From Journal of Humanistic Psychology,Vol.37no.1 Winter1997
Humanistic Psychology
In China
Xu Jinsheng
Beijing Academy of Social Science
Summary: This article reviews the development
of humanistic psychology in China since the end of the
Cultural Revolution in 1980,including the activities of
Lin Fang, Liu xiao-feng, Chen Wei-zheng, Chen Zhong-geng,
Fang Yuan-chu, Li Guang-wei, Li Wen-tian, Li Zheng-tian,
Ma Yu-tian,Qu Wei,ShaoWei,Shong Shu-wei,Wang Deng-feng,Wang
Xiao-ping,Wu Xiao-feng,Yu Yang,Zhang Qi-ming,ZhangYi-bing,and
the author.Translations of Maslow,Rogers,May,Fromm,and
others were published in large editions,original works
were written,courses were taught,radio programs broadcast,newspaper
articles published,research undertaken,and personality
theories debated.Through 1989 Maslow's book sold 557,900
copies.Two organizations were founded,the Guangzhou Institute
of Humanistic Psychology and the Beijing Research Association
of Healthy Personalities.The events of June 1989 slowed
these developments,but they are still continuing and have
important implications for the future of China.
Part One
The Disseminating of Humanistic Psychology Into China
In the 1960s and 1970s,American humanistic psychology
was established and its influence spread.During the same
period,however,China got bogged down in years of political
chaos.Nearly all western cultures were regarded as tainted
with capitalist ideology and so were resisted and criticized.Consequently,humanistic
psychology was also rejected in China.
When the"Cultural Revolution"was put to an end
in 1980,some Chinese publications began to introduce some
western theories about management.Maslow's theories about
need levels were mentioned when those publications discussed
motivation theory.
In 1979,Lin Fang,the former editor of Workers's Daily,was
transferred into the Department of Psychology of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences;in 1981 he submitted a paper that
introduced American humanistic psychology,especially studies
by Maslow and Rogers,at an academic meeting held in Chongqing.In
November 1981, "A Theory of Human Motivation,"chapter
4 of Maslow's Motivation and Personality,was published
in a magezine called Econemic Management.The traslators
were Chen Bin-quen and Gao Wen-hao.
From 1983 to 1985,Lin Fang,Xu Jin-sheng,and others published
some monographs and treatises on humanistic psychology
in Acta Psychologica Sinica ,the most prestigious journal
of psychology in China,and Psychology Trends,including"Marxism
and Humanistic Psychology"and"Comments on Western
Humanistic Psychology"by Lin Fang,"Instinctoid-A
Key Concept of Maslow's Need Level Theory"by Xu Jin-sheng,and
"Five Chief Arguments about Humanistic Psychology"by
John Shaffer,translated by Xu Jin-sheng.
Due to China's political and social environment,the dissemination
of humanistic psychology into China aroused debates and
arguments from the very beginning.Articles appeared driticizing
humanistic psychology using Marxist viewpoints. Because
the dissemination began with Maslow,his ideas accordingly
became the first target.In 1983,a whole page in Workers'
Daily featured an article criticizing Maslow's psychology
for trying to rescue capitalism and obscure its class
contradictions.
Maslow's need level theory did not and could not either
reveal thoroughly and correctly the basic needs of the
working class under the capitalist system.What is the
basic need of the working class under the capitalist system?It
is to overthrow the capitalist labor system.(Chen Jin-yu,1983)
In early 1984,Hu Qiao-mu ,a member of the
Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of China,published a book entitled On Humanism and
the Alienation Problem,in which he called for an attack
on "bourgeois humanism"and the promotion of
"socialist humanism."In China, academic research
has been strongly influenced by political climates.The
attitude of the government,therefore, impeded the spread
of Western schools of thought, including humanistic psychology.When
humanistic psychology was criticized,it had hardly been
introduced to the Chinese.Those who launched the attack
seemed not to have studied their target of attack carefully.For
example,one article made a clear point that "On the
whole and basically we can't accept Maslow's need theory.Self-designing
and self-actualizing can't make people needed by our society"(Chen
Pei-lin,1984,p.6).In this 10-page article,17 quotations
were used. Of these quotations,14 were from The Collected
Works of Marx and Engels,one from The Selected Works of
Mao Ze Dong, one (by Piterroph) from General Psychology,and
only one from A Theory of Human Motivation,translated
by Chen Bin-quen and Gao Wen-hao.
Even the former head of the Department of Psychology of
the Chinese Academy of Sciences,Xu Lian-chang,while summarizing
the criticisms of Maslow's need level theory by China's
learned circle,put forward a compromise viewpoint that
criticized but did not negate Maslow completely.
What the learned circle criticizes Maslow
for is maily the predominant need in his theory-for self-actualization-because
this need is based on individuals.It emphasizes giving
rein to self potentials.It cannot include higher social
needs such as serving the people or sacrificing individual
benefits for the socialist cause.This criticism has some
justification,but Maslow's viewpoints offered some valuable
information.We cannot wipe them all out.(Xu Lian-Chang,1986,p.37)
These comments wer obviously a political
criticism,not a real academic discussion.Therefore,Xu
Jin-sheng published his long monograph, "Talking
about Maslow's Need Level Theory" in Guangming Daily
in 1986.This article refuted the above statement and cleared
up some distortion.It stated:
Psychology studies psychological processed
such as sensation,awareness and emotions etc. Just as
what psychology studies is not merely the psychological
process of a certain class or a certain individual specifically,
but the commonly-possessed universal psychological process
possessed by human beings, the needs which Maslow's need
level theory studies are not the needs of a certain class
or a certain individual either. They are the needs which
human beings commonly express. If we require that a psychologist
discover a need which is supposedly specifically that
of the working class under the capitalist system,we will
practically confuse the purposes of both political theory
and psychology study.(Xu Jin-sheng,December 22,1986,Guangming
Daily,p.3)
This monograph also pointed out the difference
between basic needs and motivation. Basic needs are a
potential of the subconscious, which is "instinctoid,"
while motivation is realized in specific social environments.
As a potential or orientation,self-actualization is innate,but
as a specific motivation or "conscious desire,"
it is acquired in social contexts. Another point of this
monograph concerns the reason for the slowness in Chinese
social development over a long period of time.Viewed from
the perspective of motivation structure, an important
reason is that the general Chinese personality level remained
at lower level needs (e.g.,belonging), and the potentials
of self-esteem and self-actualization sere not realized.
As Guangming Daily is a national newspaper with a large
circulation,this monograph had great influence at that
time.
Although the political climate in China was still unfavorable
for academic studies, from 1984 some humanistic psychology
enthusiasts began to get in contact with each other. They
got together and decided to publish a collection of humanistic
psychology translations in order to extend the influence
of humanistic psychology.In 1987,this collection was published
under the title of Man's Potentialities and Value.Lin
Fang was the chief editor.The main translators were Liu
Xiao-feng,Chen Wei-zheng, and Xu Jin-sheng. The first
edition was 30,000, and the book reached 125,900 by 1989.
In 1987, a collection of translations for introducing
Maslow was published under the title Self-Actualizing
People.Xu Jin-sheng was the chief editor and translator.The
first edition was 100,000. It was regarded as one of the
most popular books by America's Overseas Chinese Daily
and China's magazine Shu Lin(Book Forest).
In 1987,three important books of Maslow's were translated
and published in China.One was Motivation and Personality,
its chief translator Xu Jin-sheng. The first edition reached
102,000.An other was Toward a Psychology of Being.Li Wen-tian
was the translator. The first edition was 40,000. Another
was Further Reaches of Human Nature.Lin Fang was the translator.
The first edition was 80,000.
From 1983,enthusiasm developed in China toward western
academic trends of thought , producing a "Sartre
Craze," a "Freud Craze," and a "Nietzsche
Craze." From 1987,China's "Humanistic Pshochology
Craze," especially its "Maslow Craze,"
gradually took shape ,and through 1989 Maslow's books
sold 557,900 copies.
In 1988, the Healthy Personality Series of which Xu Jin-sheng
was the chief editor began to be published at the Worker's
Publishing House and the Beijing University Press. The
publications were as follows:
Toward the New World of Personality-Probing
into Healthy Personality(treatise by Xu Jin-sheng; 22,000
copies)
Healthy Personality(by jourard, translated by Xu Jin-sheng
and others; 11,000 copies)
The Psychology of Science(by A.H.Maslow,translated by
Shao Wei and others; 8,000 copies)
Fully Human,Fully Alive(by Jonh Powells, translated by
Wu Xiao-feng and others;20,000 copies)
After the June 4 , 1989 event ,the series
reached a standstill.From 1991,China's political situation
turned better, and it seemed possible to published the
series again.But then the whole publishing business fell
into a depression. The publishing houses now require a
subsidy that the editors cannot afford, so the eight other
completed books cannot be published yet.
