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Calls for papers for a special issue of the 'Asian Journal of Social Psychology,' devoted to recent conceptual advances and empirical research on psychological aspects of traditionality and modernity in Asia.

Calls for manuscripts for a special issue of the 'Asian Journal of Social Psychology,' dedicated to the topic of emotion.

The article presents a call for papers for the special issue of the "Asian Journal of Social Psychology" on social network processes. Potential topics include theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues surrounding social network research and data analysis, and varieties of applications of social network perspectives on such topics as physical and mental health, organizational behavior, community psychology, information technology, and social capital. The submission due date is June 30, 2006.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model for individual social behavior, B, that incorporates the contributions of both the personality of the actor, P, and the relevant features of the situation, S, in which he or she is performing. In analyzing the original formula by Lewin, viz., B = f( P. S), the paper first considers the importance accorded the situation in previous theorizing about ' Asianness'. It then analyzes the contributions of the actor's personality, noting in particular that actors come to develop broad expectancies for situational outcomes, P( S), associated with situations they encounter. Those situations are glossed for social psychological purposes in terms of their affordances for potential yields relative to the actor's motivations for sociality and status. These situational affordances are defined by the normative prescriptions believed to be operative in that situation for acceptable enactments of behaviors aimed at attaining the actor's goals for sociality and status. That normative pressure is objective, though it may be judged by the actor, and is termed the O( S) component of the situation. It is held with some degree of consensus, CO( S), by others in, or observers of, the situation. These two components specify the 'strength' of the situation for social psychological purposes, yielding an elaborated Lewinian formula B = f( P. P[ S]. O[ S]. CO[ S]). The culture of the participants, national, organizational, familial or dyadic, will determine the beta weights linking the components of the formula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was first reported in China, and spread to 29 regions, affecting over 8000 people worldwide. For the general public, the psychological impact of SARS may have been greater than the physical health danger of the disease. The present paper proposes the influence of psychological factors on people's cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses during the SARS outbreak. The various papers in this special issue of the Journal reveal how people have reacted during the SARS outbreak: People's general coping styles may be related to their health behavior during the outbreak. Cultural differences were evident in the perception of SARS, and individuals’ perceptual styles may have influenced their ability to cope with the outbreak. The way in which individuals coped with SARS-related stressful events was different from their usual practices of managing daily stress. Individual differences in the adoption of preventive measures were related to the distinct susceptibility to several social-cognitive biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rumor research, in general, and its delayed incorporation of the work of rumor researcher Jamuna Prasad, in particular, exemplify how the intellectual climate of American social psychology discouraged the development of social approaches. In the present paper, we explain his conceptualization of how rumors start and spread, and explore findings from subsequent research supporting or negating his propositions. It is our contention that, although Prasad had identified the basic variables involved in rumor generation and transmission correctly, mainstream social psychological research in the 1940s did not incorporate his contributions. Instead, mirroring the Zeitgeist of American social psychology, rumor research was approached from a predominantly individual level of analysis. In the present paper, the authors have tried to resurrect some of the group-level variables from Prasad's treatment of rumor and to suggest that social psychology adopt a more 'social' approach to rumor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intricate interactions between language and culture shape bilingual and bicultural individuals' psychological responses to social contexts. Language carries cultural scripts, ideals, and practices, which can be activated by situational cues. In the process of managing two acquired languages, bilinguals shift their self-perception and self-presentation to accommodate the prototypical norms characteristic of the culture being primed by language use. Cultural mindset can explain such language priming effects. In the process of negotiating two intersecting cultures, integrating bicultural identities is central to psychological adjustment among individuals experiencing immigration-based and globalization-based acculturation, whereas bilingual or trilingual competence is important to sojourners' adjustment. The present paper reviews empirical work along these lines of research and suggests that it is possible for alternation and integration to coexist within the same individuals who integrate their bicultural identities and alternate their behavioural responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined whether the scale called Coping Strategies in Chinese Social Context (CSCSC) developed in this paper is better at predicting individual mental health than the COPE Scale, which focuses on ‘active-passive’ coping. Two hundred and 51 university students were recruited and measured on the CSCSC, COPE and five mental health inventories. The results demonstrated that the CSCSC predicted mental health better than the COPE. ‘Active-prosocial’ and ‘passive-prosocial’ are two suitable coping strategies, whereas ‘passive-antisocial’ is not a suitable coping strategy. Studies exploring coping processes in Chinese culture should consider social interactions and connection with others as a significant aspect of coping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social psychology and social network research are both centrally concerned with human sociality. Despite some historically significant interactions between the two, these areas of investigation have not been usefully deployed together in recent research endeavours. The present paper attempts to bring out some points of both theoretical and methodological contentions, to characterize the gap between them, to traverse briefly the trajectories of their historical development, and to provide some concrete instances of these differences. Intellectual resources available to Asian social psychology are reviewed, which may help bridge the gap between the two areas of research. We conclude by calling for a greater integration of social psychology and social network perspectives in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines the role, status and development of Asian social psychology from four perspectives: (i) looking back; (ii) looking in; (iii) looking out; and (iv) looking forward. Looking back elaborates early attempts to ‘add Asians’ to social psychology and replicate classic social psychological research in Asian contexts. Looking in describes more sophisticated developments in Asian social psychology including the indigenization of theory, methods and measurements. Looking out critically examines the position of Asian social psychology in the international arena and discusses its impact on the discipline more broadly. Finally, looking forward makes some cautious predictions about the future of Asian social psychology in both regional and international spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A scan of citation impact suggests that Asian social psychologists have made significant contributions in three areas: indigenous research, culture and social behaviour, and in