Psychology Development in Chine

write up and Systems of psychological science PSYC 331 Dr. Bihan Al Qaimari Midterm piece tuition of psychological science in brinyland mainland china Name Ahmad Shiber Student tot 1071843 Introduction When we started this class, we started learnedness the history of psychological science, its theories, and its suppuration. I couldnt protagonist and nonice that the course curriculum is focused on European and Ameri stinker psychologists and their theories, which gives us a very westernized ensure of psychological science and the spirit of public and their charitable beingsity.Studying psychological science from a western point of view also limits the horizons of withstanding psychological science and how it explained since it will be connected to mainly western church ideologies and financial and political organizations atomic number 18 in the west like hoodism and democracy. I developed an interest in far eastern cultures four climb on ago debateing the common religions in that region bases of languages communicate thither, and I even started studying the Japanese language as a second language.Thus, I was interested of how these cultures saw psychology and comp ar their psychological thinking with Greek and Islamic psychological thinking and philosophy which was cover in class. I was amazed by the sheer amount of familiarity these cultures had volunteered in psychology and I was disheartened on how it is al about neer menti angiotensin-converting enzymed in psychology classes or when menti nonp beild it gets marginalized. Of perfect(a)ly the cultures that constitute the Far East, I chose chinaw are.In this paper I will discuss the nurture of psychology in this country from its historical grow till the untriedfangled day, on with tout ensemble the ups and d owns of this compass. I hope to shed light on the amazing contri howeverions to the psychology field in particular, and to humanity in planetary. Attachment a o utline description of Chinese culture of well being. The Historical Roots ripe psychology was brought to China from the West in the easy 1800s, barely the study and tidings of psychological issues had a long history in antediluvian patriarch China.Read also Memory ForgettingEarly psychological thinking in China not still was contained in diverse philosophical, political, war machine, and early(a) literature but was also expressed through various practices in education, medicine, and human resourcefulness anxiety. The influence of Chinese culture on world psychology has been astray recognized in current literature in the field and is attracting much than and more(prenominal) guardianship (Jing, 1994 Murphy & Kovach, 1972 Wang, 1993). In China a risque body of psychological thought existed in the belles-lettres of the quaint Chinese philosophers.One of the about grand figures was Confucius (551-479 B. C. ) whose pedagogy has, for centuries, exerted a pro ground influence on the development of Chinas ethnic history. Confucian thinking emphasized the discussion of human character, education, human development, and interpersonal relationships. For example, when Confucius discussed human nature, he asserted that human nature is the order of heaven (Jing, 1994, p. 668). By this Confucius meant that our patterns of existence are determined by Nature or by God.He did not address this issue in order to variousiate whether human nature was good or bad but proposed it as a common heritage upon which personal and righteous development could be based through education By nature close to each other, but through practice far from each other (Analects 172, Dawson, 1993). This nub that mint are similar when they are born but that they become different as a vector sum of social molding hence the impressiveness of learning. Confucius was a famous teacher as well as a philosopher he advocated that tot all(prenominal)y citizenry should be educated, irrespective of their abilities.He categorized good deal into deuce-ace types superior, medium, and inferior and reason that everyone should be educated according to their abilities. These ideas are in agreement with the in advance(p) font idea of everyones right to an education and the concept of individualistic differences and the guide to depict education in a suitable lay down for all to benefit, any(prenominal) their abilities. With regard to human development, Confucius viewed this as a livelihood-long process as declared in the summary of his own life. At fifteen I set my mind on learning, at thirty I became steadfast in my purpose at forty I was free from doubts at fifty I came to know fate t sixty I could tell truth from falsehood by listening to other people at seventy I followed my hearts desire without trespassing the norm of conduct. (Analects 24 Tang, 1996). A distinctive feature of this outlook is an stress on the development of wisdom and social due date at a subsequent age. Contrary to some modern thinking that human development is generally an early childhood process (as has been proposed by Freud or Piaget), Confucius gave new taste with the view that development is a life-long process. In addition to Confucianism, other Chinese philosophies such as Taoism and Zen Buddhism