Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： In this article, we reviewed the large body of research examining the impacts of social change on human psychology and culture. Our review revealed an increasing trend of individualism and, at the meantime, decreasing collectivism. This trend manifests on various societal and individual-level indicators, including relationship structures, first-person pronouns use, naming practices, value preferences, personality, sexual and religious attitudes, child-rearing goals and child development, cognitive styles and emotional experiences. Our review also demonstrated the complexities of cultural and psychological change, including the non-linearity of the change, endurance of traditional culture and emerging multi-cultural society. At the end, we pointed out some limitations of the existing research and highlighted some possible directions of future research.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： China has undergone unprecedented societal transformations over the past decades. A large body of research has examined the impacts of the rapid societal change on Chinese culture and psychology, including values, personality, self, emotion, motivation, parenting, trust, Guanxi, happiness, mental health, and other social attitudes and behaviors. On the one hand, individualism in general was on the rise. On the other hand, while collectivism in general is declining, as manifested in diverse values, self-construals, personalities, parenting styles and social attitudes, some traditional values persist (e.g. filial piety). Some specific findings include that 1) general trust declined; 2) negative emotions, motivation to avoid failure, and the importance of Guanxi were on the rise; 3) mental health overall was on the rise but it was getting worse for some specific groups (e.g. students in elementary and middle schools); 4) subjective well-being was decreasing in 1990s and started to rise recently. Many changes, however, varied across time and people with different demographic and social backgrounds, suggesting co-existence of multi-cultures. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications. Future study needs to extend the current research scope and examine the causes, outcomes, and mechanisms of the changes.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Scholars have approached social psychology from two perspectives: a sociological one and a psychological one. Although two perspectives have mostly developed in a parallel way, both has paid much attention into a common area: societal changes and their psychological impacts. Past sociological research on Chinese societal changes has focused on two aspects: changes in society or social structure, and changes in people. The former mainly involves urbanization, social class, social mobility, and family structure; the latter mainly involves Chinese experience, social mentality, group psychology, and organizational psychology. Research suggests that while modern individualism has been on the rise, traditional collectivism has been declining. Compared with psychological approach, sociological approach tends to adopt more emic concepts and qualitative analyses, pays more attention to group psychology as well as the influences of politics and policy, and employs more macro-historical perspective. In future research, Chinese social psychologists from the two perspectives need to learn from and collaborate with each other, ultimately achieving a better understanding of the change of Chinese people and Chinese society.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： In recent years, impacts of societal changes on human culture and psychology have become a cutting-edge research area in cultural psychology. The research from the perspective of psychology mainly concerns psychological and behavioral changes as well as their potential drives, which often involves three kinds of effect, that is, age/maturation effect， period/time effect, and cohort/generation effect. Time effect refers to effects caused by socioecological changes in a certain period (e.g., the influences of modernization on Chinese people since 1980s). Age effect refers to development growth caused by individual maturation (e.g., developmental growth during a specific period). Cohort effect refers to effects associated with a specific born year (e.g., enduring effect of modernization on 1970 generation in China). Among these effects, time effect and cohort effect are related to socioecological change, whereas age effect usually constitutes a confounder. In examining psychological changes as well as their drives, widely used research designs includes cross-time comparison, cross-generation comparison, and cross-region comparison (or historical reconstruction). By examining psychology and behaviors of people in different times, cross-time comparison allows researchers to infer how surveyed psychology and behaviors have changed with time. This examination usually involves cross-temporal analysis of published data, archive data and survey data. The survey data may be resulted from diverse designs, including cross-sequential design, longitudinal design, revolving panel design, total population design and retrospective panel design. These designs vary in difficulty of data collection. Cross-generation comparison allows researchers to infer the changes of psychology and behaviors across time by examining differences across people born in different cohorts. The cohort can be decided based on special years (e.g., 1980s, 1990s and so on) or special events (e.g., China’s opening up and reform; China’s joining in WTO). In doing this, research can compare representative samples born in different cohorts. A special case is to compare grandparents, parents, and youngest generation within a family. Cross-generation comparison within a family also allows to examine similarities