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Methods and statistics

How do European and US psychology differ?

Michael W. Eysenck offers his viewpoint on the differences between European and American psychology; Neil Martin on why and how European publishers are taking on the American heavyweights; Monique Anderson interviews Tuomo Tikkanen, President of the European Federation of Professional Psychologists Associations (EFPPA), to hear about European psychology and the role of EFPPA within it.

18 July 2001

Michael Eysenck: Most psychological research in the world is carried out in Europe and the United States. It is often assumed that any distinctive differences there may once have been between the approaches taken by European and American researchers have decreased or even disappeared. There is undoubtedly a grain of truth in this assumption. However, while recognising that I run the risk of glossing over differences in approach within these cultures, I would like to argue that there are still some important differences. Neil Martin: The refrain that most heavyweight journals are America-centric is a familiar one. Reading the American Psychological Association’s league table of journals and the peers who will ultimately judge your research, it seems Europeans have a justifiable grievance. The editorial board of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology is exclusively American; the Journal of Applied Psychology has 54 American associate editors and three from the rest of the world; Psychological Review has 30 Americans and nine non-Americans. The BPS’s own flagship journals have a less ethnocentric bias (BJP has eight UK associate editors and six others; BJSP has 19 UK, 4 US and 11 non-UK European).

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