From 1987 to 1989, Rollo May's Love and Will,Carl Rogers's
Concultation and Psychological Treatment, and Fromm's
Man for Himself,Beyond the Chains of Illusion ,and The
Art of loving were published at different publishing houses.
At the end of 1989,Heart's Perplexity and Self-Help by
Lin Fang was published. This was a book written by a Chinese
scholar who had commented thoroughly about humanistic
psychology. It offered rich information and for the first
time introduced Transpersonal Psychology. But because
it was the time just after the June 4 event ,the editon
was only 800.
In 1991,Li Guang-wei published his book The Dream of the
Fourth Generation.The edition was 6,750.Zhang Yi-bing
published his book, The Fifth Generation of Western Humanistic
Psychology.The edition was 3,000. Both of these books
aimed at elucidating the significance of humanistic psychology.
In 1992, Yu Yang published his book The Y Structure of
Human Nature in an edition of 3,000. The author held that
the quintessence of humanism is that is understands and
supports the best aspects of human behavior. The bookd
criticized Maslow's need level theory and put forward
another need theory.
Part Two
The Influence of Humanistic Psychology in China
The influence of humanistic psychology on
the field of psychology in China is very small, and it
can hardly be used in any formal research project. There
were two major reasons: First, from 1949 to befor the
Cultural Revolution, China's psychology had been greatly
influenced by that of the former Soviet Union. Pavlov's
theories had been one-sidedly emphasized. Around the Cultural
Revolution psychology research was allowed to resume,
it emphasized experimental behaviorism. Second ,in China,
due to the long domination of the Left trend on the academic
field ,humanitarianism had been criticized. It had been
regarded as the "bourgeois theory of human nature,"
"revisionism," and so on. Researchers sere all
afraid of being suspected of going in for "liberalization."
At the Department of Psychology at the Chinese Academy
of Sciences ,Lin Fang was the only person to take humanistic
psychology as his major. As a result he was uinfairly
treated in his professional career.
The influence of humanistic psychology in China mainly
appeared as part of the ideology liberation campaign,
which arose after the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese
accepted the influence of humanistic psychology to a great
extent as a concept of value and an outlook on life. Under
the influence of passive parts of China's traditional
culture and under the control of cultural autocracy after
1949, the personality of the Chinese had been in the state
of shrinking .They possessed the malady of sticking to
old ways and resigning themselves to adversity. The disseminating
of humanistic psychology played a role of enlightenment.
It awakened people to a sense of subject. For example
,Maslow's psychology makes people realize that everybody
possessed basic needs. The gratification of basic needs
is viewed as a human right that in endowed by nature and
cannot be deprived. This ideology liberation took place
first among intellectuals and college students. The following
numbers can show the popularity of humanistic psychology
among college ane university students.
In 1990, Yang Hui-zhu and colleagues made a random sampling
inverstigation among students at 13 universities.They
handed out 2,000 questionnaires and got back 1,862 responses
for a response rate of 93.1%. The researchers listed 22
"representative western academic books." Among
the first 10 popular books ,there were 2 concering Maslow's
psychology:The Third Force:Maslow's psychology(by Frank
Goble, translated by Lu Ming and others ) and Self-Actualizing
People.Students responded as follows:
The Third Force:Maslow's psychology
Read carefully:7.3%
Read generally:19.1%
Self-Actualizing People
Read carefully:6.1%
Read generally:13.2%
The Track of Different Scholls of Thought,by
Liu Xiang-ping, is a book about the influence of Western
ideology upon Chinese university students. In discussing
the Maslow Craze ,he wrote:
A Xinhua bookstore in a capital city in
the South laid in 2,000 copies of Motivation and Personality
and sold them out within less than 3 weeks. At colleges
and universities many students who had failed to get the
book were trying everywhere in order to buy it. At one
time on the campuses of colleges and universities many
students who had failed to get the book were trying everywhere
in order to buy it .At one time on the campuses of colleages
and universities the name of Maslow became quite popular
and in some classes 2/3 of the students possessed at least
on book by Maslow. According to a survery by Northeastern
Normal University, Sellf-Actualizing People by Maslow
was among the books borrowed and read the widest by the
students.
Compared with the "Nietzsche Craze" and other
Western ideology crazes, the "Maslow Craze"enjoys
more individual spontaneity and less flowing the general
trend. What is interesting is that almost at the same
time when the "Maslow Craze" grew hotter and
hotter, the "Freud Craze"got colder and colder.
Unitl 1988,books by Freud were seriously overstocked in
bookstores and Creation and Unconsciousness was wellilng
at book-stands at a discount. The reason why the "Maslow
Craze" prevails over those on many other Western
thoughts lies in that while the "Nietzsche Craze,"
"Sartre Craze," and "Freud Craze"show
more or less pessimism about philoshophy of life , Maslow
shows optimism about human existence and has full confidence
in human future.(Liu Xiang-ping,1991,p.137)
Another characteristic of humanistic psychology in China
has been its wide impact on literature and art.Take the
instance of The Theory of Subject published by Liu Zhai-fu
in the field of literary theory.It was obviously developed
after the author had accepted the influence of Maslow's
psychology.This theory evoked great repercussions in the
field of literature.In the field of China's literature
and art ,many artists,writers,and aestheticians have read
books on humanistic psychology.
The influence of humanistic psychology is extensive.The
book An Introduction to the Famous Books on Psychology
of the West published in October 1991,edited by Ma Wen-ju
and others,is a reference book for the teaching of social
science of China's colleges and universities.In it 24
books by 23 psychologists are listed,beginning with Willhelm
Wundt(1832-1920),Five books by four humanistic psychologists(Maslow,
Rogers, Fromm, and May) are introduced among the 24 books,Throughout
the book,Maslow was the only psychologist who had two
books mentioned:Motivation and Personality and Toward
the Psychology of Being.
Another two events that show the influence of humanistic
psychology in China are the establishment of China's two
institutions of research on humanistic psychology,In 1986,Guangzhou,China's
Institute of Humanistic Psychology,announced its founding.The
president of the institute was Li Zheng-tian,who was a
teacher of Guangzhou Art Institue.The membership was over
60.The members were mainly from the learned circle,including
teachers of colleges and universities,scientific research
personel,artist,and writers.The large activities organized
by the institute were two academic meetings:"Discussion
about the Psychological Renewal of Countrymen"and
"Discussion about the Psychological Similarities
and Differences between the Chinese across the Straits."The
role of the institute was mainly in having pushed forward
the introspection and study on the nationality of the
Chinese,and accelerating the spreading of humanistic psychology
in the art circle.The institute announced its disbanding
before the event of June 4,1989.
In 1988,Xu Jin-sheng,Qu Wei,Zhang Qi-ming,Wang Xiao-ping,and
some other people won the support of some enlightened
leaders in the field of social science in Beijing and
set up the Beijing Research Association of Healthy Personalities(BRAHP).The
association was attached to the learned society of social
science of Beijing.It was a second-class association under
the Beijing Federation of Social Science.President of
the Association was Fang Yuan-chu.Vice presidents were
three:Ma Yu-tian,Shong Shu-wei,and Xu Jin-sheng(also concurrently
secretary-general).The membership was 130(including 50
outside of Beijing).The association stated its aim as
to "Unite with those interested in the problems,assist
China's realization of modernizations and enhance the
quality of the Chinese."The association has run two
sessions of a nation wide training class,"Theory
of Humanistic Psychology and Psychological Counseling."The
classes invited experts and scholars in Beijing to give
lectures.Two hundred persons came from all parts of the
country to Beijing for study.
The association has also held six academic discussions,such
as "The Present Personality State and Its Development
in the Chinese,""The Significance of Maslow's
Psychology for the Present China,"and so on.Eleven
academic reports were held,such as "The Present State
of the Study of Personality Theory and Its Prospect Abroad,""An
Introduction to the Theory of Psychological Therapy,""Man's
Problems in the Course of China's Modernization,"and
so on.BRAHP also received attention in national newspapers
such as Guangming Daily,Chinese Youth,The Chinese Culture,and
The Chinese Woman.
