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Stereotypes in social psychology: The “West-East“ differentiation as a reflection of western traditions of thought

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Abstract

Notwithstanding the fact that stereotypes and ethnocentrism constitute central topics of social psychology a cultural psychological question has almost been completely neglected in the discipline’s reflections on its own scientific endeavors: How has Western psychology’s construction of the “Indian“ and the “Eastern psyche“ been influenced by stereotypes that are embedded in culture-specific traditions of European scholarly and non-scholarly thinking? The problems tackled in this article are related to current social and cross-cultural psychological perspectives on the Indian context. In addition, they are related to social and cross-cultural psychological contributions to the well-established differentiation between the “West“ and the “East,“ which many psychologists have become used to and which are the foundation of current psychological theories about so-called “West-East differences.“

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Chakkarath, P. Stereotypes in social psychology: The “West-East“ differentiation as a reflection of western traditions of thought. Psychol Stud 55, 18–25 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-010-0002-9

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