Abstract
This paper reports a preliminary descriptive approach to the representation of the concept of Ren. According to the prototype theory, researchers collected items (words or phrases) including features and implications of Ren from 172 college students, after which the items were simplified and combined, then 145 prototypes were obtained. After that 78 prototypes with high frequency above 7 were selected and arranged randomly to make a questionnaire, then another 300 college students were made to rate centrality of every prototypes to the meaning of Ren in Likert-typed 5 point scale. A factor analysis was made based on the rate. In terms of the result of factor analysis together with content analysis, the prototypes were classified and coded. The result shows that there are 6 facets of the representation of Ren in college students’ mind:(1) righteousness and keeping faith; (2) wisdom and self-cultivation; (3) filial piety, fraternal duty, and treat others well; (4) policy of benevolence; (5) universal love and clemency; (6)political pioneers and righteous men. The result is helpful for moral education of college students from the microscopic aspect and also can be used for reference to develop China's spiritual civilization from macroscopic perspective.
Highlights
China is a country emphasizing ethical culture
This paper is to explore the representation of Ren in college students in order to have a deeper understanding of this traditional ethical morality of college students
The result showed that male college students listed more items on “Friendly”, “Value the family relationship & friendship”, “Be forbearing & conciliatory” than the female college students, while female college students listed more items on “Amiable” and “Personal loyalty”, and the differences were significant
Summary
China is a country emphasizing ethical culture. This special culture has produced many unique and abstract sociocultural concepts. Rosch didn’t agree with this view and maintained that many natural language categories aren’t defined a set of necessary and sufficient attributes, put forward the prototype theory as an alternative to the classical view(Zhang, Li &Wang,2006, pp.).Prototype theory states that concept is mainly represented as prototypes(best examples), we understand a concept mainly from the best examples illustrating the concept, e.g. when our thinking is involved in the concept “bird”, we always think of pigeon instead of penguin and ostrich. The purpose is to know the representation of Ren among today’s college students and its effects on their behaviors and notions This might be helpful for moral education of college students from the microscopic aspect and can be used for reference to develop China's spiritual civilization from macroscopic perspective
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