Chinese Psychology

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2011

This paper discusses ways that cultural psychology can complement cross-cultural psychology to achieve a deeper understanding of culture, psychology, and their relationship (see . Cross-cultural psychology is accomplished in clarifying, operationalizing, and testing issues related to culture, psychology, and their relation. Cross-cultural psychology utilizes standardized tests and measures and variables most successfully when prior research has identified the parameters of the issues to be tested. Without this prior research, standardized content of standardized tests and measures may not fully reflect the complexity of culturally variable issues.

Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 2009

The present study examines the practice of empirical psychology in China during the Republican period using a content analysis of its journals. By seeking answers to questions of what kinds of psychology from the West first attracted the Chinese; whether they found a way of developing a psychology more in tune to their own cultural assumptions of selfhood; and to what uses they felt the new discipline could be put, it shows the extent to which its journal content adopted a Western or an indigenous orientation. It thus contributes to the recent debate about indigenization of psychology globally and situates the origins of these issues in China much earlier than has been envisaged by contemporary Chinese indigenous psychologists. Throughout this period, indigenous concerns informed the research agenda, the dominant practice being psychometrics. But because of a lack of social support, they remained largely confined to the pages of psychology journals.

1995

Abstract: This publication consists of two reports that were commissioned by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization as background for its biennial report on world education. The first paper," Educational Psychology and Teaching Methods in China: Developments and Trends," by Duan Huifen and others, indicates that educational psychology in China began with the introduction of theories from abroad. This was followed by a period of testing, assimilation, and thorough investigation, and finally by actual ...

Following the Western academic discourse of psychology, there is no such thing as critical psychology (even if in its plural form) in China which aims to react against mainstream psy-sciences. But the development of Chinese psychology shares overlapping issues with critical psychology. And the possibility of an overall understanding of these issues lies in the articulation of Chinese modern political-economic and cultural-historical systems. Situated in the macro framework of the formation of Chinese modern knowledge system, I will attempt to reconstruct the history of Chinese psychology from the perspective of critical psychology, in order to find the consensus between the possible thoughts of Chinese critical psychology and its Western counterpart and on this basis to trace in detail the possible theoretical and practical threads of Chinese critical psychology.

School psychology is an important area within psychology, which has a short developmental history in Mainland China. Nonetheless, along with economic advances and social changes in Mainland China, school psychology is developing and becoming more important. Currently, people need to work harder and longer. This places many under pressure that may cause all kinds of mental difficulties and disorders. School psychological services can work with learners and their families for the healthy development of children and adolescents, and is also the fundamental route to prevent and solve mental-health problems in Mainland China. This article explains the significance and the important effects of school psychology in Mainland China, and provides a general account of the developmental history and the status quo of school psychology. It also compares mental health services in Mainland China with those in other countries. The objective of this article is to present an overall description of school psychology, understand new trends, and discuss the need for the future development of school psychology in Mainland China. This article completed a comparative analysis with the USA and considered current practices in Mainland China.