After the June 4,1989 event,the association stopped its
activities because of the change of the political climate.Some
members were criticized openly or covertly.In the instance
of Xu Jin-sheng,his introduction to Maslow's psychology
of self-actualization was criticized as having poisoned
young people and accelerated the overwhelming liberalization
trend.Xu Jin-sheng's treatise Towards the New World of
Personality-Probing into Healthy Personality was censured
as an attack that socialism is unfavorable for man's growth
in the name of talking about healthy personality.After
Deng Xiao-ping made his speech on his inspection of the
south in early 1992,China's political situation turned
better and the association began to resume its activities.But
because of shortage of funds,it is not as active as before.Financial
support from the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences has
been cut off since 1989.
In summer,1993,BRAHP and Beijing People's Radio Station
launched a radio program,"Healthy Personalities and
Life."During the period of one month,50 minutes a
day,Xu Jin-sheng and his colleagues talked about and discussed
with the listeners theories of humanistic psychology.This
program related the theories with specific aspects of
people's life and was done in a way that the public could
easily understand.A survey shows that it had a listening
audience as large as 500,000.
In December,1993,BRAHP held a discussion entitled "Mao
Tze-tung's Personality."Participants made analyses
of Mao's personality by examining his political activities.This
event was reported by China Youth Daily.
In July,1994,BRAHP held a discussion entitled "Mystery
of Gu Cheng's Suicide."Gu Cheng was a famous Chinese
poet.In October,1993,he killed his wife and then committed
suicide on a small island of New Zealand where they resided.While
the death of Gu Cheng became a heated topic in China,the
participants of the discussion analyzed his personality
from the perspective of humanistic psychology.
From 1986,psychological consultation became popular in
China.Nowadays in wany major cities there are professional
or nonprofessional insititutions.Of all the methods,Roggers's
clientcentered therapy enjoys a great reputation.In the
book Psychological Theray and Consultation by Chen Zhong-geng
published in Monographs on this therapy appear in magazines
from time to time.Based on Roggers's therapy combined
with the situation of China,Wang Deng-feng worked out
his "Self-Consistency Scale"in 1992.In China's
colleges and universities in which there are departments
of psychology,a course on personality psychology is generally
given and humanistic psychology is included.
The expansion of humanistic psychology in China is also
evident in the numbers below:Material Compilation,published
by People's University of China,is an authoritative,widely
distributed reference publication,It selects and reprints
articles taken from newspaper and magazines nationwide.Psychology
is one part of the compilation that is published monthly.From
1980 to 1983,there appeared only one article on humanistic
psychology,but from 1987 to 1989,11 articles on humanistic
psychology were carried.
Part three
The Study of Humanistic Psychology by Chinese
Scholars
The study of humanistic psychology by Chinese
scholars can be divided into the following aspects.
1. The Comparison Between Humanistic
Psychology and Marxism
Lin Fang held that the common ground of humanistic psychology
and Marxism lies in that both of their purposes are for
the liberation of human potential,but humanistic psychology
relatively ignores the effects of social environments
on peple.
Xu Jin-sheng holds that Maslow's need level theory and
Marx's theory of society development period have a certain
connection and corresponding relation.If we classify human
being' personality based on the need level theory ,every
society development period has its predominant general
personality.The general personality of the primitive society
was existence;of the salve society,safety;of the feudal
society,belongingness;of the capitalist society,self-esteem;of
the communist society(or some society much more improved
than the present society),self-actualization.
2. The Comparison Between Humanistic Psychology and China's
Traditional Culture
Zhang Dai-nian(honorary president of the learned society
of China's philosophy history and professor in the Beijing
University philosophy history and professor in the Beijing
University philosophy department)holds that China's traditional
culture,especially the culture of the Confucian school,has
a great deal to communicate with humanistic psychology.Both
Confucians and Mencius believed that human nature is kind.Every
person can become Yao and Shun(legendary monarchs in ancient
China).This thought is in harmony with Maslow's thought
that every person has the potential to actualize himself
or herself.
Lin Fang believed that when American humanistic psychologists
talk about China's philosophy of Taoist school,they often
tend to mention Lao Tzu.Actually one of the originators
of the philosophy of Taoist school,Chuang Tzu,is very
important to humanistic psychology.For example:"da
sheng"by Chuang Tzu means to develop smoothly;and
the so-called wang shi zhi shi is equivalent to what Maslow
means by"peak experience."
3. The Present State of the Chinese Personality and Its
Develoment,Using the Viewpoint of Humanistic Psychology
In May 1987,Xu Jin-sheng made a questionnaire investigation
of 120 people,including 40 college and university teachers,10
sicentific researchers,and 20 office workers.The subjects
were required to read carefully Maslow's description of
self-actualizing people,namely Chapter 12 in Motivation
and Personality,then fill in the questionnaire.There were
95 responses received,a response rate of 79.1%.The result
showed that China's intellectuals highly affirm self-actualizing
people.The following were two of the questions:
Are you willing to become one of the self-actualizing
people Maslow described?
Yes:92.6%
No:0
No answer:7.4%
Do you think that the more people become self-actualizing
the better our society will become?
Yes:82.4%
Uncertain:11.6%
No:0
No response:6%
How to describe the change of the personality development
of the Chinese people under the situation of reforming
and opening?Xu describes this as a trend in which the
general personality of the Chinese is turning from an
emphasizes belongingness has already gratified his or
her needs for physiological satisfaction and safety to
a certain degree and now can turn attention to the gratification
of belongingness,setting up a family and reproducing offspring.A
person who emphasizes self-esteem has gratified the needs
for physiological satisfaction,safety,and belongingness,and
now can turn attention to the need for self-esteem,seeking
achievements,and the realization of more individual values.The
self-esteem oriented personality has a stronger sense
of human rights,expressive spirit,focus on efficiency,and
cooperative habits.This point of view has been published
and reprinted by at least 17 newspapers and journals.
Farmers compose approximately 80% of the population in
China.It is from the countryside that Chinese economic
reformations started in 1979,and spread to the city afterward.Thus
the trend of personality transformation can be clearly
observed in rural areas.According to Xu Jin-sheng's(1987)survey
on farmers who had already become well-off and those who
had not,a smaller percentage of the successful farmers
held positive attitudes toward traditional values of the
belonging personality(see Table1).
Under China's condition,can there be people who can actualize
themselves?To answer this question,Xu sees evidence that
in some cases there can actually be gratification of a
person's higher level needs under adverse conditions,personality
usually changes in one of two directions:toward shrinking
or toward self-actualizing.Fewer people move toward self-actualization,but
those who do can endure the relative deficiency of the
gratification for lower needs and bring into play their
higher potentials,showing features of the
TABLE 1: Values Held by Two kinds of Farmers
Well-Off Farmers(%) Ordinary Farmers(%)
Having a large family is a sign of
family prosperity, therefore an honor 37.3 55.9
If I don't have a son, my family will be
Laughed at as "a family that has no
offspring" 24.5 40.9
The main purpose of having children
is to continue the family line 50.4 61.7
The more children I have, the more
my life in the later years will be
guaranteed 61.8 81.4
self-actualizing people Maslow described,
including even more resistance against cultural conformity
than the self-actualizing people Maslow described. Outwardly
they manage to appear ad-justed to the environment, while
inwardly they are incompatible with it.
For example, Xu has studied a famous artist who describes
bringing his hidden potential into play in a process called
"smug-gling." In this sense, "smuggling"
means cleverly expressing one's views conducive to social
development by using means that are permitted by the political
system of the time. Under the condition of cultural autocracy,
those "smugglers" managed to publish a number
of good works.
4. The Cultural Significance of Peak Experience
Xu Jin-sheng (1988,1994) held that human beings' end goals
and self-actualization are essential issues that most
cultures are bound to address. Culture in its narrow sense
refers to the value system, and its core issue is the
design of ideal personalities. Such a design consists
of description of the end goal and description of the
process, where the former is description of the highest
state that human personalities can reach and the latter
is specific suggestions concerning how to reach this state.
An overall examination of human cultures in the world
shows that most of their end descriptions contain the
feature of peak experiences. The "oneness of heaven
and man" of Confucianism, the "nirvana"
of Mahayana Buddhism, the "being with God" of
Islam, even the "exhilaration of the Wine God"
of Nietzsche-all these, when realized in individual experience,
are peak experi-ences of one kind or another. Therefore,
the cultural significance of peak experience first of
all lies in the fact that it is a concept that can be
applied in cultural comparison.
