Development of Psychology in PAKISTAN
Professor Abdul Haque
The end of British rule in India led to the independence of Pakistan in August 1947. The present geographical boundaries of the country date from December 1971, when East Pakistan became the indepen-dent state of Bangladesh. At the time of independence only two colleges taught psychology: the Government College, Lahore, where psychology, as was common practice until the 1960s was taught as part of the phi-losophy syllabus, and Forman Christian College, La-hore. The first independent psychology department was founded at Karachi University with Qazi Muhammad Aslam, whose academic background was in philosophy, as chair. Psychology achieved independent status at the Government College, Lahore (University of the Punjab) in 1962, with Dr. Muhammad Ajmal as its first chair. The psychology department at the University of Sindh became independent in 1960, with Dr. Rafia Hasan as chair. Syed Muliammad Hafeez Zaidi observed in Frontiers of Psychological Research in Pakistan (Karachi, Pak-istan, 1975) that the tradition was for philosophy teach-ers to become psychologists. This resulted in the adoption of traditional indigenous psychology that was also oriented toward philosophy. Hafeez Zaidi wrote two articles on the early days of Pakistani psychology (American Psychologist, 1959, 14, 532-536; Psychologia, 1958, I, 187-190) Today, Pakistan has five major departments of psychology, two in Lahore (Punjab), two in Sindh (Karachi, Jamshoro), and one in Peshawar (NWFP). The former three departments offer master's of arts/science degrees, while (the latter two departments also offer a 3--year bachelor of arts/science (Hon-ors) program. All departments and institutes offer master's of philosophy or doctoral degree programs. There are also two institutes, the Muhammad Ajmal National Institute of Psychology (Islamabad) and the Institute of Clinical Psychology (Karachi). A total of 25 doctoral degrees have been given by these psychology depart-ments and institutes.
Founders of Scientific Psychology
Syed Muhammad Hafeez Zaidi (1926-1986) was edu-cated at the Muslim University of Aligarh (India) and received a doctoral degree from the University of London under the supervision of R. W. Russell. He began his career as a lecturer at Dacca University, and then worked as a social psychologist for several years at the Pakistan Academy for Village Development, East Paki-stan. He moved to Karachi University where he made a major contribution to social and cross-cultural psy-chology through his original research and theoretical writings on Pakistan psychology. He was an editor of the first professional psychology journal in the country (Pakistan Journal of Psychology, abstracted in Psychological Abstracts) which was first published in June 1965. He made several visits to the United States as a visiting professor. Dr. Zaidi's continuing research interests and publications were in the area of Social change. The ba-sic assumption for studies of social change in develop-ing countries is that the society is in transition and therefore under stress. His interest in erratic behavior resulting from stress began with his doctoral work on reactions to stress (Genetic Psychology Monographs, 1960, 62, 41-104). Much of his work on the impact of socioeconomic changes on rural sociocultural institu-tions in Pakistan up to 1968 has been incorporated in Village Culture in Transition (Honolulu, 1970). The hook also explores the dynamics of change and conflict in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). In another study on sociocultural change and value conflict (In Caudill & Un. Lin Eds., Honolulu., Hawaii, 1969). Zaidi analyzed Pak-istani sociocultural conflicts in greater detail. The in-creasing influx of rural people to the towns and cities is a major source of disorganization of traditional be-havior patterns. The enormous impact of rural migra-tion to the cities of the Third World continues to create huge problems for both the cities they migrate to and the villages they leave behind. Zaidi has argued that for quite some time the migrant retains a village style of life and belief, thus remaining a "peasant in the city." Zaidi coauthored a cross-cultural study in the early 1970s with L. Sechrest and T. L. Fay as senior authors (Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 1972, 3,41-56). Zaidi contributed a chapter to Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Learning (R. W. Brislin, S. Bochner. & W. J. Lonner, Eds., New York. 1975) on the social and psychological adjustment of foreign Asian and African students in Pakistan.