were also pregnant.For instance, Chinese Taoist scholars considered that opposite word exists everywhere in the universe and that the synthesis of contrary systems operates to form an interconnected unity that is a manifestation of the power and operation of the Yang and the Yin, the alternating forces expressive of light and darkness, birth and decay, male and female. These powers, which in their combined operation form the Tao, the Way, the great principle of the universe, are the mainspring of every activity, the mechanism of constant trade and relief, which maintains the harmony of the cosmos. (Fitzgerald, 1976, p. 220). According to Lao-tzu (570-4 90 B.C. ), the reputed fo at a lower place of Taoism, nature keeps a proper balance in all its influenceing. If any activity moves to an extreme in one advocate, sooner or by and by a change occurs to swing it choke toward the opposite. This thinking whitethorn vex influenced Jungian psychology, for Jung discovered the self from easterly philosophy and characterized it as a miscellany of compensation for the fighting surrounded by inside and outside (Jung, as cited in Kuo, 1971, p. 97). In addition, juvenile findings presage that the self-actualization theories of Rogers and Maslow bear certain similarities to concepts in Taoism and Zen Buddhism (e. . , Chang Page, 1991 Ma, 1990). The practice of naive psychology was widespread in ancient China, and many an(prenominal) present-day psychology practises could force their roots to thousands of years ago. For instance, in Medical Principles of the Yellow Emperor, the prototypical Chinese encyclopedia of medicine, publis hed about 2,000 years ago, links between learning ability pathology and psychological troubles were described, and a bio-psycho-social model was the main approach to medical and kind treatment (Wang, 1993). some other famous ancient Chinese text, Sun-tzus classic handwriting The ruse of War, was written 2,500 years ago. It is a treatise on strategies of warfare containing an analysis of human nature, organization, leadership, the effects of the env contractment, and the grandness of info and may hit influenced the development of modern organizational psychology. The most important contribution of Chinese culture to the finish of psychology is that of noetic assaying. It is common to think of scrutiny as both a recent and a western sandwich development. The origins of turn outing, however, are incomplete recent nor Western.The roots of psychological exam can be traced venture to the concepts and practices of ancient China for some 3,000 years (Anastasi, 1988 Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 1993). Various methods for measuring talent and port were hot, such as observing traits from behavioral changes, identifying intelligence by retort speed, eliciting record across situations, and measuring mental attributes through interviews (Lin, 1980). The purpose of all these tests was to allow the Chinese emperor to assess his officials fitness for office. By the date of the Han Dynasty (206 B. C. to A. D. 20), the use of test batteries (two or more tests used in conjunction) was instead common in the courtly service examination system (Zhang, 1988) with adjudicate writing and oral exams in crystalizeics such as civil law, military affairs, agriculture, revenue, and geography. Tests had become quite well developed by the clipping of the Ming Dynasty (A. D. 1368-1644). During this period, on that point was a field of study multi-stage testing program that refer local and regional testing centers equipped with special testing booths. Those who did well on th e test at the local level went on to the provincial capital for more extensive essay examinations.After this second testing, those with the highest test scores went on to the nations capital for a final round of examinations. Only those who passed this third set of tests were pensionable for public office. It is probable that the Western world learned about these national testing programs through exposure to the Chinese during the 19th century. Reports by British missionaries and diplomats encouraged the British East India Company to copy the Chinese system in 1832 as a method for selecting employees for overseas duty. scrutiny programs worked well for the company, and the British government adopt a similar system of testing for its civil service in 1855. Later, French, German, and American governments in succession endorsed it, and the testing effort in the Western world has grown fastly since then (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 1993). Testing was also well developed in ancient Chinese kindred culture. An article written by a scholar, Yen (531-590), indicated that, the so-called testing the child at one year of age was a popular custom in southern China.On a childs foremost birthday, he/she would be placed on a large table full of food, clothing, paper, pens, jewelry, toys, books with, in addition, an arrow and sword for the boys, and needle and thread for the girls. The baby was encouraged to squinch freely and pick up the item he or she wish best. By observing what the baby grasped first, the proud parents projected the babys intelligence, personality distinctions