Using peak experience as an index to compare different
cultures, we find that cultural difference in end descriptions
is much smaller than process descriptions. The end descriptions
of various cultures can be roughly captured by the concept
of peak experience, but in process descriptions there
are considerable cultural differences such as the contrast
between "renouncing the world" and "entering
the world." While Buddhism believes in "giving
up worldly pur-suits," Confucianism advocates "cultivate
the self, put the family in order, administer the country
and unite the world." The small difference in end
descriptions can be accounted for by the common and universal
traits in human nature. When portraying the highest state
that human nature can reach, different cultures come to
very similar views. The comparatively large difference
in process description can be accounted for by the diversity
of social contexts. When depicting the ways that lead
to the highest end, each culture will invariably consider
its own particular environment, hence different descriptions.
The common saying"all roads lead to Rome" illustrates
the small difference in end description and large differ-ence
in process description.
5. Study of "Best Foreign Language Learners"
In recent years, theories of humanistic psychology have
been applied to the field of linguistics and foreign language
teaching. Using a theoretical framework of humanistic
psychology and em-pirical data obtained by interviewing
some recognized"best foreign language learners,"
Gao Yi-hong(e.g., 1992) found that foreign language and
culture learning at a higher level is closely associated
with the cultivation of healthy personalities. The existing
"accul-turation model" (Schumann,1978), which
favors a total substitu-tion of cultural identities, is
misleading, because the subjects in that study were at
the lower level of basic needs (e.g.,belonging) and they
could only serve as examples of "non-learning"
rather than "learning." Successful foreign language
learning involves a positive interaction between the native
language and the target language, the native cultural
identity and the target cultural identity. In Erich Fromm's
terms, the relationship between different languages and
cultural identities is a "productive" one. In
Maslow's terms, these best learners will transcend the
dichotomy of cultural identities and achieve "synergy"
in language and cultural personalities. At a deep enough
level, discovery of"selfhood" and discovery
of "specieshood" will merge into one.
6. The Debate Over"Indigenization"and Applicability
of Rogers's Person-Centered Therapy
The"indigenization"of psychological theories,
including theo-ries of humanistic psychology, was the
major theme and debate issue at the second Symposium on
Social Psychology of the Chinese People (Inner Mongolia,
August, 1994). Promoters of the indigenization movement,
the most prominent ones from Taiwan and Hong Kong (e.g.,
Yang Guo-shu from Taiwan University), hold that psychological
theories and methods produced by Western (especially American)
scholars should not be followed blindly, and when studying
psychology of the Chinese, native cultural characteristics
have to be taken into serious consideration.
In the field of psychotherapy and psychological counseling,
Yue Xiao-dong from the Chinese University of Hong Kong
makes the point that the person-centered approach of Carl
Rogers cannot be put into direct use, because the Chinese
culture stresses interde-pendence between people, and
the counselors' "non-directive" ap-proach will
appear to be too cold and impersonal to the Chinese clients.
Some others, on the other hand, are trying to apply the
person-centered approach. Gao Yi-hong, for example, makes
an effort to combine Rogers's theory with linguistic techniques
in the analysis of telephone counseling discourse. Discussion
and debate on"indigenization" raised the following
questions: Whether cul-tural uniqueness overrides universal
characteristics of human beings; whether contemporary
social values in China are essen-tially the same as the
traditional ones; whether the commonly held beliefs are
healthy, and whether they should be followed or changed.
Part Four
The prospects for the Influence of Humanistic Psychology
in China
Humanistic psychology has not won great
influence in China's formal field of academic psychology.
However, its influence apparently has broad social effects.
Perhaps that is the aim of humanistic psychology, after
all. Humanistic psychology emphasizes that psychology
should make contributions to human value, meaning, and
happiness. Looking forward to the future of China, humanistic
psychology may play an even greater role.
In October 1992, the fourteenth National Congress of the
Com-munist Party of China set "socialist market economy"
as its goal for development. Accordingly, the pace for
China's reforming and opening is quickened. Under the
new situation, the need of the Chinese society for the
theory and methods of humanistic psychol-ogy will be growing
even stronger. This is because the ruling party of the
country, the Communist Party, still advocates,"Grasp
the two civilizations simultaneously," namely, lay
stress on building both material civilization and spiritual
civilization. The Party's traditional political ideological
work cannot be deserted, but the Party's traditional approach
to building spiritual civilization-the content and methods
of the ideological political work-have lost efficacy.
Thus a state of "value vacuum" appeared. This
vacuum state needs filling up. Under the Party's traditional
political sys-tem, departments of propaganda and personnel
established in every level of the Party's organizations.
A lot of these personnel have already had nothing to do
under the new situation. Some researchers at Beijing Association
of Humanistic Psychology advocate that the political ideological
work should combine with psychological work. The personnel
concerned should care about people and understand people
by offering psychological consultation. The traditional
work whose aim was controlling and making use of people,
pouring into people's minds doctrines such as "Stick
to Marxism," and so forth, should be replaced gradually.
At present, some political ideological workers have already
studied or received training in psychological consultation.
This influence is far-reaching. Nowadays there appears
a tendency for political ideological work to decline gradually
while psychological consultation becomes popular.
The influence of humanistic psychology is not limited
only to college and university students and academic circles,
but also extends to the Communist Party of China. In a
thick book titled The Science of Socialist Spiritual Civilization
published in 1988 the author pointed out that the basic
aim of socialist spiritual civilization construction is
to cultivate healthy personality. When defining healthy
personality, the author quoted Maslow's descrip-tion of
self-actualizing people.
With the gradual relaxing of China's politics, its economic
sys-tem develops gradually toward a market economy. Consequently,
an "Economy Craze" grows in China. The pace
of the society quickens. A number of people become rich,
but then suffer from a sense of emptiness. The competition
is getting even more intense, and pressure is increasingly
stronger. Consequently people's psy-chological problems
are increased. Based on my comparison study (Jin-sheng,
1993) between China's inland and the coastland where the
economy is much more developed, the latter's need for
psycho-logical consultation is stronger and the interest
in the theory of humanistic psychology is greater too.
Because of what is related above, there is much in the
study of humanistic psychology in other countries (especially
in the United States) that China can make use of. Other
countries may also benefit from the humanistic psychology
that is developing in China. It can be said that China's
study and application of humanistic psychology has just
begun.
REFERENCES
Chen Jin-yu. (1983). Political work and
behavioral sciences. Workers'Daly,11(22),3.
Chen Pei-lin. (1984). Need theories in psychology. Psychology
Research,1(2),6.
Gao Yi-hong (1992). A 1+1<2 model of foreign language
learning. Doctoral dissertation, English Department, Peking
University.
Liu Xiang-ping. (1991). The track of different schools
of thought. Shenyang: Liaoning People's Publishing House.
Schumann, J. (1978).The acculturation model for second-language
acqui-sition. In R. C. Gingras(Ed.), Second-language acquisition
and foreign language teaching. VA: Center for Applied
Linguistics.
Xu Jin-sheng. (1986,December 22). Talking about Maslow's
need level theory. Guangming Daily,3.
Xu Jin-sheng.(1987). Chinese personality development and
social structure. In Song Shu-wei (Ed.), Social structure
and multi-dimensional analysis. Beijing: Beijing Academy
of Sciences.
Xu Jin-sheng. (1988). Towards the new world of personality-Probing
into health personality. Beijing: Workers' Publishing
House.
Xu Jin-sheng. (1993). Healthy personality and market economy.
Modern Mankind, 1(12), 1.
Xu Jin-sheng. (1994). On Maslow's peak experience theory.
Knowledge in Various Fields, 10, 28-29.
Xu Lian-chang. (1986). Psychology of management. Beijing
Management Press.
About the author: Xu Jin-sheng is a research
fellow at the Sociology Department of Beijing Academy
of Social Science and vice president and secretary-general
of Beijing Research Association of Humanistic Psychology.
He specializes in the study of theories of sociology,
psychology, and personality. He is one of the major researchers
on humanistic psychology in the mainland of China. His
main publications on humanistic psychology are as follows:
Treatise:
Towards the New World, or Personality-Probing Into Healthy
Personality (1988)
Monographs:
Three Elements of Personality (1984)
A Key Concept of Maslow's Need Level Theory (1985)
Comments on Maslow's Need Level Theory (1985)
The Chinese Traditional Culture and Personality (1987)
The Modern and Contemporary Culture and Personality of
the West (1987)
Comments on Healthy Personality of the West (1988)
Maslow and Marx (1991)
On Maslow's Peak Experience Theory (1994)
Openness and Healthy Personality (1995)
Translations:
Self-Actualizing People (Selected compilations based on
Maslow's works, 1986)
Motivation and Personality (1987)
Stages of Life (Form Jung, 1986)
Compilation:
Healthy Personality Series (1988_)
Present Research Projects:
The Personality change of the Chinese in the Reforming
and Opening Taoism and Humanistic Psychology
Reprint requests: Xu Jinsheng, Beijing Academy of Social
Sciences, Bei-Sihuan-Zhonglu 33#, Beijing 100101/Chaoyang,China.
