SUMMARY/OVERVIEW
Sikolohiyang Pilipino is based on assessing historical and socio-cultural realities, understanding the local language,
unraveling Filipino characteristics, and explaining them through the eyes of the native Filipino. Sikolohiyang Pilipino
methodologically leans on the side of analysis but interprets the result of the said analysis with a bias for wholeness (i.e.
social context, political implications, and the cultural meaning of the study).
Among the outcomes are: a body of knowledge including indigenous concepts, development of indigenous research
methods and indigenous personality testing, new directions in teaching psychology, and an active participation in
organisations among Filipino psychologists and social scientists, both in the Philippines and overseas.
Virgilio Gaspar Enriquez defined Sikolohiyang Pilipino as ‘‘the study of diwa (‘psyche’), which in Filipino directly refers to
the wealth of ideas referred to by the philosophical concept of ‘essence’ and an entire range of psychological concepts
from awareness to motives to behavior.
Filipino Psychology is a psychology that is a product of Filipino experiences, ideas, and orientation. Filipino culture and
language also played a great role in influencing the behavior of the Filipinos with regard to their conscious and
unconscious thoughts and experiences.
The six foundations of Filipino Psychology identified in the study are as follows:
(1) indigenous psychology, which includes the lessons and rituals of the babaylan or katalonan, chants, prayers, hearsay,
folktales, legends, and epics;
(2) the person and his or her consciousness;
(3) the period of changing consciousness;
(4) the period of increasing valuation for human behavior and abilities;
(5) the period of increasing awareness of societal problems, which discusses the Filipino psychologists’ descent from
their ivory towers; and
(6) the language, culture and perspective of the Filipino, which constitute the fundamental foundations of all the other
aforementioned bases.
Indigenous Psychology -in this concept, culture is regarded as an emergent property of individuals and groups
interacting with their human environment. It is through culture that we think, feel, behave, and interact with reality
Indgenous Psychology's two starting points of research:
Indigenization from within -a shift in paradigm, a transformational change in which theories, concepts, and methods are
developed from within, using a bottom-up approach.
Indigenization from without -in this concept, indigenous knowledge is treated as an auxiliary source, not as the primary
source of knowledge.
Data collection models used in Indigenous Psychology:
Mutual-orientation model - the data collector and contributor give something to, and gain something from the data
collection. Indigenous psychology research uses this model as the cultural researcher is a culture bearer himself.
Self -orientation model - data collector and contributors relate to the other only to the extent of waiting until the other
stops responding, e.g.laboratory-based studies of memory. Communication is not taking place between them through
socially shared interpretation or common constructs.
Experimenter -orientation model - the data collectors appear to influence while only the data contributors appear to be
influence; an imbalance of power in favor of data collectors who appear to define the experimental situation.
Reactive-orientation model - the participants in the data collection are reacting to what is currently taking place
between them, yet the capacities of both data contributors and collectors to understand are assumed to be unimportant
and are ignored.
Filipino Indigenous theories on Filipino personhood:
The four elements in Covar’s concept of Filipino personhood include (1) kaluluwa (spirit), (2) budhi (conscience), (3)
katauhang panlabas (external appearance), and (4) katauhang panloob (innermost being).
Kaluluwa (spirit) is the nonphysical aspect of a person’s character and emotions; his/her soul.
Budhi (conscience) is the inner voice of an individual whereby it guides and/or influences him/her towards one’s own
perception of right and wrong behaviors.
Katauhang panlabas (external appearance) refers to the physical appearance of an individual; how one looks and
perceived as whether good-looking or not in the eyes of another person.
Katauhang panloob ( innermost being) is relating to or existing in the mind or thoughts whereby there is "a concern with
inward reflections"
The elements of Maaram’s concept of pagkatao (personhood) includes: (1) ginhawa (comfort), (2) buot (perception), (3)
isip (mind), and (4) kalag (life spirit)
Ginhawa (comfort) refers to an ease in the feelings or emotions of an individual; the freedom from pain or any
constraints.
Buot (perception) is the state of being or process of becoming aware of something through the senses. It is a way of
regarding, understanding, or interpreting something through the sense.
Isip (mind) holds the power of imagination, recognition, and appreciation, and is responsible for processing feelings and
emotions, resulting in attitudes and actions.
Kalag (spirit) is regarded as the animating life principles of the human person. It is the immaterial part of a person; the
actuating cause of an individual life.
Pakikipagkapwa
Through pakikipagkapwa, the notion of a “shared self” extends the I to include the other. It bridges the deepest
individual recesses of a person with anyone outside him or herself, even total strangers.
Pakiramdam
It is described as an all-important “shared inner perception” that compliments the “shared identity” of kapwa.
The use of the expression, “Bahala na”
The way Filipinos use the expression, “Bahala na” had long been misinterpreted by foreigners as demonstrating the
fatalism of a happy-go-lucky people. But Bahala has sacred undertones. Its ancient Filipino inscription divides the term
into “ba’’ for woman and “la” for man. “Ha” means breath or wind—in a larger sense, spirit or God. Bahala then is the
word that pre-Christian Filipinos used for the deity.
Other terminologies/concepts:
Kapwa is the “unity of the one-of-us-and-the-other,” according to the late Virgilio Enriquez, who declared the concept as
a Filipino core value. It is “shared identity,” “equality,” and “being with others.”
Traditional psychology -in this concept, culture is considered to be a contextual factor and not included in the research
design.
Cross cultural psychology -in this concept, culture is treated as a quasi-independent variable and behavior as dependent
variable.
Ethnic psychology is the major basis of Sikolohiyang Pilipino for integrating academic, scientific, and academic-
philosophical tradition into a national tradition of Psychology and Philosophy as universal disciplines.
Psychology of the Filipinos refers to the collection of theories contributed by various individuals interested in the study
of the psychological nature of Filipinos residing in the Philippines and in other countries.
Psychology in the Philippines is the sequence of events that has to do with the field of psychology in the country. This
emphasizes the history of psychology in the Philippines, how it was first introduced in different schools, and how it was
developed and embraced by the academe then and now.
Universalist position assumes that basic psychological processes are likely to be common features of human life
everywhere, yet their manifestations are likely to be influenced by culture.
Phonemic approach - in this approach, there is a need to understand a culture from its own perspective (using natural
taxonomies).
Phonetic approach - emphasizes learning and combining speech sound units that make up words and applying them to
sounding out unfamiliar words.
