理性式微、功利扩张?近40年中国社会两种个人主义的变迁

More utilitarian and less rational?Social change and two types of individualism over the last 40 years in China

随着全球范围内的现代化变迁,个人主义异常增长,但这一增长究竟是自我的功利扩张(如利益至上)、还是理性提升(如人格独立),引发了众多学者的反思。预研究建立了理性个人主义(如独立、自主、开拓、进取)和功利个人主义(如财产、利益、快乐、享受)词典。进而对谷歌中文图书语料库(1980~2019)的词频分析显示,理性个人主义显著下降,功利个人主义显著增长(研究1);词嵌入分析表明,自我靶词与理性(vs.功利)个人主义属性词的相对语义关联也呈下降趋势(研究2)。总之,中国社会近几十年来的文化转型并非个人主义的简单增长,而是出现了理性个人主义下降、功利个人主义增长的趋势。这表明,理性式微、功利扩张的价值失衡是社会变迁的重要议题,其背后的多重自我结构、演化路径及社会精神动力的培育还有待未来深入研究。

Individualism appears to have increased along with modernization and globalization,yet it is a great debate whether such a cultural shift fell in the value discrepancy between the independence-focused rational individualism and the interest-focused utilitarian individualism,especially in fast-changing societies like China.Based on expert interview,self-report survey,and open-question analysis(pilot study),the pilot study established a reliable and valid dictionary of rational individualism and utilitarian individualism,finding that rational(vs.utilitarian)individualism prevailed in responses to questions about rational individualism,and vice versa.Furthermore,based on word counting(Study 1)and word embedding(Study 2)analyses of Chinese version of Google Books Ngram(1980~2019),the present research was designed to test the effect of social change on rational individualism and utilitarian individualism.We hypothesized that(1)rational individualism decreased while utilitarian individualism increased from 1980 through 2019,and that(2)the semantic association between self and rational(vs.utilitarian)individualism decreased over the past 40 years.As expected,Study 1 revealed that the usage of rational individualism decreased,while that of utilitarian individualism increased over time;and via the single-target Word Embedding Association Test(WEAT),Study 2 revealed that the semantic similarity between the target words about self(e.g.,I,self)and attribute words about rational(vs.utilitarian)individualism decreased over time.Taken together,the results demonstrate the cultural shift of the increase in utilitarian individualism and decrease in rational individualism over the past 40 years in China,whereas both rational enlightenment and utilitarian expansion serve as psychological drives in the development of modern societies.It was suggested that the value discrepancy of rational and utilitarian individualism should be seriously concerned,and that further work is needed on multiple selves,cultural evolution,and psychological function of the two types of individualism.