Psychology in Contemporary China

286 Pages·1981·4.525 MB·English

by  L. B. Brown (Auth.)

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Free specimen copy supplied on request
Psychology in
Contemporary China
L. B. BROWN
School of Psychology
University of New South Wales
PERGAMON PRESS
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First edition 1981
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Brown, Laurence Binet
Psychology in contemporary China.
1. Psychology - China
I. Title
150\951 BF108.C48 80-41660
ISBN 0-08-026063-2
Printed in Great Britain by A. Wheaton 6- Co. Ltd., Exeter
Preface
This is an essentially Western perspective on psychology in China, based on transla-
tions of the recent Chinese literature and my discussions with Chinese psychologists,
and my contact with other students and teachers. The new period in China that began
in 1976 not only revived psychology but has allowed freer interchange with foreigners
than at any time since the liberation in 1949. Yet it is not certain that a foreigner can
understand contemporary Chinese culture and society, or the pressures it has had to
respond to. The Chinese take a great deal of that for granted or keep it deeply hidden,
and their answers are often indirect. While this book should have been written by the
Chinese, psychologists in China are much preoccupied with rebuilding their own
psychology and they have had little time to write about their recent history for foreign
journals, or their ideas and the direction of their work. As far as possible I have allow-
ed the Chinese to speak for themselves through the translations of their work. It will be
seen that judgements about the 'correct theories' and the forbidden areas of study are
not necessarily uniform.
Both of my visits to China were made possible by the active support of the University
of New South Wales, the Chinese Foreign Experts Bureau, and the Chinese Ministries
of Education and Foreign Affairs. The Tianjin Foreign Languages Institute, the In-
stitute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Psychological
Society, the Tai Yuan Engineering Institute, and a great many individuals within those
organisations have given me untold help, for which I am most grateful. Not only was I
helped with translations but I had interpreters at lectures and at numerous discussions.
These institutions and their members also arranged meetings for me and gave splendid
banquets. Typing, transcribing and library searches were most capably arranged by my
secretary, Louise Kahabka. Chinese and other teachers and students in China, in
Sydney and elsewhere have helped to clarify the many things I did not understand, or
that seemed obscure. It is impossible, and perhaps unwise to mention individuals, but
Hsu Lien-tsang, Ni Da-xia, Chen Jia-gao, Jin Ti, Yin Yi-fi and Hu Weng-zhang are first
among those who have contributed to my understanding of China, and have answered
my endless questions.
Dorothy Brown's wish to teach English as a foreign language to Chinese people set
this whole process going, and has sustained it. May Needham in New Zealand and
Bruce Doar in Sydney did most of the translations of the Chinese papers and
documents, although Hu Zhuang-lin and Huang Yuan-shen each helped with the most
recent papers and reports.
ν
vi Preface
Although I was in China as a psychologist, that role was not always easy to maintain.
Many aspects of the culture and the environment captured my imagination, and we
have many friendships there now. I am really grateful for all the help I have been given
in this self-imposed task of trying to understand psychology in China. The year 1979,
which was the 30th anniversary of the Chinese liberation, was a good one for that since
it also marked the formalisation' of diplomatic relations with the United States, and
the formal rehabilitation of psychology.
The most familiar versions of Chinese words and names have been used throughout, rather
than consistently following pin yin.
List of Tables
Table 1. Some political campaigns that have influenced China's
psychology 3
Table 2. Chinese psychiatric hospitals reported on by Western visitors 17
Table 3. A classification of all reports and papers published in Acta
Psychologica Sinica between 1956 and 1966, and in 1979 188
Table 4. Showing (in percentages) the presence of Tables and Abstracts,
and multiple authorship in Acta Psychologica Sinica 190
Table 5. Showing the predominance of Chinese or foreign references in
A eta Psych ologica Sin ica 191
Table 6. Results of a population survey in Shanxi 219
Table 7. Detailed findings from psychiatric surveys in rural and urban
areas in Shanxi province 219
Table 8. Twenty nations and their INDSCAL coordinates, derived from
fifty Chinese teachers and students' ratings in 1980 244
xi
CHAPTER 1
"Over the Hill Lies China"—A Colonial
Australian Expression
The Chinese ideogram or character for psychology involves the heart, but extends to
thinking, feeling and emotion. This book concerns the development of psychology in
China, and the areas to which it is applied. I have relied on the Western literature, on
translations of scientific papers from the Chinese, and the reactions of psychologists
and others in China, but feel acutely aware of the distortions and inaccuracies that
might be inherent in understanding such material. I must, however, depend on my own
judgement. The most important source of information has been the meetings and
discussions that I had, especially those that followed the lectures on psychology I gave
during my two visits to China (Brown, 1978 a, b and c). My first visit was from July
until November 1978 and the second from December 1979 until February 1980, when I
was primarily teaching English in Tai Yuan. The essays that the Chinese students of
English wrote then gave me a general background to some aspects of their social life.