and expertness by the things taken from the table. This custom lasted until the 20th Century. (Zhang, 1988, p. 02). Although clearly not a test by modern standards, it does illustrate a willingness to assess individual differences by concrete means. Zhang (1988) also posit that Lin Xie, a well-known sixth century scholar, blueprinted what appeared to be the first experimentational psychological test in the world. He asked people to draw a square with one hand and at the same time draw a banding with the other. His aim was to show that, with interference from the attempt to do the second designate, neither task could be done correctly.Interestingly, Binet in the 1890s developed a similar test as part of the early psychological work on the effect of distraction (internal and external) on mental tasks (Pillsbury, 1929 Woodworth & Marquis, 1949). Binet may induce been aware of the Chinese history. This review is barely a brief discussion of the historical congestground of Chinese psychology. However, psychology in China did not develop into a systematic discipline, despite the fact that the concepts of psychology pass deep roots in Chinese civilization dating back almost 2,500 years.Furthermore, few empirical studies have been done in this theatre of operations of knowledge in China, compared with studies done in the Western world. Thus, Chinese psychology has lacked a scientific basis because of the belief that Chinese scholars should only vexation themselves with book learning, literature, history and poetrybut not with science (Fitzgerald, 1976, p. 274). When Chinese intellectuals began the reform movement in the early 1900s, they promoted an uncompromising rejection of Chinese traditions ( peculiarly those with Confucian roots) and advocated total or whole-hearted Westernization, in terms of science.Chinese psychology became a transfer harvest-home of Western and Soviet psychology (Barabanshchikova & Koltsova, 1989). Early Chinese psychologists had adopted the Western ideas of behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and gestalt psychology, and the works of Pavlov, Bekhterev, and Komilov were translated from the Russian. Nowadays, however, more and more scholars taking the cross-cultural view of psychology (e. g. , Matsumoto, 2000) have realized that it is not appropriate simply to apply Western theories to explain the behavior of the Chinese or any o ther cultural group.Although the collection process has not been fully carried out, some Chinese psychologists (such as Gao, 1986) have started their exploration of the old studies and literature to seek for the roots of Chinese psychology. Those valuable assets of the old civilization, when thoroughly explored, may give us new insights into the under(a)standing of contemporary psychology. For example, researchers are studying early writings on traditional Chinese medicine and translating their conclusions into testable hypotheses of therapeutic effectiveness (Lee & Hu, 1993 Li, Xu, & Kuang, 1988 Tseng, 1973).This kind of work is also monumental in cross-cultural studies and has particular relevancy in the Chinese context of use. Development of Modern Chinese psychology Chinese psychology began a long time ago, but the modern scientific method is only recent. However, the era of modern Chinese psychology commenced in the late 1800s with the dissemination of Western psychology in China along with other Western influences. Chinese students who had studied in the West brought back ideas fundamental to modern psychology and translated Western books.In 1889, Yan Yongjing translated a Japanese sport of Joseph Havens kind Philosophy (1875), which was regarded as the first Western psychology book to be published in China (Kodama, 1991). psychological science as an fencesitter scientific discipline was first taught in some Chinese pedagogical institutions at the turn of this century. The Chinese educational reformer, Cai Yuanpei, who studied psychology at Wilhelm Wundts Laboratory in Leipzig and who later became president of capital of Red China University, set up the first psychology laboratory at Beijing University in 1917 (Jing, 1994).In 1920, the first psychology department was established in South Eastern University in Nanjing (Li, 1994). In August 1921, the Chinese mental Society was formally founded. Unfortunately, its activities were break up by the Sino-Japanese war. Meanwhile, some Chinese scholars finished their studies in Western universities and re rancid to China to teach and do research in psychology. They played important maps in laying the foundation for the development of modern Chinese psychology. One of the most widely known Chinese psychologists from that period was R. Y.Kuo, who went to the University of California at Berkeley in 1918 and returned to China in 1929. As a behaviorist, his major contributions were in the field of the developmental analysis of animal behavior and the anxious(p) system (Brown, 1981). Another powerful figure was P. L. Chen, known as the founder of Chinese industrial psychology, who carried out field studies in Chinese factories after studying under Charles Spearman of University College London. Later, Chens study on the G factor was translated and renowned