From Journal of Humanistic Psychology,Vol.37no.1
Winter1997
Humanistic Psychology In China
Xu Jinsheng
Beijing Academy of Social Science
Summary: This article reviews the development
of humanistic psychology in China since the end of the
Cultural Revolution in 1980,including the activities of
Lin Fang, Liu xiao-feng, Chen Wei-zheng, Chen Zhong-geng,
Fang Yuan-chu, Li Guang-wei, Li Wen-tian, Li Zheng-tian,
Ma Yu-tian,Qu Wei,ShaoWei,Shong Shu-wei,Wang Deng-feng,Wang
Xiao-ping,Wu Xiao-feng,Yu Yang,Zhang Qi-ming,ZhangYi-bing,and
the author.Translations of Maslow,Rogers,May,Fromm,and
others were published in large editions,original works
were written,courses were taught,radio programs broadcast,newspaper
articles published,research undertaken,and personality
theories debated.Through 1989 Maslow's book sold 557,900
copies.Two organizations were founded,the Guangzhou Institute
of Humanistic Psychology and the Beijing Research Association
of Healthy Personalities.The events of June 1989 slowed
these developments,but they are still continuing and have
important implications for the future of China.
Part One
The Disseminating of Humanistic Psychology Into China
In the 1960s and 1970s,American humanistic psychology
was established and its influence spread.During the same
period,however,China got bogged down in years of political
chaos.Nearly all western cultures were regarded as tainted
with capitalist ideology and so were resisted and criticized.Consequently,humanistic
psychology was also rejected in China.
When the"Cultural Revolution"was put to an end
in 1980,some Chinese publications began to introduce some
western theories about management.Maslow's theories about
need levels were mentioned when those publications discussed
motivation theory.
In 1979,Lin Fang,the former editor of Workers's Daily,was
transferred into the Department of Psychology of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences;in 1981 he submitted a paper that
introduced American humanistic psychology,especially studies
by Maslow and Rogers,at an academic meeting held in Chongqing.In
November 1981, "A Theory of Human Motivation,"chapter
4 of Maslow's Motivation and Personality,was published
in a magezine called Econemic Management.The traslators
were Chen Bin-quen and Gao Wen-hao.
From 1983 to 1985,Lin Fang,Xu Jin-sheng,and others published
some monographs and treatises on humanistic psychology
in Acta Psychologica Sinica ,the most prestigious journal
of psychology in China,and Psychology Trends,including"Marxism
and Humanistic Psychology"and"Comments on Western
Humanistic Psychology"by Lin Fang,"Instinctoid-A
Key Concept of Maslow's Need Level Theory"by Xu Jin-sheng,and
"Five Chief Arguments about Humanistic Psychology"by
John Shaffer,translated by Xu Jin-sheng.
Due to China's political and social environment,the dissemination
of humanistic psychology into China aroused debates and
arguments from the very beginning.Articles appeared driticizing
humanistic psychology using Marxist viewpoints. Because
the dissemination began with Maslow,his ideas accordingly
became the first target.In 1983,a whole page in Workers'
Daily featured an article criticizing Maslow's psychology
for trying to rescue capitalism and obscure its class
contradictions.
Maslow's need level theory did not and could not either
reveal thoroughly and correctly the basic needs of the
working class under the capitalist system.What is the
basic need of the working class under the capitalist system?It
is to overthrow the capitalist labor system.(Chen Jin-yu,1983)
In early 1984,Hu Qiao-mu ,a member of the
Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of China,published a book entitled On Humanism and
the Alienation Problem,in which he called for an attack
on "bourgeois humanism"and the promotion of
"socialist humanism."In China, academic research
has been strongly influenced by political climates.The
attitude of the government,therefore, impeded the spread
of Western schools of thought, including humanistic psychology.When
humanistic psychology was criticized,it had hardly been
introduced to the Chinese.Those who launched the attack
seemed not to have studied their target of attack carefully.For
example,one article made a clear point that "On the
whole and basically we can't accept Maslow's need theory.Self-designing
and self-actualizing can't make people needed by our society"(Chen
Pei-lin,1984,p.6).In this 10-page article,17 quotations
were used. Of these quotations,14 were from The Collected
Works of Marx and Engels,one from The Selected Works of
Mao Ze Dong, one (by Piterroph) from General Psychology,and
only one from A Theory of Human Motivation,translated
by Chen Bin-quen and Gao Wen-hao.
Even the former head of the Department of Psychology of
the Chinese Academy of Sciences,Xu Lian-chang,while summarizing
the criticisms of Maslow's need level theory by China's
learned circle,put forward a compromise viewpoint that
criticized but did not negate Maslow completely.
What the learned circle criticizes Maslow
for is maily the predominant need in his theory-for self-actualization-because
this need is based on individuals.It emphasizes giving
rein to self potentials.It cannot include higher social
needs such as serving the people or sacrificing individual
benefits for the socialist cause.This criticism has some
justification,but Maslow's viewpoints offered some valuable
information.We cannot wipe them all out.(Xu Lian-Chang,1986,p.37)
These comments wer obviously a political
criticism,not a real academic discussion.Therefore,Xu
Jin-sheng published his long monograph, "Talking
about Maslow's Need Level Theory" in Guangming Daily
in 1986.This article refuted the above statement and cleared
up some distortion.It stated:
Psychology studies psychological processed
such as sensation,awareness and emotions etc. Just as
what psychology studies is not merely the psychological
process of a certain class or a certain individual specifically,
but the commonly-possessed universal psychological process
possessed by human beings, the needs which Maslow's need
level theory studies are not the needs of a certain class
or a certain individual either. They are the needs which
human beings commonly express. If we require that a psychologist
discover a need which is supposedly specifically that
of the working class under the capitalist system,we will
practically confuse the purposes of both political theory
and psychology study.(Xu Jin-sheng,December 22,1986,Guangming
Daily,p.3)
This monograph also pointed out the difference
between basic needs and motivation. Basic needs are a
potential of the subconscious, which is "instinctoid,"
while motivation is realized in specific social environments.
As a potential or orientation,self-actualization is innate,but
as a specific motivation or "conscious desire,"
it is acquired in social contexts. Another point of this
monograph concerns the reason for the slowness in Chinese
social development over a long period of time.Viewed from
the perspective of motivation structure, an important
reason is that the general Chinese personality level remained
at lower level needs (e.g.,belonging), and the potentials
of self-esteem and self-actualization sere not realized.
As Guangming Daily is a national newspaper with a large
circulation,this monograph had great influence at that
time.
Although the political climate in China was still unfavorable
for academic studies, from 1984 some humanistic psychology
enthusiasts began to get in contact with each other. They
got together and decided to publish a collection of humanistic
psychology translations in order to extend the influence
of humanistic psychology.In 1987,this collection was published
under the title of Man's Potentialities and Value.Lin
Fang was the chief editor.The main translators were Liu
Xiao-feng,Chen Wei-zheng, and Xu Jin-sheng. The first
edition was 30,000, and the book reached 125,900 by 1989.
In 1987, a collection of translations for introducing
Maslow was published under the title Self-Actualizing
People.Xu Jin-sheng was the chief editor and translator.The
first edition was 100,000. It was regarded as one of the
most popular books by America's Overseas Chinese Daily
and China's magazine Shu Lin(Book Forest).
In 1987,three important books of Maslow's were translated
and published in China.One was Motivation and Personality,
its chief translator Xu Jin-sheng. The first edition reached
102,000.An other was Toward a Psychology of Being.Li Wen-tian
was the translator. The first edition was 40,000. Another
was Further Reaches of Human Nature.Lin Fang was the translator.
The first edition was 80,000.
From 1983,enthusiasm developed in China toward western
academic trends of thought , producing a "Sartre
Craze," a "Freud Craze," and a "Nietzsche
Craze." From 1987,China's "Humanistic Pshochology
Craze," especially its "Maslow Craze,"
gradually took shape ,and through 1989 Maslow's books
sold 557,900 copies.