and dissimilarities of different generations. Cross-regional comparison allows researchers to infer the changes of psychology and behavior by examining differences across regions at different modernization levels. A typical example is to infer psychological changes by comparing people from rural areas with those from urban areas. In this case, rural areas represent the past or tradition, whereas urbane areas represent current or modern time. Thus, rural-urban differences can be mapped onto tradition-modern differences. In examining psychological changes as well as their drives, widely used data analysis methods includes classic correlation and regression analyses, and modern time series analysis. In exploring possible causal relationships, cross-lagged correlation analysis and Granger causal test are often used. In doing correlation and regression analysis, researchers usually use year or potential socioeconomic factors to predict targeted psychological outcomes, thereby inferring the psychological trends as well as their covariations with diverse socioecological factors. Cross-lagged correlation analysis allows us to infer the direction of the covariation. Granger causal test may provide further causality test while controlling for potential influences of autoregression. Vector autoregression has received increasing attention in recent years, which can be used to model multivariate time-series data. Despite salient advances in data analysis technique, how to decompose and estimate the age effect, period effect, and cohort effect is still a challenge. More studies are needed to tackle this issue. In summary, we summarized the main research designs and data analysis techniques in studying culture, psychology, and behavior changes. It is notable that each design has specific pros and cons, researchers need to choose suitable design in terms of research question and data collection possibility. If possible, it is highly recommended to pursue convergent evidence by conducting multiple studies with diverse research designs.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2022-09-01
Abstract：
In recent years, impacts of social change on human culture and psychology have become a cutting-edge research area in cultural psychology. This research often implicates three effects: time or period effect, cohort or generation effect, and age or maturation effect, among which the former two are related to societal change, whereas the last one usually constitutes a confounder. In examining cultural and psychological changes as well as its sources, widely used research designs include cross-time comparison, cross-generation comparison and cross-regional comparison (or historical reconstruction) and widely used statistic methods includes traditional correlation and regression analyses and modern time series analyses (e.g. cross-lagged correlation analysis, Granger causality tests). Since each design has specific pros and cons, researchers need to choose suitable design in terms of research question and data collection possibility. If possible, it is highly recommended to pursue convergent evidence by conducting multiple studies with multiple research designs.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2021-07-03
Abstract： Scholars have approached social psychology from two perspectives: a sociological one and a psychological one. Although two perspectives have mostly developed in a parallel way, both has paid much attention into a common area: societal changes and their psychological impacts. Past sociological research on Chinese societal changes has focused on two aspects: changes in society or social structure, and changes in people. The former mainly involves urbanization, changes of social class, changes of social mobility, and changes of family structure; the latter mainly involves changes of Chinese experience, social mentality, group psychology, and organizational psychology. Compared with psychological approach, sociological approach tends to adopt more emic concepts and qualitative analyses, pay more attention to group psychology as well as the influences of politics and policy, and employ more macro–historical perspective. In future studies, Chinese social psychologists from the two perspectives need to learn from and collaborate with each other, ultimately achieving a better understanding of the change of Chinese people and Chinese society.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2020-07-14
Abstract： China has undergone unprecedented societal transformations over the past decades. A large body of research has examined the impacts of the rapid societal change on Chinese culture and psychology, including values, personality, self, emotion, motivation, parenting, trust, Guanxi, happiness, mental health, and other social attitudes and behaviors. On the one hand, individualism in general was on the rise. On the other hand, while collectivism in general is declining, as manifested in diverse values, self-construals, personalities, parenting styles and social attitudes, some traditional values persist (e.g. filial piety). Some specific findings include that 1) general trust declined; 2) negative emotions, motivation to avoid failure, and the importance of Guanxi were on the rise; 3) mental health overall was on the rise but it was getting worse for some specific groups (e.g. students in elementary and middle schools); 4) subjective well-being was decreasing in 1990s and started to rise recently. Many changes, however, varied across time and people with different demographic and social backgrounds, suggesting co-existence of multi-cultures. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications. Future study needs to extend the current research scope and examine the causes, outcomes, and mechanisms of the changes. "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
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