International psychological meetings provide excellent settings and also incentives for considering how psychology is developing as a science and a profession in different countries and regions of the world. This paper was originally prepared for an IUPS Symposium at the XVII Inter-American Congress of Psychology, Lima, Peru, 1979; it was subsequently updated to Spring, 1981. Visiting other countries and communicating with psychologists from different parts of the world provides much evidence of growth and development, but it is also clear that there are major differences among countries. The conditions in which psychology is growing and the demands made upon it, and even the definitions of psychology and psychologist, show a wide range from one country to another. My first goal in this brief survey will be to make preliminary comparisons of the development and status of psychology among different countries and regions, restricting the focus to a few main topics: (a) definitions of psychology and...

Trends in development and status of psychology: an international perspective

This article examines the Marxization of psychology in the first decade of socialist China, between 1949 and 1958. In this movement, a loose group of radical intellectuals called for the replacemen...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1089268019880888

From Empirical Observation to Social Intervention: The Marxization of Psychology in China, 1949–1958:

This article first describes the three periods of the recent past in Chinese theoretical psychology: (a) the period that introduced Western theoretical psychology and the establishment of Chinese theoretical psychology (1917–1948), (b) the period that introduced Soviet Russian psychology and the popularity of Marxist psychology (1949–1976), and (c) the period that reintroduced Western theoretical psychology and the birth of its Chinese counterpart (1977–present). Then, we discuss the trapped condition of contemporary Chinese theoretical psychology, such as the need for originality, the change in the Chinese academic environment, and the lack of proper self-positioning. To solve these problems in China, the following suggestions are proposed: (a) advancement of meta-theoretical research, (b) support for experimental psychological studies, (c) bridging of psychology and its neighboring disciplines, (d) bridging the gap between psychology and the public, and (e) bridging domestic and foreign cultural psychology.

Theoretical psychology in China: Past, present, and future

This article investigates the history of psychology in China from 1949 to 1965, with a focus on the geopolitics involving Western, Soviet, and Chinese schools of psychology. In the early 1950s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pressured psychologists to replace existing Western approaches with Pavlov's Soviet-sanctioned psychological theory. The shaky marriage of Pavlovian theory with Marxism, coupled with domestic and international political shifts, paved the way for two leftist criticisms of psychology, one in 1958 and the another before the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Both criticisms demanded that psychologists conceptualize mental phenomena as sociopolitically contingent and replace experimentation with class analysis. The clash between two views of human nature-the natural-biological view, which emphasized intrapersonal mental processes, and the revolutionary view, which highlighted individual connections to the sociopolitical milieu-stemmed from the Cold War ideological division, shifting Sino-Soviet relations, the CCP's conflicting commitments, and the power dynamic between the CCP and psychologists. Both critical movements were self-undermined by their violent enactment and failed to generate a fully developed Marxist psychology. In tracing these historical events, this article explores two questions. First, inspired by postcolonial historiography of psychology, it excavates Chinese Marxist critiques to rethink Western natural-scientific psychology regarding its disciplinary identity, subject matter, research methods, and social commitments. Second, by situating various schools of psychology in China's revolution, it argues that whereas natural scientific approaches of the West served scientific modernization, Chinese revolutionaries' sociopolitical approach to psychological research was tethered to class struggle. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Forging Marxist psychology in China's Cold War geopolitics, 1949-1965.

Utilizing information obtained through an international survey and existing literature, patterns in the practices, research, and preparation of professionals who deliver psychoeducational services to children and youth in six Oriental countries (i.e., China, Hong Kong1, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand) are described. Services are provided by many professional groups. While few formal programs exist for the preparation of psychologists to work in schools, those providing such services have at least a bachelor’s degree. Services commonly provided include assessment, vocational and educational guidance, counseling, parent education, and teaching. School psychological services generally are not governed by legislation or professional standards. Research tends to be applied and directed toward the construction and translations of tests and toward the needs of the mentally retarded, learning disabled, and behaviorally disordered. Ten major problems creating barriers for the delivery of psychoeducat...

Psychoeducational Services for Children and Youth in the Orient: Current Status, Problems, and some Remedies.

The state of psychology in China at the present time is discussed in the context of trends, continuities, and discontinuities in development of the discipline over the last 60 years. The work of psychologists was severely disrupted between 1966 and 1976 by the activities of the 'gang of four'. Although there is in effect a lost generation of psychologists, teaching and research have been vigorously re-established in the colleges and universities. In the Institute of Psychology, which forms part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 90 psychologists are carrying out research primarily in developmental psychology, perception, physiological and pathological psychology, and psychological theories and systems. The Chinese Psychological- Society resumed activities in 1977, and Acta Psychologica Sinica reappeared in 1979 with a circulation of 10,000 copies. Psychology in China is international in its perspective, and Chinese psychologists have welcomed many recent opportunities to establish contacts with ...

L. T. Hsü

Papers

Recent Developments In Psychology Within The People's Republic Of China