In 1988, the Healthy Personality Series of which Xu Jin-sheng
was the chief editor began to be published at the Worker's
Publishing House and the Beijing University Press. The
publications were as follows:
Toward the New World of Personality-Probing
into Healthy Personality(treatise by Xu Jin-sheng; 22,000
copies)
Healthy Personality(by jourard, translated by Xu Jin-sheng
and others; 11,000 copies)
The Psychology of Science(by A.H.Maslow,translated by
Shao Wei and others; 8,000 copies)
Fully Human,Fully Alive(by Jonh Powells, translated by
Wu Xiao-feng and others;20,000 copies)
After the June 4 , 1989 event ,the series
reached a standstill.From 1991,China's political situation
turned better, and it seemed possible to published the
series again.But then the whole publishing business fell
into a depression. The publishing houses now require a
subsidy that the editors cannot afford, so the eight other
completed books cannot be published yet.
From 1987 to 1989, Rollo May's Love and Will,Carl Rogers's
Concultation and Psychological Treatment, and Fromm's
Man for Himself,Beyond the Chains of Illusion ,and The
Art of loving were published at different publishing houses.
At the end of 1989,Heart's Perplexity and Self-Help by
Lin Fang was published. This was a book written by a Chinese
scholar who had commented thoroughly about humanistic
psychology. It offered rich information and for the first
time introduced Transpersonal Psychology. But because
it was the time just after the June 4 event ,the editon
was only 800.
In 1991,Li Guang-wei published his book The Dream of the
Fourth Generation.The edition was 6,750.Zhang Yi-bing
published his book, The Fifth Generation of Western Humanistic
Psychology.The edition was 3,000. Both of these books
aimed at elucidating the significance of humanistic psychology.
In 1992, Yu Yang published his book The Y Structure of
Human Nature in an edition of 3,000. The author held that
the quintessence of humanism is that is understands and
supports the best aspects of human behavior. The bookd
criticized Maslow's need level theory and put forward
another need theory.
Part Two
The Influence of Humanistic Psychology in China
The influence of humanistic psychology on the field of
psychology in China is very small, and it can hardly be
used in any formal research project. There were two major
reasons: First, from 1949 to befor the Cultural Revolution,
China's psychology had been greatly influenced by that
of the former Soviet Union. Pavlov's theories had been
one-sidedly emphasized. Around the Cultural Revolution
psychology research was allowed to resume, it emphasized
experimental behaviorism. Second ,in China, due to the
long domination of the Left trend on the academic field
,humanitarianism had been criticized. It had been regarded
as the "bourgeois theory of human nature," "revisionism,"
and so on. Researchers sere all afraid of being suspected
of going in for "liberalization." At the Department
of Psychology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences ,Lin
Fang was the only person to take humanistic psychology
as his major. As a result he was uinfairly treated in
his professional career.
The influence of humanistic psychology in China mainly
appeared as part of the ideology liberation campaign,
which arose after the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese
accepted the influence of humanistic psychology to a great
extent as a concept of value and an outlook on life. Under
the influence of passive parts of China's traditional
culture and under the control of cultural autocracy after
1949, the personality of the Chinese had been in the state
of shrinking .They possessed the malady of sticking to
old ways and resigning themselves to adversity. The disseminating
of humanistic psychology played a role of enlightenment.
It awakened people to a sense of subject. For example
,Maslow's psychology makes people realize that everybody
possessed basic needs. The gratification of basic needs
is viewed as a human right that in endowed by nature and
cannot be deprived. This ideology liberation took place
first among intellectuals and college students. The following
numbers can show the popularity of humanistic psychology
among college ane university students.
In 1990, Yang Hui-zhu and colleagues made a random sampling
inverstigation among students at 13 universities.They
handed out 2,000 questionnaires and got back 1,862 responses
for a response rate of 93.1%. The researchers listed 22
"representative western academic books." Among
the first 10 popular books ,there were 2 concering Maslow's
psychology:The Third Force:Maslow's psychology(by Frank
Goble, translated by Lu Ming and others ) and Self-Actualizing
People.Students responded as follows:
The Third Force:Maslow's psychology
Read carefully:7.3%
Read generally:19.1%
Self-Actualizing People
Read carefully:6.1%
Read generally:13.2%
The Track of Different Scholls of Thought,by
Liu Xiang-ping, is a book about the influence of Western
ideology upon Chinese university students. In discussing
the Maslow Craze ,he wrote:
A Xinhua bookstore in a capital city in
the South laid in 2,000 copies of Motivation and Personality
and sold them out within less than 3 weeks. At colleges
and universities many students who had failed to get the
book were trying everywhere in order to buy it. At one
time on the campuses of colleges and universities many
students who had failed to get the book were trying everywhere
in order to buy it .At one time on the campuses of colleages
and universities the name of Maslow became quite popular
and in some classes 2/3 of the students possessed at least
on book by Maslow. According to a survery by Northeastern
Normal University, Sellf-Actualizing People by Maslow
was among the books borrowed and read the widest by the
students.
Compared with the "Nietzsche Craze" and other
Western ideology crazes, the "Maslow Craze"enjoys
more individual spontaneity and less flowing the general
trend. What is interesting is that almost at the same
time when the "Maslow Craze" grew hotter and
hotter, the "Freud Craze"got colder and colder.
Unitl 1988,books by Freud were seriously overstocked in
bookstores and Creation and Unconsciousness was wellilng
at book-stands at a discount. The reason why the "Maslow
Craze" prevails over those on many other Western
thoughts lies in that while the "Nietzsche Craze,"
"Sartre Craze," and "Freud Craze"show
more or less pessimism about philoshophy of life , Maslow
shows optimism about human existence and has full confidence
in human future.(Liu Xiang-ping,1991,p.137)
Another characteristic of humanistic psychology in China
has been its wide impact on literature and art.Take the
instance of The Theory of Subject published by Liu Zhai-fu
in the field of literary theory.It was obviously developed
after the author had accepted the influence of Maslow's
psychology.This theory evoked great repercussions in the
field of literature.In the field of China's literature
and art ,many artists,writers,and aestheticians have read
books on humanistic psychology.
The influence of humanistic psychology is extensive.The
book An Introduction to the Famous Books on Psychology
of the West published in October 1991,edited by Ma Wen-ju
and others,is a reference book for the teaching of social
science of China's colleges and universities.In it 24
books by 23 psychologists are listed,beginning with Willhelm
Wundt(1832-1920),Five books by four humanistic psychologists(Maslow,
Rogers, Fromm, and May) are introduced among the 24 books,Throughout
the book,Maslow was the only psychologist who had two
books mentioned:Motivation and Personality and Toward
the Psychology of Being.
Another two events that show the influence of humanistic
psychology in China are the establishment of China's two
institutions of research on humanistic psychology,In 1986,Guangzhou,China's
Institute of Humanistic Psychology,announced its founding.The
president of the institute was Li Zheng-tian,who was a
teacher of Guangzhou Art Institue.The membership was over
60.The members were mainly from the learned circle,including
teachers of colleges and universities,scientific research
personel,artist,and writers.The large activities organized
by the institute were two academic meetings:"Discussion
about the Psychological Renewal of Countrymen"and
"Discussion about the Psychological Similarities
and Differences between the Chinese across the Straits."The
role of the institute was mainly in having pushed forward
the introspection and study on the nationality of the
Chinese,and accelerating the spreading of humanistic psychology
in the art circle.The institute announced its disbanding
before the event of June 4,1989.
In 1988,Xu Jin-sheng,Qu Wei,Zhang Qi-ming,Wang Xiao-ping,and
some other people won the support of some enlightened
leaders in the field of social science in Beijing and
set up the Beijing Research Association of Healthy Personalities(BRAHP).The
association was attached to the learned society of social
science of Beijing.It was a second-class association under
the Beijing Federation of Social Science.President of
the Association was Fang Yuan-chu.Vice presidents were
three:Ma Yu-tian,Shong Shu-wei,and Xu Jin-sheng(also concurrently
secretary-general).The membership was 130(including 50
outside of Beijing).The association stated its aim as
to "Unite with those interested in the problems,assist
China's realization of modernizations and enhance the
quality of the Chinese."The association has run two
sessions of a nation wide training class,"Theory
of Humanistic Psychology and Psychological Counseling."The
classes invited experts and scholars in Beijing to give
lectures.Two hundred persons came from all parts of the
country to Beijing for study.