several topics in social psychology. An analysis of the most cited articles published in Asian Journal of Social Psychology ( AJSP) in 1998–2002 in March 2005 reveals that most papers are concerned with culture, with a focus on either popular topics in the West or indigenous concepts. Asian social psychology seems to be closely associated with cultural issues, but it still lacks unique theoretical contributions, and the number of internationally visible scholars is limited and is mostly confined to East Asia. However, Asian cultures provide a fertile ground for identifying new constructs. Many Asian universities are now under pressure to internationalize, which will motivate more academics to participate in Asian conferences and publish in AJSP. To develop Asian social psychology, effort should be focused on nurturing the next generation of Asian social psychologists, who not only need an international perspective, but also ambition and creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue (SI), which marks the 10th anniversary of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology, carries the triple roles of taking stock of the past, scouting the present, and envisioning the future. In so doing, it connects with the 6th biennial conference of the Asian Association of Social Psychology held in 2005, in which several keynote speakers (Atsumi, Hofstede, Leung, and Ward) addressed the same troika of concerns. Together with invited commentary from Chiu and Matsumoto they form the substance of this SI. As SI Editors, we read the papers several times, for what they were and, just as enlightening, for what they were not. In the process, we reflected on what is social about Asian social psychology and, equally intriguing, on what is Asian about it. The (tentative) conclusion that we have reached is that a practical and creative social psychology that is in, of, and for Asia, and defines itself as a network of like-minded collaborators gathered around a central purpose rather than as a geographic or genetic entity will have the best chance of realizing the potential of Asian social psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper, a preliminary statement on the traditional-modern bicultural self in contemporary Taiwan was proposed and our presentation was organized in four parts. First, a theoretical and conceptual analysis was attempted to describe the emergence and composition of the traditional-modern bicultural self of the contemporary Taiwanese people. The cultural and social roots of such a bicultural self were explored, and its constituting elements delineated and their interrelations analyzed. Second, relevant empirical evidence pertaining to this particular model of the Chinese bicultural self was reviewed. Third, our present model was related and compared against various existing bicultural self models. Finally, directions and issues for future research on the Chinese bicultural self were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture has been regarded as an anathema to psychology as an empiricist research tradition. Despite the explosive growth of research on culture and psychology over the last decade of the 20th century and its importance in Asian social psychology, the ontological and epistemological tension between psychology as a science and psychology as a cultural/historical discipline introduced in the writings of the thinkers of the Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment still lingers on in the contemporary discourse of psychology. Clifford Geertz once ominously suggested that cultural psychology may have chewed more than it can. In the present paper, the interpretive turn in social science as exemplified by writings of Charles Taylor and Paul Ricoeur is reviewed and how it may impinge on the practice of Asian social psychology as an empirical science in methodological, epistemological, and ontological respects is discussed. It is argued here that the current practice of Asian social psychology is largely, though not entirely, free of the challenges mounted by these theorists, and that Asian social psychology has an advantage of not being encumbered by this traditional tension due to a monist ontology that is prevalent in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper endeavours to discuss some of the potential issues inherent in the developmental work for indigenous psychologies, especially in the Western context. The discussion is made around two topical issues, sustainability and local knowledge. The developmental processes in indigenous psychologies are influenced by the inter- and intracommunity environment. It is important to trace the development of local knowledge in a sustained community environment. The cross-fertilization of ecological perspectives with indigenous psychological knowledge can enlighten our understandings of global issues in psychology as well as the applications of psychological knowledge to a local context. A theoretical model is proposed to highlight major social psychological processes in a participatory community environment − the model is expected to address essential contentious issues to the future of a globalized psychology, especially the way integrated local knowledge can lay the foundations of a globalized indigenous psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Durkheim and Mauss, in Primitive Classification, concluded that the emotions play a causal role in the history of dual symbolic classification systems, but could not test this intuitive speculation because they saw a classification of the emotions as impossible. In this paper a portion of Plutchik's psychoevolutionary model of the primary emotions are assumed to be valid and are then investigated through analysis of one of their three case studies of primitive classification, that of classification in ancient China, where their emphasis was on the eight "trigrams" or "powers" that they saw arranged in a "divinatory compass" The trigrams are three-line components of the "hexagrams," the six-line figures that are interpreted as master signs in I Ching divination rituals. Using Plutchik's psychoevolutionary classification of the emotions as a basis of comparison, especially his model of the primary emotions as adaptive reactions to the positive and negative experiences of four existential problems — identity, temporality/reproduction, hierarchy, and territoriality — it is found that both trigrams and primary emotions exist as four pairs of opposites. The eight trigrams and eight primary emotions similarly can be seen as adaptive reactions to the four basic problems of life. Through structural analysis, correspondences between the trigrams and the primary emotions are developed, the result being that the primary emotions are structurally isomorphic and very close in first meanings to the primary attributes of the trigrams. Implications of this isomorphism of structure for the development of a social psychology of the emotions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efforts of Asian social psychology and the Asian Association of Social Psychology (AASP) over the past decade and longer have clearly drawn attention to Asian cultures and their potential influence on psychological processes, and have highlighted the need to incorporate Asian social psychology into a global understanding of social psychology. Despite these advancements, however, all four authors, in their own way, suggest that these efforts are only the tip of the iceberg, and describe how Asian social psychology can shift their contributions to a higher gear. In this brief commentary, I discuss three points raised in the papers by Atsumi, Hofstede, Leung, and Ward: identity, the gold standard of comparison, and the contribution of Asian social psychology to a global social psychology, all in relation to visions of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article calls for the submission of papers that can stimulate debate regarding how the relationships between brain and the culture may offer challenges to Asian social psychology. The bicultural and crosscultural empirical studies that contain Asian element are likewise recognized. It suggests that papers should be prepared according to the Author Guidelines and should be submitted.