Muhammad Ajmal (1920-1994) earned a doctoral degree from London University, and taught psychology as well as philosophy at the Government College, Lahore. Although trained in the Western intellectual tra-dition and a great proponent of Jung's analytical psy-chology. Ajmal laid the foundations of an indigenous psychotherapy. He developed a Sufi doctrine (divinely inspired humanism), as an indigenous approach to healing along scientific lines (Muslim Contributions to Psychology and Other Essays, Islamabad, 1986). The Sufic psychotherapy inspired his students and gave rise to a subdiscipline of Muslim psychology at the Government College, Lahore. One of his students. Syed Azhar Ali Rizvi, took a leading role in the establishment of the Institute of Muslim Psychology, Lahore.
Shahahuddin Muhammad Moghni (I925-1990) earned a master's degree from Muslim University, Aligarh, and a doctoral degree in experimental psychology from London University under the supervision of R. W. Russell. He was the founding chair of the psychology department, University of Peshawar, which was estab-lished in 1964. He developed a well-equipped experi-mental laboratory there, and under his dynamic lead-ership the first 2-week seminar of senior psychologists from throughout Pakistan took place in October 1966 at Peshawar University to discuss academic and professional issues. The Pakistan Psychological Association was established at the meeting. The Peshawar psychol-ogy department published a research journal, Pakistan Psychological Studies beginning in 1969, with Moghni as editor. A doctoral degree program was es-tablished between 1973 and 1974. Under his leadership a number of doctoral degrees were awarded, and those psychologists are now faculty members. Dr. Moghni's original research involved studying motives. He devel-oped altitude scales to differentiate the respondents on the strength of their achievement-oriented, power-oriented. and affiliation-oriented attitudes. In March 1968. the first Pakistan Psychological Association con-ference was held in Dacca, East Pakistan, where Dr. Moghni gave his presidential address on the role of achievement motivation in national development. Dur-ing 1980 and 1981 he worked with David McClelland at Harvard University as a postdoctoral fellow. The sec-ond area of Moghni's research interest involved the de-velopment of objective-type tests for secondary school examinations. Most of his studies were published in Pakistan Psychological Studies. Later, Moghni became in-terested in the scientific study of the development of millat, Muslim nationalism, not only as it affected Pak-istani Muslims, but Muslims in general. This was a move toward establishing an indigenous psychology in Pakistan.
Important Figures in Psychology
Farrukh Z. Ahmad, who earned his doctoral degree at Stanford University, joined the University of Karachi in 1962 as a lecturer. She was the founder-director of the Institute of Clinical Psychology, where post master's di-ploma/master's in philosophy/doctoral degree pro-grams were established. Ahmad's long experience of teaching and practice in clinical psychology has led to two books (Dependency in Psychotherapy, University of Karachi, 1988; Mental Health and Patterns of Child Rearing, University of Karachi, 1993). Dr. Ahmad became editor of the Pakistan Journal of Psychology after Profes-sor Zaidi moved to Nigeria, and in 1990 became a founding editor of Pakistan Journal of Clinical Psychology, remaining a regular contributor to both journals.
Nazre Khalique (University of Karachi) has a doc-toral degree from Patna University, India. His work has centered around research on bureaucratic values, de-veloped by Leonard Gordon (Work Environment Preference Schedule, Albany, NY. 1968). Khalique determined the validity of bureaucratic orientation measures at both adult and elementary-secondary school levels. His other work examines the relationship between bureau-cratic norms and dehumanizing attitudes toward people of lower status. He has also worked on the concept of social facilitation. An important work on bureaucratic orientation made a cross-cultural comparison of Pak-istani students with their American and Japanese counterparts (Psychologia, 1974. 17, 71-74). His other con-tributions to important international journals include a longitudinal study of conflicting communities conducted with students of varying ages (Khalique & Haque, 1979).
Afzal Imam of the University of Karachi has a doc-toral degree from the University of Wales. He suggests that neutral techniques of data collection are highly suitable for application in developing countries because they do not require expensive equipment. Imam has conducted several naturalistic studies on helping be-havior (Pakistan Journal of Psychology). He has also re-searched field dependence measured by the Rod and Frame test, and carried out studies on incidental learn-ing.