as an doing in the growth concord of intelligence (Wang, 1993).Another was S. Pan, who obtained his Ph. D. in Chicago in 192 7, having worked with Carr on the influence of context on learning and memory. He later became president of the Chinese mental Society when it was re-established in 1955 after the Peoples commonwealth of China was founded. In short, from the 1920s through the 1940s, Chinese psychology was lie mainly toward Western psychology and in fact was not different from the last mentioned. Experimental approaches were emphasized, and Chinese psychologists were strongly influenced by the schools of functionalism, behaviorism, and the Freudians. psychology was elementalally an imported product whose general development was slow because of the unstable social milieu in China during this period. After the founding of the Peoples Republic in 1949, psychology was reestablished under the auspices of the Communist Party. The new psychology took Marxism-Leninism and Maos thought as the basic philosophy underlying its psychological theory. For instance, Marxisms materialist dialectics saw psycholo gy (apart from experimental psychology) as entirely hypothetical and, thitherfore, not materialist and not permitted.Although the Western psychology of the thirty-something was well known, it was rejected after 1949 because of its capitalist nature. Chinese psychology during the mentioned time period was guided by the slogan Learn from the Soviet Psychology (Barabanshchikova Koltsova, 1989, p. 118), and books by Soviet psychologists (Pavlov, Luria, Sechenov, etc. ) were translated into Chinese Chinese students and postgraduates began to study in Russia rather than in the United States (Barabanshchikova Koltsova). Soviet psychology focused on the relationship between psychology nd the workings of the central nervous system, especially as shown in the work of Pavlov with animals, whereas Western psychology with its emphasis on individual differences was realisen as a pawn of the bourgeoisie, which contradicted the Marxist article of faith that states that people are primarily s haped by their social class. Jing (1994) noted that as in the Soviet Union in the 1940s and in 1950s, there were no in estimateent departments of psychology in Chinese universities. Psychology was a secondary discipline in the departments of philosophy or education. It was only 30 years later, after the Chinese heathenish Revolution, that independent departments of psychology were reestablished in Chinese universities). (p. 670). Psychology had a preliminary development in the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1958, the Institute of Psychology was set up as a part of the Chinese Academy of Science, where, because it was classified as a science, its funding was more tender than that of other social sciences. astir(predicate) half of the 3,000 Chinese psychologists then worked in normal universities or pedagogical institutes in the fields of developmental and educational psychology (Jing, 1994).Some basic psychological studies were also carried out on perception, conceptual development, me mory, and physiological psychology. The publication of three important Chinese textbooks in the early 1960s reflected a significant development of teaching and research during that period general psychology (Cao, 1963), educational psychology (Pan, 1964), and child psychology (Zhu, 1962). However, the development of psychology was not static because of the ebb and flow of political movements. as yet though it is a science, psychology could be construed as an ideology and hence a threat to the article of faith promulgated by the ruling regime or by influential segments of society, noted Leung and Zhang (1995, p. 694). Jing (1994) gave an explanation for this statement. He described the 1958 campaign against the bourgeois direction in psychology that criticized the globalization and abstractionism of psychology. This criticism was aimed at basic research with controlled experiments. In China, confounding political matters with academician ones led to the forbiddance of certain su bfields in psychology.For example, social psychology and psychological testing were abolished on the grounds that the former ignored the class nature of social groups, and the latter stressed too heavily individual differences rather than social differences (Jing, 1994, p. 671). The only social psychology articles then published were criticisms of the bourgeois and idealist value of Western psychology. As Brown (1983) noted, Western theories were viewed as a tool for exploiting the working class and a false bourgeois science, which contradicted the Marxist simulation of historical materialism.Kuo (1971) gave some interesting examples of how Western-style psychological research was seen to be politically dominated. For example, Kretch and Crutchfields proposed social psychology program for factory managers to help eliminate conflict between workers and factory owners was described as actually intended to iron out the class struggle, to diminish the proles fighting will for revoluti on, and to sacrifice the proletarian basic profits in order to meet the need of capitalists (p. 100).For these reasons, between 1966 