Sikolohiyang Pilipino

1
Colonial Influences in the Development of Psychological Thought
in the Philippines

Colonial Influences in the Development of

Psychological Thought in the Philippines

INTRODUCTION

As mentioned in Module 1, early Psychological thoughts in Asia were heavily dependent

on Western schools. Much of the psychological studies and literature in the early 70s in
the Philippines were greatly influenced by Western school of thought. Early writings on
historical records of Psychology recounted the establishment of an experimental
psychology laboratory in 1879 by German physician Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt in
Leipzig, Germany. This became the basis for most university and college curriculum in
the country. Consequently, psychology from an Asian perspective has been neglected.
Most psychology departments in Asian universities and academic institutions adopted
the West's theoretical, methodological, and practical approach. This module 3 will walk
you through the influences of the Western school of behavioral science in the
development of psychological thought in the Philippines.

OBJECTIVES
Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:
1. understand that Filipino psychology is a case of cultural diffusion between
indigenous psychology and western schools of thought.
2. learn and appreciate the colonial influence in the development of
psychological science in the Philippines.

TIMETABLE OF THE MODULE

You are expected to complete Module 3 in a week or approximately at least 10
hours broken down as follows:
Reading and comprehension 6 hours
Learning Integration 2 hours
Activity 1 hour
Short Quiz 1 hour
Total 10 hours

Course Module
AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM: IMPETUS TO COLONIAL
PSYCHOLOGY IN THE PHILIPPINES
The United States colonized the Philippines and established an English-based
educational system in the country. This was followed by the development
and institutionalization of the English language as a framework of
communication for the country's legal system, commerce, industry, media,
etc.
It was through the educational system that American culture proliferated in
the Philippines. Those who went through the schools have experienced
western science and cultural concepts, including the language of research,
interpretation, and construction. Through educational institutions
established by the American regime, Filipinos have learned not only Western
culture but also Western psychological science. Introduction to Psychology
course in the undergraduate class was held at the University of the
Philippines College of Education using American textbooks and English as a
medium of instruction. Dr. Alfredo V. Lagmay (1984) observed the
interconnectedness of the English language and educational system to the
development of psychological thought in the country:
The history of modern psychology in the Philippines has, in fact, parallel to that
of the English language and the educational system in the culture. Scientific
psychology began with the establishment of a comprehensive educational
system by the American colonial administration. Teacher training institutions
and the Department of Education were at the forefront in the utilization of
psychological knowledge in education. The state-owned University of the
Philippines, from 1918 onwards, modeled for the entire country an educational
curriculum that was heavy in psychological courses.

AMERICAN-TRAINED FILIPINO PSYCHOLOGY SCHOLARS,

PROFESSORS, AND PRACTITIONERS
Governor General Francis Burton Harrison undertook the ‘Filipinization’
policy to facilitate Filipinos' inclusion in the governmental affairs of
America’s insular territory. This pave the way for Filipino scholars,
professionals, government functionaries, businessmen, and industry leaders
the opportunity to earn their graduate degrees from American universities.
Advanced studies in psychological science were among the chosen courses of
the early Filipino scholars. Among the first Filipino beneficiaries who took a
graduate course in Psychology was Agustin Alonzo, who accomplished the
first English written Master’s Thesis in Psychology in 1921 at the University
of the Philippines. He proceeded to the University of Chicago and received his
Doctoral degree in Experimental Psychology. While still in Manila, Alonzo
initially worked on people-oriented research, particularly on the psychology
of feeling but shifted to rat psychology's mechanistic determinism when he
was working for his Ph.D. in the American Midwest. To come up with a
“manual guidance” to his laboratory manual, Alonzo came through with his
gentle handling of rats in a maze despite Edward Lee Thorndike’s influence.
Alonzo experienced various problems that arose from being an Asian living
in a white midwestern city. This compelled him to work with fellow foreign
students towards the establishment of the International Center at the
University of Chicago. The graduation of Alonzo in Ph.D. made him the first
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Colonial Influences in the Development of Psychological Thought
in the Philippines