Abdul Haque (master's degree from Patna Univer-sity, India), trained in cross-cultural psychology at the East-West Culture Learning Institute, Honolulu, has been a visiting professor at the psychology department, University of Sindh at Jamshoro. His research interest in the India-Pakistan conflict began with the September 1965 war between the two countries. The origins of the conflict lay in the history of Hindu-Muslim relations over many decades. There have been three wars with India since the creation of Pakistan. More recently, both India and Pakistan have demonstrated their nu-clear capabilities. The conflict has deep psychocultural and historical roots. The mutual negative stereotyping (mirror image of the enemy) was investigated using the Katz Braly technique, based on studies conducted in India and Pakistan, and was demonstrated by the pres-ent author (Pakistan Journal of Psychology, 1973, 6, 13-22). The 1965 war study was first reported by the au-thor as a cross-cultural note (Journal of Social Psychology, 1968, 74, 285-286). Several war studies have been reported in the Pakistan Journal of Psychology. A dis-cussion of the persistence of stereotyping during the 1971 war was also published in the same journal (1971, 4, 31-41). Indian aggression toward East Pakistan in 1971 caused the breakup of Pakistan, and consequently conflict between the two countries has intensified. The Salal Accord in 1976 was the first major treaty between the two neighboring stales when agreements on civil aviation, communications, resumption of diplomatic relations, and trade were made. In 1978, several cricket and hockey matches were played, with much public en-thusiasm on both sides, between Pakistan and India. During the same year political leaders' visits and cul-tural exchanges look place. These cooperative efforts motivated the present author to measure expected fu-ture cooperation and conflict levels between Pakistan and India as measured by compassion-compulsion lev-els (Haque, 1979).
During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war Haque and Lawson (1980) studied (1) mirror-image concepts of Arabs and Israelis, and (2) whether the mirror-image concept could be broadened to include images in reciprocal stereotyping of the two groups during the war to in-clude stereotyping of the allies on each side. The dem-onstration of the mirror-image phenomenon beyond the immediate enemy has been cited in Fisher (Social Psychology: An Applied Approach, New York, 1982). On 11 July 1979, the American Skylab satellite fell to earth in western Australia. For several days before its fall, those parts of the earth on its route were tense and apprehensive. Pakistan radio and television had re-ported that the Skylab might fall somewhere in the re-gion. When emotional tension was at its height, data were collected from male and female Sindh University students. They completed semantic differential scales and were also asked to comment on the situation (Haque & Zaidi, Political Psychology, 1981-1982, 3).
As a cooperating researcher in a 30-country project cited by Best and Williams (Handbook of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Boston, 1997), the present author published a paper on sex stereotypes and development of sex-trait stereotypes based on data collected from Muslim young adults and children (Rath, Asthana, Sinha, & Sinha, Eds., Diversity and Unity in Cross-Cultural Psychology, Amsterdam, 1982). The author argued that Pakistani girls and boys are trained early in life, via Muslim cul-tural traditions, for sex-differentiated roles. In a paper on "The Importance of Psychological Characteristics: A Seven-Country Study," Pakistan participated as a junior partner. The paper was published in the International Journal of Psychology (1995, 30, 529-550). In that study, Pakistan's results showed that trait importance and favorability were closely related (i.e., good traits are im-portant but not bad traits).
Other important researchers include Mah Nazir Riaz, chair of the department of psychology at the Uni-versity of Peshawar, who has a doctoral degree from that university. Her major areas of research have been in creativity and child rearing, most of her papers ap-pearing in Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research and Psychological Studies. The Urdu version of Child PARQ and Child PAQ were used in child rearing research. Alay Ahmad has a doctoral degree from the University of Peshawar. His specialty is mass media. His doctoral work was on the effects of television viewing on Pak-istani children's reading of printed pages activity levels and it was published in Japan (1980). Other contributions by Alay Ahmad were published in Psychological Studies and Pakistan Journal o Psychology.
