试析现代西方心理学的文化转向

AN ANALYSIS OF THE CULTURAL TURN OF WESTERN PSYCHOLOGY

西方心理学正在展现出对文化影响日渐增加的关注。这种文化转向既有科学哲学和历史的原因 ,也受到世界范围内心理学本土化运动的影响。文化转向的主要表现是 :( 1)对心理学自然科学模式的反思与诘难 ;( 2 )多元文化心理学的兴起 ;( 3 )跨文化心理学面临的批评及其转变 ;( 4 )认知心理学、发展心理学和健康心理学等分支领域对文化影响的关注。作者认为 ,文化的转向对于西方心理学的发展具有积极的意义。

This thesis deals with the trend that more and more psychologists in western countries pay attention to social historical and cultural factors in their psychological researches. It seems that western psychology increasingly turns to cultural considerations. In the past, western psychology was influenced by positivism, which asserts that science is value neutral, therefore psychology should be free from any cultural influence. But positivism has already declined now, and new philosophy of science regards science as value loaded and puts science in the social and cultural context. The new philosophy of science provides theoretical background for the cultural turn. Another important reason for the turn is the indigenous movement in the third world psychology. The psychologists in the third world are tryng to reduce the dependence on western psychology and to establish an indigenous psychology in terms of their own cultural tradition. Western psychologists were influenced by the movement and began to take culture into account. The cultural turn shows in the following respects: (a). The natural science model of psychology has been criticized and some psychologists hold that psychological phenomenon is different from natural phenomenon, therefore it is inappropriate to take natural science as psychology's ideal model. (b) Multicultural psychology comes into being. The psychologists that accept multiculturalism think that traditional psychology is a product of mainstream culture and gives little regard to minority group culture. These psychologists insist that all the cultures be included in psychological research in order to cure culture blindness. (c) Mainstream cross cultural psychology was criticized for its ethnocentrism and universalism, and transcultural psychology, a branch of human science instead of natural science like cross cultural psychology has emerged. (d) Psychologists from cognitive psychology, developmental psychology and health psychology begin to recognize the importance of cultural factors. The author concludes that the cultural turn provides a 'fourth dimension' to the psychological interpretation of human behavior which gives additional meaning to psychodynamic, humanistic, and behavioral interpretations. The cultural turn is, in the author's opinion, conducive to the development of western psychology.