and 1976, during the period of the Cultural Revolution, psychology was attacked by the extreme leftist revolutionaries as a bourgeois pseudo-science and was uprooted completely as a scientific discipline. trail psychologists were labelled as reactionary academic authorities, scientific research and teaching institutions were dissolved, and psychologists were dispatched to remote areas of the country to work on the farms. The disaster lasted until the termination of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. (Jing, 1994, p. 72). In a later article (1995) Jing commented that this was a dark period for psychology in China and lamented the great wrong to be paid for political interference in science (p. 719). Happily, Chinese sparing reform launched an plainspoken-door policy to the outside world in the late 1970s, and psychology was rehabilitated as a scientifi c discipline. Both the Chinese Psychological Society (CPS) and Institute of Psychology have resumed their academic activities research in, and application of, psychology is being carried out all over China.With increased world(prenominal) exchanges, new ideas and areas of research such as cognitive psychology and hash out psychology have become popular. For example major cities now have hash out telephone hot lines (Xu, Guo, Fang, & Yan, 1994), many high schools have their own counselors, and cognitive behavior therapy is a popular new approach to psychiatric problems. Chinese counseling models have to adapt to the characteristics of Chinese clients and counselors (Wang, 1994). Many Chinese psychologists visited other countries, and psychologists from abroad visited China and lectured in Chinas universities.Thus began a more favorable environment for the present development of Chinese psychology. Wang (1993) gave a good brief of the current scene By 1991, the CPS had more than 2 ,900 members, two thirds of whom were developmental and educational psychologists. The CPS has 11 special divisions of psychology, including educational, developmental, medical, general-experimental, industrial, sports, physiological, judicial psychology, and psychological measurement. distributively province has its own psychological association such as counseling (Wang, 1993, p. 92).Because psychology restored its momentum in the late 1970s, Chinese psychologists have reached a consensus on building psychology with Chinese characteristics (Chen, 1993 Shi, 1989). Yue (1994) reflected on the need for Chinese psychologists to strengthen their theoretical roots and bind their work closely to life in China. Wang (1993) concluded that much recent Chinese psychological research has been closely linked with economic and social reform, technological developments, and applications of psychology (e. g. , the design of Chinese language computers, the effects of the single-child policy).Bond (1996) and the Chinese Culture Connection (1987) noted that Chinese society is still shaped by Confucian set such as filial piety and industriousness, the saving of face, and the networks of personal relationships. Even in 1922, Chinese psychologists were exhorted to unearth existing Chinese materials, investigate new materials from overseas, and based on these two sources, invent our own theories and experiments the content moldiness be appropriate to the national situation, and the form, must insofar as is possible, be of a Chinese nature. Jing Fu, 1995, p. 723). In experimental psychology, the Chinese language with its ideographic characters has become a subject of great interest (see Bond, 1986, for some examples). big studies are being carried out in this field, including ideographic and sound characteristics of Chinese characters the relationship between Chinese languages and Western languages the hemispheric laterality of information processing of the Chinese language and reading and comprehension of the Chinese language.Because of the importance of the application of these studies to school education, artificial intelligence, and industrial technology, many Chinese psychologists are collaborating in their research efforts in the hope of finding some answers, such as how to simplify the typing of Chinese characters on computers (Tan Peng, 1991 Yu, Feng, Cao, 1990 Zhang Shu, 1989 Zhang, Zhang, Peng, 1990). Developmental psychology is another area of intensive study.There are 300 million children in China, and any new knowledge acquired in the field would have important implications for the education of this next generation (Jing, 1994). For example, Mei (1991) demonstrated that the remote countryfied minority peoples tradition of keeping their babies propped up in sandbags for most of their first 6 months resulted in lower IQ scores up to the age of 16. Much has been published on concept development, language development, the development of thin king, personality, and moral development, gifted children, and slow learners (see Dong, 1989 Liu, 1982 Zhu & Lin, 1986).These findings have been applied to improve the teaching and testing of children, such as the development of the standardized Higher command enchant Examination. In addition, since the national family planning and birth control program was utilize in the mid-1980s the characteristics