Najama Najm has a doctorate from an American university and is chair of the department of applied psychology at the University of Punjab. Najm's main interests are in clinical psychology and social var-iables. Najm is an editor of the Pakistan Journal of Behavioral Sciences which was founded in 1990. Ruhi Khalid has a doctorate from a British university and has published papers on social identity and intergroup behavior in the Pakistan Journal of Behavioral Sciences. Azhar All Rizvi, founder-director of the Institute of Muslim Psychology, formerly chair of the psychology department, Lahore (University of the Punjab), is an editor of Zehan (Mind), the Urdu journal of Muslim psychology. Rizvi's book, Muslim Traditions in Psychotherapy and Modern Trends (Lahore, 1994) results from intensive research on Sufi scholars of the Indo Pakistan subcon-tinent (particularly the works of Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi and Shah Waliullah) which have bearing on mental health. According to Rizvi, the concept of ab-normality is synonymous with the distance one maintains from the creator, and therapy is geared to reduce the distance through cognitive understanding and strengthening faith in God.
The Muhammad Ajmal National Institute of Psychology
Established in 1976, the National Institute of Psychol-ogy was given the status of a Center of Excellence in Psychology, and eventually moved to Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. Since 1984 it has offered M.Phil./Ph.D. degree programs. The institute regularly presents national seminars and workshops. Before it founded a M.Sc. degree program. The institute was much involved in psychological research on educa-tional programs, adaptation and development of for-eign tests for use in Pakistan, and social-psychological research, including crime and deviant behavior. The in-stitute publishes monographs, books, and tests along with a biannual journal, Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research (PJPR), which was founded in 1986 under the editorship of Z. A. Ansari. The journal has an in-ternational board of consulting editors. The institute also publishes a quarterly NIP Newsletter. The institute library is quite rich, with hundreds of reference works and back issues of journals. Z. A. Ansari was the major force behind the overall development of the institute before moving to the International Islamic University of Malaysia in the early 1990s. One of the most prom-inent names associated with the institute is that of Dr. Ansari, whose main research interests have been in educational problems and the development and validation of educational tests. He has published in national and international journals. Ashiq Ali Shah, who has a doc-torate from Berlin University has focused on social psy-chology. Before joining the International Islamic Uni-versity of Malaysia, he published a number of articles on aspects of social psychology in the Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research and international journals. A number of doctoral candidates completed their doctorates under his guidance, including a dissertation on the development of an indigenous Salma-Shah Depression scale in 1990.
Naeem Tariq has a doctorate from the National In-stitute of Psychology. He is an editor of the Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research, where he has published a number of articles on crime and other deviant behavior. Drs. Seema Pervez and Ghazala Rehman have focused on child development and Rorschach tech-nique, respectively. Dr. Ghazala has developed an indig-enous measure of religiosity and has also developed a cultural adaptation of the Pickford Projective Pictures.
Psychology Journals in Pakistan
There are three journals today: the Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research (PJPR), the Pakistan Journal of Psychology (PJP), and the Journal of Behavioral Sciences (JBS). Both Pakistan Psychological Studies and Psychology Quarterly have ceased publication. In 1982, Z. A. Ansari analyzed a sample of the articles published in Pakistan journals between 1965 and 1980. He found that 50% were of purely theoretical nature, 7% were case studies, while 43% were empirical. The present author gener-ated seven broad areas of research articles published in three Pakistan journals between 1986 and 1996 (see Table I). As can be seen from the table, the trend has changed from a preference for theoretical articles. Clin-ical studies are now at the top of the list and social-psychological research occupies second place. Psycho-logical testing and industrial-organizational studies have middle positions, and cross-cultural research oc-cupies the lowest position. Between 1986 and 1996 there was major emphasis on clinical research, particularly in the Pakistan Journal of Psychology.
Indigenization of Psychology in Pakistan
Hafeez Zaidi (1979), in his paper on cross-cultural psy-chology, was the first Pakistani psychologist to make critical comments on Western ethnocentrism, particularly the views expressed by L. W. Doob in the early1960s and Inkeles in the late 1970s. This response on the part of Zaidi and other cross-cultural psychologists gave rise to the subdiscipline of indigenous or cultural psychology within the discipline of cross-cultural psy-chology.
