New Approach of Indigenous Social Psychology in the Age of Globalization

Abstract

The epistemological goal of indigenous psychology is to construct a series of formal theoretical models which should be able to represent the universal structure of human minds on the one hand, and account for people's specific mentalities in indigenous culture on the other hand. In order to attain this goal, three levels of breakthrough must be made for the sustainable progress of indigenous psychology: philosophical reflection, theoretical construction, and empirical research. In my book Confucian Relationalism, I explained how I constructed the Face and Favor model which may reflect the deep structure of universal human mind for dealing with interpersonal relationships. Then I used it as a framework to analyze the inner structure of Confucianism which might enable us to understand the specific mentality of people living in Confucian society. The attributes of Confucian ethics were analyzed from the perspective of modern ethics, and a series of mini-theories had been constructed on the presumption of relationalism to integrate findings of previous empirical researches on social exchange, achievement motivation, concept of face, quanxi and organizational behaviors, and strategies of conflict resolution in Confucian society. Through the efforts of this book, it is expected that we may not only achieve the epistemological goals of indigenous psychology, but also establish the research tradition of Confucian relationalism in social psychology.