The association has also held six academic discussions,such
as "The Present Personality State and Its Development
in the Chinese,""The Significance of Maslow's
Psychology for the Present China,"and so on.Eleven
academic reports were held,such as "The Present State
of the Study of Personality Theory and Its Prospect Abroad,""An
Introduction to the Theory of Psychological Therapy,""Man's
Problems in the Course of China's Modernization,"and
so on.BRAHP also received attention in national newspapers
such as Guangming Daily,Chinese Youth,The Chinese Culture,and
The Chinese Woman.
After the June 4,1989 event,the association stopped its
activities because of the change of the political climate.Some
members were criticized openly or covertly.In the instance
of Xu Jin-sheng,his introduction to Maslow's psychology
of self-actualization was criticized as having poisoned
young people and accelerated the overwhelming liberalization
trend.Xu Jin-sheng's treatise Towards the New World of
Personality-Probing into Healthy Personality was censured
as an attack that socialism is unfavorable for man's growth
in the name of talking about healthy personality.After
Deng Xiao-ping made his speech on his inspection of the
south in early 1992,China's political situation turned
better and the association began to resume its activities.But
because of shortage of funds,it is not as active as before.Financial
support from the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences has
been cut off since 1989.
In summer,1993,BRAHP and Beijing People's Radio Station
launched a radio program,"Healthy Personalities and
Life."During the period of one month,50 minutes a
day,Xu Jin-sheng and his colleagues talked about and discussed
with the listeners theories of humanistic psychology.This
program related the theories with specific aspects of
people's life and was done in a way that the public could
easily understand.A survey shows that it had a listening
audience as large as 500,000.
In December,1993,BRAHP held a discussion entitled "Mao
Tze-tung's Personality."Participants made analyses
of Mao's personality by examining his political activities.This
event was reported by China Youth Daily.
In July,1994,BRAHP held a discussion entitled "Mystery
of Gu Cheng's Suicide."Gu Cheng was a famous Chinese
poet.In October,1993,he killed his wife and then committed
suicide on a small island of New Zealand where they resided.While
the death of Gu Cheng became a heated topic in China,the
participants of the discussion analyzed his personality
from the perspective of humanistic psychology.
From 1986,psychological consultation became popular in
China.Nowadays in wany major cities there are professional
or nonprofessional insititutions.Of all the methods,Roggers's
clientcentered therapy enjoys a great reputation.In the
book Psychological Theray and Consultation by Chen Zhong-geng
published in Monographs on this therapy appear in magazines
from time to time.Based on Roggers's therapy combined
with the situation of China,Wang Deng-feng worked out
his "Self-Consistency Scale"in 1992.In China's
colleges and universities in which there are departments
of psychology,a course on personality psychology is generally
given and humanistic psychology is included.
The expansion of humanistic psychology in China is also
evident in the numbers below:Material Compilation,published
by People's University of China,is an authoritative,widely
distributed reference publication,It selects and reprints
articles taken from newspaper and magazines nationwide.Psychology
is one part of the compilation that is published monthly.From
1980 to 1983,there appeared only one article on humanistic
psychology,but from 1987 to 1989,11 articles on humanistic
psychology were carried.
Part three
The Study of Humanistic Psychology by Chinese Scholars
The study of humanistic psychology by Chinese scholars
can be divided into the following aspects.
1. The Comparison Between Humanistic
Psychology and Marxism
Lin Fang held that the common ground of humanistic psychology
and Marxism lies in that both of their purposes are for
the liberation of human potential,but humanistic psychology
relatively ignores the effects of social environments
on peple.
Xu Jin-sheng holds that Maslow's need level theory and
Marx's theory of society development period have a certain
connection and corresponding relation.If we classify human
being' personality based on the need level theory ,every
society development period has its predominant general
personality.The general personality of the primitive society
was existence;of the salve society,safety;of the feudal
society,belongingness;of the capitalist society,self-esteem;of
the communist society(or some society much more improved
than the present society),self-actualization.
2. The Comparison Between Humanistic Psychology and China's
Traditional Culture
Zhang Dai-nian(honorary president of the learned society
of China's philosophy history and professor in the Beijing
University philosophy history and professor in the Beijing
University philosophy department)holds that China's traditional
culture,especially the culture of the Confucian school,has
a great deal to communicate with humanistic psychology.Both
Confucians and Mencius believed that human nature is kind.Every
person can become Yao and Shun(legendary monarchs in ancient
China).This thought is in harmony with Maslow's thought
that every person has the potential to actualize himself
or herself.
Lin Fang believed that when American humanistic psychologists
talk about China's philosophy of Taoist school,they often
tend to mention Lao Tzu.Actually one of the originators
of the philosophy of Taoist school,Chuang Tzu,is very
important to humanistic psychology.For example:"da
sheng"by Chuang Tzu means to develop smoothly;and
the so-called wang shi zhi shi is equivalent to what Maslow
means by"peak experience."
3. The Present State of the Chinese Personality and Its
Develoment,Using the Viewpoint of Humanistic Psychology
In May 1987,Xu Jin-sheng made a questionnaire investigation
of 120 people,including 40 college and university teachers,10
sicentific researchers,and 20 office workers.The subjects
were required to read carefully Maslow's description of
self-actualizing people,namely Chapter 12 in Motivation
and Personality,then fill in the questionnaire.There were
95 responses received,a response rate of 79.1%.The result
showed that China's intellectuals highly affirm self-actualizing
people.The following were two of the questions:
Are you willing to become one of the self-actualizing
people Maslow described?
Yes:92.6%
No:0
No answer:7.4%
Do you think that the more people become self-actualizing
the better our society will become?
Yes:82.4%
Uncertain:11.6%
No:0
No response:6%
How to describe the change of the personality development
of the Chinese people under the situation of reforming
and opening?Xu describes this as a trend in which the
general personality of the Chinese is turning from an
emphasizes belongingness has already gratified his or
her needs for physiological satisfaction and safety to
a certain degree and now can turn attention to the gratification
of belongingness,setting up a family and reproducing offspring.A
person who emphasizes self-esteem has gratified the needs
for physiological satisfaction,safety,and belongingness,and
now can turn attention to the need for self-esteem,seeking
achievements,and the realization of more individual values.The
self-esteem oriented personality has a stronger sense
of human rights,expressive spirit,focus on efficiency,and
cooperative habits.This point of view has been published
and reprinted by at least 17 newspapers and journals.
Farmers compose approximately 80% of the population in
China.It is from the countryside that Chinese economic
reformations started in 1979,and spread to the city afterward.Thus
the trend of personality transformation can be clearly
observed in rural areas.According to Xu Jin-sheng's(1987)survey
on farmers who had already become well-off and those who
had not,a smaller percentage of the successful farmers
held positive attitudes toward traditional values of the
belonging personality(see Table1).
Under China's condition,can there be people who can actualize
themselves?To answer this question,Xu sees evidence that
in some cases there can actually be gratification of a
person's higher level needs under adverse conditions,personality
usually changes in one of two directions:toward shrinking
or toward self-actualizing.Fewer people move toward self-actualization,but
those who do can endure the relative deficiency of the
gratification for lower needs and bring into play their
higher potentials,showing features of the
TABLE 1: Values Held by Two kinds of Farmers
Well-Off Farmers(%) Ordinary Farmers(%)
Having a large family is a sign of
family prosperity, therefore an honor 37.3 55.9
If I don't have a son, my family will be
Laughed at as "a family that has no
offspring" 24.5 40.9
The main purpose of having children
is to continue the family line 50.4 61.7
The more children I have, the more
my life in the later years will be
guaranteed 61.8 81.4
self-actualizing people Maslow described,
including even more resistance against cultural conformity
than the self-actualizing people Maslow described. Outwardly
they manage to appear ad-justed to the environment, while
inwardly they are incompatible with it.
For example, Xu has studied a famous artist who describes
bringing his hidden potential into play in a process called
"smug-gling." In this sense, "smuggling"
means cleverly expressing one's views conducive to social
development by using means that are permitted by the political
system of the time. Under the condition of cultural autocracy,
those "smugglers" managed to publish a number
of good works.
4. The Cultural Significance of Peak Experience
Xu Jin-sheng (1988,1994) held that human beings' end goals
and self-actualization are essential issues that most
cultures are bound to address. Culture in its narrow sense
refers to the value system, and its core issue is the
design of ideal personalities. Such a design consists
of description of the end goal and description of the
process, where the former is description of the highest
state that human personalities can reach and the latter
is specific suggestions concerning how to reach this state.