Table I. Areas of research in Pakistani professional journals (1986-1996)
|
| PJPR (1986-1996) | PJP
(1986-1996) | JBS
(1990-1996) | Total | % |
| Clinical | 13 | 26 | 08 | 47 | 27.33 |
| Cross-cultural | 04 | 02 | 00 | 06 | 03.49 |
| Development | 05 | 00 | 06 | 11 | 06.40 |
| Educational | 07 | 01 | 03 | 11 | 06.40 |
| Industrial/Organization | 16 | 05 | 04 | 25 | 14.53 |
| Social | 21 | 08 | 14 | 43 | 25.00 |
| Testing | 22 | 03 | 04 | 29 | 16.86 |
| Total | 88 | 45 | 39 | 172 | 100.00 |
There are two broad categories of indigenous psychology (I) indigenous psychology (i.e., developing a psychology consistent with cultural traditions), and (2) indigenization (i.e., the transformation of imported elements of modern psychology to make them relevant to the particular sociocultural setting (D. Sinha, Handbook of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. I, Boston, 1997). Sinha lists four types of indigenization from the available literature, and here we will discuss two types: (1) substantive indigenization , which refers to making psychology problem oriented; (2) indigenization of meth-ods relating to the process of transforming an instrument to make it appropriate for the target population.
In this framework outlined by D. Sinha (1997, the work of Ajmal (1969, 1986) and Rizvi (1994) belonging the category of indigenous psychology. Ajmal intro-duced Sufi doctrine (spiritual healing) and mental health practices consistent with Muslim cultural traditions. In his 1986 book Ajmal highlights the role the traditional Sufi (mentor) had played in promoting mental health for the saliks (seekers of God). (See Sinha, 1997; Zaman 1991.) Rizvi's (1980) work on Ashraf Ali Thanvi, a Sufi scholar of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent on reading therapy, and on healthy and unhealthy personality (Rizvi, 1994) is important.
There was a call for Islamization of knowledge after Al-Faruqi (1921-1986) argued (1982) that social sci-ence disciplines are "at once humanistic and ummatic (i.e., the social nature of human activities in charac-ter." He urged Muslim social scientists to analyze and solve human problems by following the Qu'ran and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. Dr. Moghni's work on national development and economic transformation is indigenization in the field of social psychology. It should be noted that while the works of Pakis-tani psychologists may legitimately appear under the heading of indigenous psychology, there has been little theoretical work in this area.
Zaidi, a leading social psychologist, has emphasized the need for social-psychological research in Pakistan. Although trained in experimental research, he has utilized his knowledge of psychology to make it socially relevant. Earlier the three India-Pakistan armed conflicts since independence in 1947 were mentioned (Haque, 1979). The doctrine of low intensity conflict (a term borrowed from political science), and more recently, nuclear deterrence, has maintained an uneasy peace in the region. But to truly get beyond the state of conflict, both India and Pakistan need to recognize the importance of mutual security rather than national security alone. A healthier preoccupation for these stales would be an emphasis on better education, better care for children, elimination of poverty and corrup-tion. etc. It should be noted that in the West there is little questioning of the role of psychology in national development, wile in Pakistan we are still at the stage of seeking recognition for psychology as a scientific discipline, presenting our case to planners and policy makers.
Ansari (1986), in an introductory editorial to the Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research, viewed the ap-plication of psychological knowledge to solve social problems as meaningful and relevant. Since then the journal has published empirical research in educational and social psychology, and research also related to psy-chological testing. Much work has been done on the adaptation of various tests originally published in the West, their translation into Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, in order to make them culturally relevant. The Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research has been particularly active in this area, publishing material on development of a questionnaire for assessing school-children's study problems; a cognitive development task battery for elementary schoolchildren; translation and adaptation of vocational interest inventory; and a bore-dom proneness scale. The Anjum-Klialique Type-A scale was published in the Journal of Behavioral Sciences in 1992. Earlier, a version of MMPOI adapted for use with schizophrenics was published in the Pakistan Journal of Psychology. It should be noted, however, that these tests, although they were developed to be appropriate to Pakistani culture, were based on tests that were originally developed in the West.