My reactions to this are most sympathetic, but necessarily Western.
The limitations from having to work in English may be less important than are the
difficulties in coming to terms with what is happening in China now, and putting that
into the context of new China's 30 years of socialist construction. While the
psychologists in China have continued to discuss basic philosophical, theoretical, and
political questions these have not been fully resolved. But they say they have experienced
a new "hundred flowers'' since work was restored in 1976.
It is not certain if a foreigner can ever really understand contemporary Chinese
culture and society, and particularly the pressures it had to respond to in the Cultural
Revolution, about which it is hard to draw conclusions that will be generally accepted.
Those with only a slight knowledge seem more willing to write about China than are
those, whether they are Chinese or foreigners, who have lived most of their lives there.
The mountainous literature on China makes very few direct references to
psychology. This justifies including Chinese translations here. Many Western reports
and reactions, especially in newspapers, neglect what the Chinese take for granted and
the way they use a delicate shorthand that can make their accounts or explanations
seem oblique, if not guarded. They are sensitive to meaning and expert at identifying
the attitudes of other Chinese. Psychologists are reticent about writing for the West
despite the increasing contact. The approaches that are possible or approved are still in
flux because of the constraints and criticisms they suffered during the Cultural Revolu-
tion and through the Gang of Four's period of control. Political considerations still
lurk behind debates about their work. They may not have decided which data to collect
and were happier with theoretical and historical questions.
1
2 Psychology in Contemporary China
I was unable to visit psychological laboratories, and had only brief periods in
libraries. The people I wanted to see almost always came to see me at the hotel. "We
should not invite our guests to come to us, because it is too cramped there", they said.
There were other excuses and apologies too. The Institute's building in Peking had
been pulled down to make way for the subway, and their new building was still being
planned. So they shared the laboratories of other Institutes. In other places the labs,
were said to be closed for the summer, or were being repaired. When I visited the
Institute's Library which was close to the Friendship Hotel in Peking, a group of ten
accompanied me, with apologises for the inadequacies of the building and its book col-
lection. The books I wanted to consult were brought to me later, instead of my having
to read them in the Library.
I became interested in those apologies, and the way most things were blamed on "the
intervention of the Gang of Four", especially during my first visit. That shorthand
referred to the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. University teaching and research
was interrupted during the Cultural Revolution, particularly in psychology. Only those
in the obvious technologies, like electronics, could carry on, but not always without in-
terruption since study was said to be bourgeois, and it was more important to be red
than expert at that time.
The events of the Cultural Revolution had a strong psychological and ideological
significance, the personal effects of which are still not well documented except for the
widespread criticism of that period in the novels, stories, and plays of the 'wound or
exposure literature'. Despite rehabilitations and changes in leadership, and new
political, economic and academic policies, the specific direction for psychology may
not yet be clear. The Chinese have coped with revolutionary movements before, in 1851
and 1911, in founding the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 and the liberation in 1949,
the anti-rightist campaign in 1957, the Great Leap Forward, the 'Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution' in 1966 and the Tian An Men incident of 1976 that finally brought
down the Gang of Four. That incident was recently declared a 'revolutionary' rather
than a counter-revolutionary movement. Table 1 shows a chronology of important
political movements in relation to the growth of psychology.
While the political and social psychology of this recent period is fascinating, it is
impossible to describe let alone explain it. Discrepancies between official statements
and activities at the 'grass-roots', or between public and private reactions increase
one's uncertainty about what might have happened. More economic incentives and
fewer big character posters are only two examples of significant changes of direction in
15 years or so.
Boundaries between public and private domains are quite different in China from
those in the West. They readily accept many contradictions we would not tolerate.
Many people have a detailed file of information from which a political stance or 'moral
character' can be assessed, and which also limits social mobility. To call people names
(or to give them 'caps') is a potent constraint, without even having to send them to the
countryside, to a cadre school for re-education, or to prison.
Foreigners must learn to sense the deference they are given and the ways in which
'face' is protected. Both of these deprive us of initiative. Michael Davie (1979) has
outlined what he thinks appeals to foreigners in China, noting the purposeful and busy
people, the attractive children, the absence of tipping, the flattery in feeling that such a
lot of people are learning English, the surprise that despotism can be, in some respects,
"Over the Hill Lies China" 3
Table 1
Some political campaigns that have influenced China's psychology
1911 Sun Yatsen established the Republic of China
1917 The first psychological laboratory at Peking University
1921 The Chinese Psychological Society formed
1936 The Japanese War
I. The period of reform and re-education
1949 The liberation of China with Mao's policies to "Lean to one side" and "Learn
from the Soviet Union"