BA (Hons) University of Melbourne, 2003

This dissertation seeks to present a critical disciplinary introspection of existing indigenous Chinese psychological research paradigms, particularly with regards to what K. S. Yang (1993) emphasises as the need for indigenous models to avoid Western cross-cultural perspectives. As a secondary objective, it is hoped this analysis will highlight the need for the discipline to expand current introspective approaches from narrowly addressing phenomenological and epistemological concerns, to encompassing liberalised hermeneutical and discourse analysis related frames. The specific focus of this paper is the role significant political agendas and academic trends surrounding the birth and consolidation of ‘the modern Chinese nation’ have played in the formation of certain pre-understandings and presumptions regarding China’s history, society and culture, and the role these presumptions and pre-understandings have in turn played in shaping, guiding and, as I shall argue, to an extent predetermining the results of indigenous investigations of contemporary Chinese psychological and behavioural phenomena. It is the author’s belief that these presumptions and pre-understandings encapsulate specific Western notions and biases, and that these have served to consolidate the pervasive influence of Western perspectives, ideals and standards in indigenous research. This in turn has impeded the indigenisation, compatibility, and the appropriate theoretical multi-dimensionality indigenous approaches require to more accurately reflect the true nature, complexity and diversity of Chinese psychological and behavioural phenomena. As outlined by Yang (1993), key aspects of indigenous psychological research include the need to address idiosyncratic local themes, or distinctively localised psychological/behavioural phenomena, and the local socio-cultural and historical context within which these are situated. Perceptions of these, according to phenomenology, cannot, however, be conceived in a vacuum, but are guided by both the situated self, and, more directly, academic and literary representations, narratives or texts concerning the constitution of such phenomena, and with which the researcher is familiar and conversant. This dissertation seeks to assert that a prominent force in shaping representations of what may constitute distinctive Chinese themes and historical and socio-cultural contexts in Chinese socio-political, and particularly Western academic sources is the strongly politicised and broadly encompassing paradigm of ‘modernisation’. The way this paradigm has informed pre-understandings compromising indigenous methodologies shall then be addressed by means of a critical analysis of K.S. Yang’s investigation of Chinese psychological transformation, focusing on the following three key effects: (1) the positing of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’, ‘functional/non-functional’ as labels for the demarcation of China’s contemporary psychological realities; (2) the reproduction of Western academic discources and their underlying Western cross-cultural perspectives and ethnocentric biases in the identification and elaboration of ‘traditional’ Chinese psychological characteristics; including the coalescing and ratifying of notions of China’s ‘traditionality’ through a generative semantic rubric of ‘Confucianism’, and; (3) the subsequent empowerment, enshrinement and false identification of Western perspectives, ideals, standards and notions: particularly in view of their collective association with the constitution and success of a utopian ‘modern’ industrialised society.

International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 1987

In the process of reconstructing the history of Chinese psychology, psychohistory once drew little attention. Although applying psychological tools to historical studies has not been a new research method for Chinese historians, when it comes to psychohistory in its modern sense, it inevitably sounds exotic and novel to Chinese academia. However, the significance of psychohistory, especially the one with practical relevance, should not be underestimated. Thus, the history and the deficiency of psychohistory need to be clarified. Based on the macro-historical logic, the development of psychohistory in China can be recounted and divided into four stages, namely (1) before 1902, the pre-scientific stage of psychohistory, (2) 1902–1949, the introduction of modern psychohistory, (3) 1949–1978, the tortuous and lopsided development of psychohistory, and (4) 1978–present, the revival of diverse approaches in psychohistory. The possibilities of psychohistory as we find in such a process, in all its reality, reside in the fact that it could combine the history of ideas with reality and the history of society with ideas, which would undoubtedly improve our understanding of the intertwinement of the human psyche and the social mechanisms, in brief, the historical dynamics. In addition, psychohistory could also help solve psychological problems that the populations in modern times are currently facing. Despite all of these virtues, in terms of indigenization (particularization), generalization (universalization), trans-regional communication, and disciplinary institutionalization, there is still some way for psychohistory in China to go.

Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, 2014

It is claimed via analysis of Shu-Hsien Liu's seminal book Understanding Confucian Philosophy that contemporary Confucianism offers: (1) a set of ultimate concerns that can be used to guide life and scholarly endeavour; (2) an axiomatic world view, and a generative model of human nature that not only accords with empirical evidence, but is highly adaptive in organising society; (3) an epistemology that is appropriate for social science research on social change. These qualities suggest that contemporary Confucianism can inform psychological research in a manner that goes far deeper than merely describing popular tendencies among culturally Chinese people. It may be used in constructing a form of social science with depth and utility in addressing both practical and existential concerns of scholars and ordinary people in society that is not restricted to Chinese societies alone, but any society in need of inspiration in seeking to construct humanist ethics for research and govern...