An overall examination of human cultures in the world
shows that most of their end descriptions contain the
feature of peak experiences. The "oneness of heaven
and man" of Confucianism, the "nirvana"
of Mahayana Buddhism, the "being with God" of
Islam, even the "exhilaration of the Wine God"
of Nietzsche-all these, when realized in individual experience,
are peak experi-ences of one kind or another. Therefore,
the cultural significance of peak experience first of
all lies in the fact that it is a concept that can be
applied in cultural comparison.
Using peak experience as an index to compare different
cultures, we find that cultural difference in end descriptions
is much smaller than process descriptions. The end descriptions
of various cultures can be roughly captured by the concept
of peak experience, but in process descriptions there
are considerable cultural differences such as the contrast
between "renouncing the world" and "entering
the world." While Buddhism believes in "giving
up worldly pur-suits," Confucianism advocates "cultivate
the self, put the family in order, administer the country
and unite the world." The small difference in end
descriptions can be accounted for by the common and universal
traits in human nature. When portraying the highest state
that human nature can reach, different cultures come to
very similar views. The comparatively large difference
in process description can be accounted for by the diversity
of social contexts. When depicting the ways that lead
to the highest end, each culture will invariably consider
its own particular environment, hence different descriptions.
The common saying"all roads lead to Rome" illustrates
the small difference in end description and large differ-ence
in process description.
5. Study of "Best Foreign Language Learners"
In recent years, theories of humanistic psychology have
been applied to the field of linguistics and foreign language
teaching. Using a theoretical framework of humanistic
psychology and em-pirical data obtained by interviewing
some recognized"best foreign language learners,"
Gao Yi-hong(e.g., 1992) found that foreign language and
culture learning at a higher level is closely associated
with the cultivation of healthy personalities. The existing
"accul-turation model" (Schumann,1978), which
favors a total substitu-tion of cultural identities, is
misleading, because the subjects in that study were at
the lower level of basic needs (e.g.,belonging) and they
could only serve as examples of "non-learning"
rather than "learning." Successful foreign language
learning involves a positive interaction between the native
language and the target language, the native cultural
identity and the target cultural identity. In Erich Fromm's
terms, the relationship between different languages and
cultural identities is a "productive" one. In
Maslow's terms, these best learners will transcend the
dichotomy of cultural identities and achieve "synergy"
in language and cultural personalities. At a deep enough
level, discovery of"selfhood" and discovery
of "specieshood" will merge into one.
6. The Debate Over"Indigenization"and Applicability
of Rogers's Person-Centered Therapy
The"indigenization"of psychological theories,
including theo-ries of humanistic psychology, was the
major theme and debate issue at the second Symposium on
Social Psychology of the Chinese People (Inner Mongolia,
August, 1994). Promoters of the indigenization movement,
the most prominent ones from Taiwan and Hong Kong (e.g.,
Yang Guo-shu from Taiwan University), hold that psychological
theories and methods produced by Western (especially American)
scholars should not be followed blindly, and when studying
psychology of the Chinese, native cultural characteristics
have to be taken into serious consideration.
In the field of psychotherapy and psychological counseling,
Yue Xiao-dong from the Chinese University of Hong Kong
makes the point that the person-centered approach of Carl
Rogers cannot be put into direct use, because the Chinese
culture stresses interde-pendence between people, and
the counselors' "non-directive" ap-proach will
appear to be too cold and impersonal to the Chinese clients.
Some others, on the other hand, are trying to apply the
person-centered approach. Gao Yi-hong, for example, makes
an effort to combine Rogers's theory with linguistic techniques
in the analysis of telephone counseling discourse. Discussion
and debate on"indigenization" raised the following
questions: Whether cul-tural uniqueness overrides universal
characteristics of human beings; whether contemporary
social values in China are essen-tially the same as the
traditional ones; whether the commonly held beliefs are
healthy, and whether they should be followed or changed.
Part Four
The prospects for the Influence of
Humanistic Psychology in China
Humanistic psychology has not won great influence in China's
formal field of academic psychology. However, its influence
apparently has broad social effects. Perhaps that is the
aim of humanistic psychology, after all. Humanistic psychology
emphasizes that psychology should make contributions to
human value, meaning, and happiness. Looking forward to
the future of China, humanistic psychology may play an
even greater role.
In October 1992, the fourteenth National Congress of the
Com-munist Party of China set "socialist market economy"
as its goal for development. Accordingly, the pace for
China's reforming and opening is quickened. Under the
new situation, the need of the Chinese society for the
theory and methods of humanistic psychol-ogy will be growing
even stronger. This is because the ruling party of the
country, the Communist Party, still advocates,"Grasp
the two civilizations simultaneously," namely, lay
stress on building both material civilization and spiritual
civilization. The Party's traditional political ideological
work cannot be deserted, but the Party's traditional approach
to building spiritual civilization-the content and methods
of the ideological political work-have lost efficacy.
Thus a state of "value vacuum" appeared. This
vacuum state needs filling up. Under the Party's traditional
political sys-tem, departments of propaganda and personnel
established in every level of the Party's organizations.
A lot of these personnel have already had nothing to do
under the new situation. Some researchers at Beijing Association
of Humanistic Psychology advocate that the political ideological
work should combine with psychological work. The personnel
concerned should care about people and understand people
by offering psychological consultation. The traditional
work whose aim was controlling and making use of people,
pouring into people's minds doctrines such as "Stick
to Marxism," and so forth, should be replaced gradually.
At present, some political ideological workers have already
studied or received training in psychological consultation.
This influence is far-reaching. Nowadays there appears
a tendency for political ideological work to decline gradually
while psychological consultation becomes popular.
The influence of humanistic psychology is not limited
only to college and university students and academic circles,
but also extends to the Communist Party of China. In a
thick book titled The Science of Socialist Spiritual Civilization
published in 1988 the author pointed out that the basic
aim of socialist spiritual civilization construction is
to cultivate healthy personality. When defining healthy
personality, the author quoted Maslow's descrip-tion of
self-actualizing people.
With the gradual relaxing of China's politics, its economic
sys-tem develops gradually toward a market economy. Consequently,
an "Economy Craze" grows in China. The pace
of the society quickens. A number of people become rich,
but then suffer from a sense of emptiness. The competition
is getting even more intense, and pressure is increasingly
stronger. Consequently people's psy-chological problems
are increased. Based on my comparison study (Jin-sheng,
1993) between China's inland and the coastland where the
economy is much more developed, the latter's need for
psycho-logical consultation is stronger and the interest
in the theory of humanistic psychology is greater too.
Because of what is related above, there is much in the
study of humanistic psychology in other countries (especially
in the United States) that China can make use of. Other
countries may also benefit from the humanistic psychology
that is developing in China. It can be said that China's
study and application of humanistic psychology has just
begun.
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Chen Jin-yu. (1983). Political work and
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Gao Yi-hong (1992). A 1+1<2 model of foreign language
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Xu Jin-sheng. (1986,December 22). Talking about Maslow's
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About the author: Xu Jin-sheng is a research
fellow at the Sociology Department of Beijing Academy
of Social Science and vice president and secretary-general
of Beijing Research Association of Humanistic Psychology.
He specializes in the study of theories of sociology,
psychology, and personality. He is one of the major researchers
on humanistic psychology in the mainland of China. His
main publications on humanistic psychology are as follows:
Treatise:
Towards the New World, or Personality-Probing Into Healthy
Personality (1988)
Monographs:
Three Elements of Personality (1984)
A Key Concept of Maslow's Need Level Theory (1985)
Comments on Maslow's Need Level Theory (1985)
The Chinese Traditional Culture and Personality (1987)
The Modern and Contemporary Culture and Personality of
the West (1987)
Comments on Healthy Personality of the West (1988)
Maslow and Marx (1991)
On Maslow's Peak Experience Theory (1994)
Openness and Healthy Personality (1995)
Translations:
Self-Actualizing People (Selected compilations based on
Maslow's works, 1986)
Motivation and Personality (1987)
Stages of Life (Form Jung, 1986)
Compilation:
Healthy Personality Series (1988_)
Present Research Projects:
The Personality change of the Chinese in the Reforming
and Opening Taoism and Humanistic Psychology
Reprint requests: Xu Jinsheng, Beijing Academy of Social
Sciences, Bei-Sihuan-Zhonglu 33#, Beijing 100101/P.R.China.
Email:xujinsheng2003@yahoo.com.cn
