知识划界、追赶焦虑与中国本土心理学的理论建构导向

Demarcation of Scientific Knowledge,Chasing Anxiety and the Constructive Approach of Chinese Indigenous Psychological Theories

科学心理学以方法为中心的知识建构策略,内在地要求它与常识心理学划界以谋求自然科学分支的学科地位,其代价是对人类心理之情感与意义维度的隔离。在移植西方心理学体系的过程中,科学心理学的争议也内含于中国心理学的发展轨迹中,同时还附加了学术边陲地区特有的学科追赶焦虑。中国本土心理学理论应突破科学至上的观念束缚,致力于发展具有现实解释力和价值引导力的人文主义导向的心理学理论,以切实解决中国现实社会中的心理自然问题,并在世界心理学界发出真正的中国声音。

Scientific psychology, the dominant psychological paradigm, adopts a method-centered knowledge construction strategy that reveres accurate objective knowledge like the one provided by classic physics, one of the exemplary discipline of natural sciences that are irrelevant to any cultural values, personal feelings, and subjective consciousness. The self-segregation from subjective matters is one of the major costs of pursuing a scientific career in modem psychology that has incurred severe attacks. However, this giant vision of becoming a scientific branch succeeded only partially in the 20th century, since not all psychologists agree that psychology is a scientific discipline, and some psychologists even launch serious attacks on the shortcomings of scientific psychology and there do exist competing psychological theories that could not be classified as scientific psychological theories. Psychology is an alien subject for modern China and the institutionalization of Chinese psychology occurred in a similar way as the one in western world, especially as the one in America, since most of the returned students, who later become the first generation of early Chinese psychologists, received their doctoral or master＇s degree in the psychological or educational departments of America. The internal tension between scientific psychology and humanistic psychology also exists in the developmental trajectory of modern Chinese psychology. Besides, as most psychologists in less developed academic areas, Chinese psychologists have long been facing the anxiety of chasing： fear of lagging behind the cutting-edge of modern psychology. Thus, they are not confident enough to speak their own voices and use their own languages to explain indigenous psychological phenomena; western theories are always their final resorts. This leads to an awkward situation that western theories that have little cultural backgrounds play the decisive role in academic studies, while people in everyday life continue to offer their own accounts that may fit their experiences better than the so-called scientific psychological theories. It is true that there is little, if not none, scientific method for doing psychological studies among traditional Chinese psychologists, but there are solid resources for humanistic psychology. It may not be realistic for Chinese psychologists to develop a measureable scientific theory with traditional Chinese thoughts; however, this does not necessarily mean that the Chinese could not develop psychological theories of their own. This does mean that Chinese psychologists should not see scientific psychology as the only possible theoretical pattern of psychology, but one of them. Humanistic Chinese psychology, which has deep roots in ancient Chinese philosophical thoughts, could become the breakthrough point that addresses the real psychological and behavioral problems of contemporary, changing China. The vitality and strength of a theory lie in its external validity as well as its cohesive power of social values and opinions, but not in the so called scientific procedure. This is the very power of traditional Chinese thoughts. Chinese psychologists could focus on the construction of comprehensive theoretical framework that encompasses the major issues covered in humanistic psychology and seek to provide an integrated outline that would lead to further fruitful theoretical perspectives.