American-trained Filipino experimental psychologist. However, Dr. Alonzo

changed his research and teaching activities from experimental to
educational psychology due to the greater need of the University of the
Philippines and the country for a field of psychology in educational
measurement during the periods of late ‘20s and early ‘30s. But in spite of
the shift, animal learning through experimental psychology still flourished in
the country through another American trained Filipino psychologist. The first
Experimental Psychology Laboratory was then established at the University
of the Philippines by Sinforoso Padilla, Alonzo's student who returned from
studying at the University of Michigan in 1928.
While Dr. Alonzo may not bring the white rats from University of Chicago
with him, he unwittingly brought to the country his proficiency in American
English with psychology as a point of his discipline. Enriquez paraphrased
and modified Renato Constantino's (1975) insights into the psychological
situation:
The use of the English language as the medium of instruction in psychology
made possible the speedy introduction of American-oriented psychology
and values. With American textbooks in psychology from Thorndike, Krech,
Crutchfield, and Ballachey to Hilgard, Filipinos began learning not only new
psychology but a new culture. Education became miseducation because it
began to de-Filipinize the Filipino psychologists, taught them to look up to
American psychology departments as always years ahead of Philippine
counterparts, to regard American psychology as always superior to theirs
and American society as the model par excellence for Philippine society.
Dr. Alonzo is better remembered for the quality of students he produced and
their contributions to the study of psychological science in the Philippines.
Among the prominent students of Dr. Alonzo were Sinforoso Padilla, who
established the first Experimental Psychology laboratory in the country;
Alfredo Lagmay, who became the Chairman of University of the Philippines
Department of Psychology for more than two decades, and Estefania Aldaba-
Lim, who earned
her Doctoral The introduction of western psychology
degree from the to the Philippines should be credited
University of neither to the Americans nor to Dr.
Michigan and Alonzo alone. In fact, the Filipino term
later was sikolohiya was derived from the Spanish
word psicologia and was already part of
appointed as the layman’s vocabulary. The works of Rizal,
Minister of Social Jacinto, and del Pilar are indeed rich
Work during the sources of psychological insights, but the
Marcos three were not psychologists but were
mainly reform propagandists.
Administration.

Course Module
The first attempt to develop indigenous psychological testing is credited to
Sinforoso Padilla, who succeeded Alonzo as the psychology department
Chairman at the University of the Philippines. However, the Chairmanship
post, coupled with teaching and administrative responsibilities, kept Padilla’s
hands full. His articulate and prolific colleague Manuel Carreon published in
New York his Ph.D. dissertation: Philippine Studies in Mental Measurement in
1926, who continued the research on appropriate and relevant psychological
testing. While his thesis and arguments were valid, he committed the mistake
of writing it using the English language. As a result of this, copies of his book
were not landed on shelves of psychological testing but shelved instead in
the university libraries' Filipiniana section in America and the Philippines.
Consequently, Psychological tests developed in America were continuously
administered to unsuspecting respondents in a language hardly mastered by
them. Some guidance counselors who understood Carreon’s intention
modified the tests to make it appear suitable to the Philippine setting. This
technique to improve test validity was later known as the “change-apples-to-
bananas” approach.

Estefania Aldaba-Lim, who earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the
University of Michigan, established the Institute of Human Relations two
years after the Philippines won its independence from the United States. The
institute was the country's first training center that provided extensive scale
for teachers in guidance and counseling. During Marcos' presidency, Dr.
Aldaba-Lim served as Minister of Social Works – the highest government post
given to a Filipino Psychologist.

Another student of Dr. Alonzo who later spearheaded the transfer of the
Psychology department from Education to Liberal Arts is Alfredo V. Lagmay,
who was a recipient of a Psychology fellowship in Harvard, where he was
trained with B.F. Skinner in Experimental Psychology. Dr. Lagmay, who had a
background in philosophy from a department which during that period was
steeped in logical positivism and staunchly against the sectarianism foisted
by the Catholics through UP Student Catholic Action, was ostensibly sent to
the US to weaken the UP Department of Philosophy which was headed during
that time by Ricardo Pascual, who is known for being an articulate,
charismatic, and controversial agnostic-philosopher.

It was a period of peasant unrest in Central Luzon due to HUKBALAHAP

movement, led by Luis Taruc, when Lagmay returned to the country from
Harvard in 1955. It was the period of time when the Department of Psychology
in UP was still administratively under the College of Education. As soon as
Lagmay returned to the Philippines, he initiated and successfully transferred the
Psychology department to the College of Liberal Arts, which shifted the
department’s educational orientation to a basic scientific approach. One of the
major accomplishments of Lagmay as Chairman of the UP Department of
Psychology was the inclusion of Experimental Psychology as an integral part of
the undergraduate psychology curricula in Philippine tertiary education.

Lagmay has also produced calibre students whose contributions to the study of
Psychology in the Philippines are remarkable. Among the scholars include
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Colonial Influences in the Development of Psychological Thought
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Fe Absolo-Domingo who, under Lagmay’s advisorship, wrote a research on

child-rearing in Barrio Krus-na-Ligas; Angelina Ramirez who was the
Chairperson of UST Department of Psychology in the mid-‘70s; Abraham
Felipe who undertook a study on psychology of popular Tagalog short stories
made his way to Yale University to earn his Ph.D in Social Psychology then
later when he returned to the country he served the Marcos government as
President of Funds for Assistance to Private Education and Deputy Minister
of Education; Robert Lawless who, under the advisorship of Lagmay in the
Asian Studies program, conducted an incisive review of Personality and
Culture Studies in the Philippines; and Elizabeth Ventura who studied the
stimulus characteristics of the Philippine Thematic Apperception Test.

Lagmay became the Chairman of UP Psychology Department

for two decades and have witnessed significant historical
events in the country such as Magsaysay’s campaign to pacify
HUKBALAHAP movement, the resurgence of nationalism
under Claro M. Recto, the ‘Filipino First’ policy of Carlos
Garcia, the creation of MAPHILINDO (a Southeast Asian
regionalism) under Diosdado Macapagal, and suspension of
the writ of habeas corpus and the subsequent declaration of
Martial Law by Ferdinand Marcos.