Presents indexes of authors and their papers on social psychology featured in the Volume 3 issue of the 'Asian Journal of Social Psychology.'

This paper reviews the literature on the "crisis" in social psychology. Although the symptoms of the crisis are various, the basic problem can be identified as the inappropriate emulation of the natural sciences model. Within this approach, psychologists attempted to discover objective, abstract, universal laws of human behavior, but have largely failed to do so. The second part of this paper analyzes misconceptions that many psychologists have about objectivity and scientific methods and outlines an alternative perspective. In the third part of the paper, a comparative analysis of physical, biological, and human sciences are provided. In the final section, an alternative scientific paradigm - the transactional model, is presented. In this approach, human consciousness, agency, and creativity, both at the individual and collective level, are considered as key constructs in explaining psychological functioning. Subjective elements such as human consciousness and agency and the influences of context and meaning are explicitly integrated in the research model in search of dynamic and emergent properties of human functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A call for papers is presented for the special issue of "Asian Journal of Social Psychology" on topics related to religious fundamenlism, the ideology of Jihad, and terrorism in Asia.

Social cognition provides a metatheoretical approach to understanding the mental underpinnings of human social behavior. This paper reviews some of the major themes in social cognition research, tracing its progression from a methodological hybrid between cognitive and social psychology to a major foundation of social psychology. We stress the most recent trend in social cognition research - the motivated tactician theme - which focuses on the roles of motives and goals in people's mental processes and social behavior; examples from our laboratory illustrate this theme. Our brief historical overview emphasizes diversity within the social cognition approach; its applicability to multiple psychological and social issues; and directions for collaboration with other notable research traditions, particularly cross-cultural perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gives an overview of social representation theory, definitions of the key terms and of the social processes leading to a representation and to social identity. Six empirical studies are presented and details of their methods and findings are given to illustrate this social psychological approach. These studies are about the ontogenesis of gender, the public sphere in Brazil, madness on British television, images of androgyny in Switzerland, individualism and democracy in post-communist Europe and metaphorical thinking about conception. The methods are ethnography, interviews, focus-groups, content analysis of media, statistical analysis of word associations, questionnaires and experiments. Finally, social representation theory is compared to theories of attitudes, schemata and social cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]