Çiğdem Kağıtçıbaşı, a pioneering woman in cultural psychology

We said goodbye last week to a world-class scientist who grew up in this country.

Professor Çiğdem Kağıtçıbaşı was one of the leading names in the field of cultural psychology and made a global contribution to the science. 

Up until the 1970s, models specific to Western societies still marked psychology. However, academics from various countries, including Kağıtçıbaşı, were pointing out that these models would not be sufficient to explain the behavior of people in various different cultures around the world.

To understand the behavior of people in different countries, psychology had to develop new models that took into account the differences that are unique to these cultures. In this sense, Kağıtçıbaşı made a universal contribution to the science.

Her contributions to the development of psychology in Turkey are likely to be the subject of many scientific conventions in the coming years. Kağıtçıbaşı is probably the second biggest name in psychology in Turkey after Professor Muzaffer Şerif, who became one of the founders of social psychology after he was forced to flee to the United States following his arrest in 1944 during the single party period, on the grounds that he made "communist propaganda."

With the research she made and the models she developed, Kağıtçıbaşı opened the way to the development of psychology in Turkey. Her research showing how children who receive pre-school education are much more successful in life than those who do not has a particularly special place. Behind the pioneering work of the Mother-Child Education Foundation (AÇEV) in Turkey in this field lies the work of Kağıtçıbaşı.

Another equally important contribution is the constructive and encouraging role she played in raising several...

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