GERMAN INFLUENCE IN VISAYAN UNIVERSITY

Not known to many, the University of San Carlos (USC) is the oldest learning
center in the Philippines even antedating the University of Sto. Tomas (UST) in
Espana, Manila. But as a university, UST was ahead of USC being established in
1661. It is run by a Catholic religious order, the Society of the Divine Word.
It was only in 1954 when a Department of Psychology was founded at the
USC by Joseph Goetz, a German who spent almost 18 years of psychological
work in Beijing. He went back to Europe for couple of years before he was
sent to Cebu. Psychological science, in what has been called as the “genealogy
of psychology in Visayas” was taught in German theoretical perspective but
the medium of instruction was and still in English. Professor Goertz taught
experimental psychology in the tradition of Wundt, Kulpe, and Lindworsky.
Psychology at USC was referred to as “brass and cymbals” psychology
because perception experiments in the German tradition were performed
semester after semester. The University of San Carlos opened the psychology
department to American training in psychological science.

Course Module
SPANISH INFLUENCED UNIVERSITIES IN MANILA
The University of Sto. Tomas (UST), which is considered the oldest existing
university in Asia, is a Dominican-run learning institution established in 1616.
Three Spanish professors have pioneered the teaching of psychology in UST, and
these were Jose A. Samson, a Ph.D. degree holder in Psychology, Emmanuel Vit
Samson, a doctor of medicine, and Angel de Blas, a Dominican priest and
philosopher. Jose Samson instituted the clinical setting of the UST psychology
curriculum. Emmanuel Vit Samson became the Chairman of the department
from 1954 to 1972. Fr. Blas was the head of the Psychology department and
founder of UST Experimental Psychology laboratory. Under his leadership, the
department’s direction leaned towards medical and physiological based. Filipino
Psychology became an integral part of UST's undergraduate psychology in 1987
under the leadership of then Chairperson Dolores de Leon, an alumna of UST
where she studied advanced training in Clinical psychology. Another Dominican-
run learning institution founded in 1630, Colegio de San Juan de Letran, holds
the distinction of being the only school in Southeast Asia that offered a
Psychology course taught in Spanish up to the mid-1970s.

BELGIAN LEGACY IN THE CORDILLERAS

St. Louis University (SLU) in Baguio is a major learning institution in Northern
Luzon that offered psychology in 1967 as a major undergraduate course under
the leadership of Fr. Evarist Verlinden, a Belgian missionary. Fr. Verliden’s
academic background in psychology and faith in Catholicism with a scientific
attitude became his guidance when he managed the Psychology Laboratory of
the University. The said laboratory boasted its tachistoscope equipment, which
was made only from old camera parts functioned even better than a new one.
Through community services, the department was able to provide direct
experience in applied psychology other than its regular classroom activities.
Fr. Verliden was committed to the contextualization of psychology into the
Philippine setting. But due to financial constraints, Fr. Verliden had to invite
fellow Belgian missionaries who have Doctorates in Psychology as Visiting
Professors. As a result, the Belgian guest academicians outnumbered the
regular local faculty members in SLU's Master of Science in Psychology
program. The department conceptualized Filipino psychology as generic
Philippine psychology and not only specific to the Cordillera people. Filipino
Psychology became the course name of Psychology 228, and it had a course
description as follows:
Psychology 228 – Filipino Psychology: Philosophical Foundations and Problems.
This course aims to orient the student with a broad perspective of the
philosophical foundations of psychology. In particular, it defines, clarifies,
analyzes, and discusses formulations of psychological theory, knowledge, and
methods developed with Philippine culture as their basis. It is concerned with
the exploration of psychological constructs, such as the self-concept, the
learning of pro-social behaviors, the communication process, etc., as situated
specifically and given unique expression in and affected by the nuances of
culture concretized in Philippine value systems, rearing and interaction
patterns, and socialization styles. It presents a conceptual analysis and
integration of the various theoretical data and empirical findings in a survey of
selected Philippine culture-personality research material.
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Behavioral expressions are considered against a background of the motives

and values that are institutionalized in this particular culture. Furthermore,
it endeavors to strengthen the skills and competencies of the M.S.
Psychology student in the areas of individual and group processes as they
apply to the different areas of concern in relation to the development of the
Filipino ad he grows and interacts in society.

References
Enriquez, V. (1985 ). The Development of Psychological Thought in the
Philippines In Aganon, A. and David, M.A. (ed), New Directions in
Indigenous Psychology, Sikolohiyang Pilipino: Isyu, Pananaw, at
Kaalaman (pp. 149-176). Quezon City: National Book Store

Enriquez, V. (1994). From Colonial to Liberation Psychology. Manila,

Philippines: De La Salle University Press.

Lagmay, A. (1984). Western Psychology in the Philippines: Impact and

Response. In Aganon, A. and David, M.A. (ed), New Directions in
Indigenous Psychology, Sikolohiyang Pilipino: Isyu, Pananaw, at
Kaalaman (pp. 177-190). Quezon City: NBS

Course Module