of the only-child policy have been a hot topic (Chen, 1985 Falbo & Poston, 1993 Jing, 1995). For example, Ying and Zhang (1992) found that rural Chinese still judge their children rather than the government to hold back them in their old age. This will clearly be a charge up on a single child with four dependent grandparents.Psychologists are concerned with the school achievement and social development of these only children as well as the social psychological effects and personality problems that may be encountered in the future. Within this area, cross-cultural psychology studi es among Chinas minority groups offer an important new prospect (Hong Wang, 1994 Xie, Zhang, Yu, Jui, 1993). In the field of medical and clinical psychology, besides the introduction of Western psychotherapeutic methods (behavior modification, group therapy, psychoanalysis, etc. ), the reflection of the effectiveness of some traditional Chinese medical treatments (e. . , acupuncture, see Ng, 1999a) and therapies (e. g. , qigong taichi, see Ng, 1999b) has been a significant development (San, 1990 Sun, 1984 Wang, 1979). Moreover, many psychologists are also involved in the process of modernization in industrial, military, and educational areas, playing important roles in policy making. For example, psychometricians helped to initiate the standardization of college entrance examinations. In personnel office selection for the Air Force, psychologists are widely consulted and are actively alive(p) in the design of selection procedures (Hao, Zhang, Zhang, Wang 1996).Industrial psy chologists also make their contribution to the governing of color standards of industrial illumination as well as to the developments of signs and symbols for good products. The role of psychology has become increasingly prominent in Chinas rapid modernization and economic and social development. Disadvantageous Factors that May Impede the Development of Psychology Although psychology is recognized by the Chinese government and is enjoying sheer prosperity at the moment, its future status is questionable.The development of psychology is point on economic growth. Compared with the other natural sciences (such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry), the development of psychology depends especially on the resources and prevailing intellectual practices of that country. It was reported in the mid-1980s that there were well over 60,000 psychologists who belonged to the American Psychological Association (Mays, Rubin, Sabourin, & Walker, 1996), whereas there were slight than 3,000 registered members in the Chinese Psychological Society by 1991 (Wang, 1993).The ratio of psychologists to the general nation is higher in developed countries than in developing countries. China has fewer than 2 psychologists for every million people (Jing & Fu, 1995). A developing country has to provide for its peoples basic needsfood, shelter, healthbefore it can afford to provide for their higher psychological needs. When a country is underdeveloped, the more important problems of developing industry, commerce, and agriculture receive more attention because of the need to improve basic living conditions for everyone.In China today, with its economic pressures and its huge population problem, the upgrade development of psychology cannot be seen as a top national priority. However, the Chinese government has begun to recognize that economic progress ultimately depends on the talents of the managers and workers and now sees the value of investing in modern management selection an d training (e. g. , the setting up in 1999 of the Beijing sr. Management Selection Centre personal discourse, Gu Xiang Dong, January, 1999). Because the Chinese presidency employs almost all the psychologists in the country, the future of the profession depends n its gestate (Jing Fu, 1995). In possible terms, lack of funding in developing countries means that psychologists cannot afford to attend international conferences, buy expensive books and journals, or experiment with highly technical equipment. Jing and Fu noted,. As Chinas market-oriented reform continues, people in academic circles are adjusting their ways of making a living. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the main organizational body of scientific research in China, started its reform in the middle 1980s to satisfy the market need for applied technology. p. 721). In 1993, the CAS elected to move 70% of its staff into research related to economic development and thus more than 50,000 people began to conduct research in areas relevant to the market economy (Wang, 1995). It is also known that a further 10,000 of the original CAS staff have become businessmen or managers as a result of the expansion of closed-door business enterprises (Jing & Fu, 1995). Budgetary difficulties are a more immediate problem for reform. In developed countries, psychology can rely on private funding.For example, the ratio of private to government funding in the United States was as high as 1 to 10 in 1990 (see Rosenzweig, 1992), whereas in China there is little private funding to which psychologists can turn. If such funding does exist, psychology is rarely on the list for support. The lack of funding for research has had an adverse impact on basic research. In an analysis of 2,274 studies between 1979 and 1988 in developmental and educational psychology involving 362,665 participants, Shi (1990) found that 48. 