Editorial: Introduction to the special issue on globalizing psychological science to include in the Middle East and Africa

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cresp.2024.100208

Research that has accumulated in the last several decades has convincingly shown that many fundamental psychological theories, once believed to be universal, are shaped by cultural contexts (e.g., Gelfand et al., 2008; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Nevertheless, this literature has largely concentrated on comparisons between East Asian and Western participants, sparking calls to move beyond the East-West dichotomy. In particular, despite constituting the world's largest growing populations, the Middle East and Africa remain vastly underrepresented in psychology. This special issue, which sought to fill this gap comprises 11 research articles and one short communications piece. Bringing together the work of scholars from several countries representing many fields of social science (e.g., psychology, sociology, management, health sciences, education), it presents primary and secondary data from 20 cultural groups from the region. In what follows, we briefly present these contributions and outline directions for future research from these regions.