1951 Academy of Sciences sets up a psychological laboratory
1952 First 5-year plan.
The Three Great Movements, to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea, suppress
counter-revolutionaries, and campaign against corruption, waste and
bureaucracy
1955 First Congress of the Chinese Psychological Society
1956 Socialisation of agriculture, industry and handicrafts, and a 12-year plan for
scientific research
The Institute of Psychology established in Peking
The 'Hundred flowers' period begins
II. The campaign against rightists
1957 The rectification movement
1958 The Great Leap Forward. The Movement to criticise psychology. The People's
Commune Movement. Decentralisation of education
1959 Campaign against the right opportunists, with bad seasons in 1959 and 1960
III. The Party's new policy of eight words, and the prosperity of psychology
1960 Rectifications and rehabilitations
Second National Congress of the Chinese Psychological Society
1961 Greater power for Liu Shao-qi, as Mao retreats "to the second line"
1962 Chinese Psychological Society's congress on educational psychology
The open split with the Soviet Union
1963 First Annual Meeting of the Chinese Psychological Society
1964-1965 Socialist education movement in politics, and an ideological struggle in
literature and science
1965 Second meeting of the Chinese Psychological Society
Yao Wen-yuan's attack on psychology
IV. The Cultural Revolution, and the destruction of psychology
1966 The Cultural Revolution, followed by the influence of Lin Biao
1968 The 'Gang of Four' in power
1972 National Conference of Science and Technology, addressed by Chou En-lai
Some research in psychology is restored
1973 Education is restored
1974 Deng Xiao-ping has influence for a short time
V. A new beginning
1976 Mao's death and the destruction of the Gang of Four
Work in Psychology is re-established
1978 New movements in education
Second 'annual' meeting of the Chinese Psychological Society
First entry of new students enrolled in psychology at Peking University
1979 The rehabilitation of psychology
Third annual meeting of the Chinese Psychological Society
1980 Rehabilitation of Liu Shao-qi
1981 60th anniversary of the Chinese Psychological Society
4 Psychology in Contemporary China
disorderly. The beauty of the landscape and the absence of gas stations help the feeling
of innocence and he says we like to see "a brave peasant people working together to
make a better life for each other, with no waste, since everything is recycled'\ He
seems to forget the endless street sweeping, and those who scavenge through the sweep-
ings. While China fulfils the Romantic hopes of many visitors, it does not satisfy them
all. Despite the lists of astonishing things about China I never accepted the quaint traf-
fic rules and the convention that whatever is faster takes precedence, even over a man
drawing a heavy cart across an intersection. That was explained by their being only 30
years away from feudalism. But must we reach any conclusion about China? Why not
decide that we cannot understand, and accept the contradictions.
Foreign Exchanges
Foreign experts in China usually work as teachers, translators or polishers, or techni-
cians, all on two-year contracts. Many are ideologically sympathetic to the Chinese.
Some are political exiles and a few are there because it is 'a job'. There are also the Old
China hands', or the foreigners who have worked in China for many years, some hav-
ing been there since before the liberation. A recent book, by "Twenty authors from
abroad" (1979), describes the experiences and reactions of twenty such people. 'Super-
experts' occasionally come from foreign universities or from organisations like the
British Council, to give short, specialised courses. Some of these people are now
'overseas Chinese' who do not have to rely on interpreters, as do most of the other ex-
perts. With China's move to modernisation many 'advisers' are supervising the in-
stallation of new equipment. Beyond those people are the tourist groups, the delega-
tions of special visitors, and the diplomats, foreign correspondents and representatives
of the companies involved in trade and commerce.
My essential sympathy with China is still tinged with the foreigner's frustration at
the difficulties in grasping the meaning or the implications of what was said, even
though I could predict the answers that would be given to common questions. The
Chinese seldom ask probing questions or disagree with what they are told, even about
Western psychology, probably reserving their criticisms for later. So when Hsu, Ching
1
and Li (1978), who formed the first delegation to go abroad in the new period, reported
on their 1978 visit to Australia, they complimented Australian psychology on its rapid
development during the last decade saying that it "has achieved an international stan-
dard of scholarship in many areas, setting a good example for others to follow". Their
other reactions show their interests; so they rehearsed the history of psychology in
Australia, summarised information about equipment and course structures in the
university departments they visited, and remarked on the absence of an "independent
institute of psychology in Australia". They noted that "the interests of the Australian
psychologists differ from the traditional topics in educational and developmental
psychology", by "studying the early stages of cognitive development" and problems
of the handicapped. "In Australia, research in education and psychology centres
around psychological testing. Testing apparently forms the basis for work in education
and in psychotherapy." 'Counselling psychology' was described as "as an area which
was not familiar to us". They stressed the practical usefulness of the psychological
'The most familiar versions of Chinese words and names have been used throughout, rather than
consistently following pin yin.