of guidelines on multicultural education, training, research, practice, and organizational change for psychologists. These guidelines noted that awareness of the research participant's—or client's—worldview is not sufficient to actualize cultural competence in research—or psychotherapy. Psychologists must also be aware of their own worldview and have the skills to work through worldview differences in research, training, and psychotherapy in a culturally sensitive and meaningful manner.

Conceptualization of Worldview

Contemporary debates about the construct of world-view are focused more on how it is conceptualized and less on its utility in the field of psychology. It is widely understood that the construct of worldview can be used to understand interpersonal dynamics in a therapeutic relationship. Furthermore, some counseling psychologists have argued that therapists who work with culturally different clients will increasingly be exposed to clients who exhibit different worldview orientations. To the extent that these views diverge, services may be viewed as unacceptable and unnecessary and may influence the underutilization of psychotherapy by various ethnic groups in our society. Given the mental health-related help-seeking disparities that plague such populations, several counseling psychologists have articulated a need for a comprehensive characterization of worldview that can be applied to psychological assessment and psychotherapy.

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