National Development from a Social Psychological Perspective.

This article presents information regarding the problems faced by the developing countries in their course of development. The problems faced by the developing countries of the world are numerous and of critical importance. These problems include those of industrialization and economic development, of changing traditional social institutions such as stratification and power mechanisms so that they facilitate rather than inhibit modernization, and of providing ever-increasing percentages of citizens with an education that teaches the economic and social skills requisite to assuming rewarding roles in a changing society. However, in the array of social and behavioral sciences that have been brought to bear upon the problems of developing countries, social psychology has been noticeably absent. Anthropologists have carried over their interest in traditional societies to include concern with the problems these societies face in the processes of modernization and development, particularly as these processes affect values and institutions such as the family and religion.