9% of the studies were applied research whereas only 8% were described as basic research. The rest were more or less repetitions or adaptations of previous studies or instruments. ) Psychologists in China are preponderantly concerned with applied problems, and research that addresses economic and social problems. This situation was aptly described by Long (1987) The pressing need was a technocrat in a factory, not a rat in a mule skinner box (p. 232). An applied orientation is understandable in the light of the well-grounded emphasis placed on economic development. It may be expected that psychology will play an important role in the attainment of Chinas present goal to modernize industry, agriculture, science, and technology.The main problems for Chinese psychologists are how to help the nation accomplish these important tasks with minimal funding and lack of facilities (Jing Fu, 1995). The development of psychology is based on having a sufficient number of people with advanced training, and universities are the main source of training for psychologists. Bachelor tip course s in psychology are similar to those in the United States, but Chinese lecturers have far heavier teaching commitments than their Western counterparts, and they are a great deal required to teach topics well outside their specialist areas.The lack of educational funding also limits access to leading journals and books in the field. Universities in China can afford to subscribe to only a few American and European journals, and most newly published English language books are not available in the library or if they are, their use may be restricted. Thus psychological knowledge transmitted to China fall behind the times and is less sophisticated than that in the West (Jing Fu, 1995, p. 725).At present, there are only six psychology departments and four psychology institutions among all the institutions of higher education, although all normal universities and teachers colleges have psychology curricula and established psychology teaching and research groups. This provision is clearly inadequate for future needs. In addition, students often teach in the universities in which they received their degree, leading to a restricted perspective of the discipline. To a certain extent, China must depend on the developed world for the training of its psychologists (Jing & Fu, 1995).This dependence comes through the consequence of foreign experts as well as the training abroad of Chinese psychologists at the postgraduate level and the subsequent brain drain, as many of the latter do not return to China. Another serious problem affecting the development of psychology is that there are no particularised career paths for students who major in psychology. There is no organized postgraduate professional psychology training, and psychology graduates are often trapped in low-income jobs. Thus, uncertain career prospects have turned away many adroit students.Unfortunately many students who chose psychology as a major have turned to unrelated professions on graduation. Future Pe rspective The field of psychology has a long road to travel before it will reach its maturity in China. Despite the difficulties mentioned here, recent developments have revealed some directions for the future. As we have seen, the development of Chinese psychology is closely linked with the social environment and with government policy, such as the influence of the family planning program and the open door policy. This link will continue and will orient most psychological research toward practical applications.Given the poor resources in research and the modified number of psychologists, the nationwide and collaborative approach will greatly expedite research, teaching, and the practical application of psychology. Chinese psychology has attracted tremendous interest from all over the world in recent years. The reason for this sinophilia (Leung & Zhang, 1995, p. 696) is because of the increasing importance of China world-wide, both politically and economically. In the next few ye ars, more emphasis will be put on the mutual communication and exchange of ideas with the rest of the world.Chinese psychology will certainly benefit from learning from Western advanced psychology. However, to interpret the mental phenomena and behavior of the Chinese people, attention must also be focused on the theoretical structure of Chinas ancient psychological heritage traced through traditional Chinese culture. It may be that this will eventually reflect Fairbanks view (1992, p. 258) when he stated, Chinese learning for the substance the essential principles and Western learning for function the practical applications. That is, the traditional Chinese philosophical stress on the importance of understanding human nature, balanced harmony, and the unity of multiplicity may serve as a useful foundation for the future development of Chinese psychology, especially in applied settings. 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