Why China?

One of the greatest cultural changes to the world landscape is the transformation of China during the past three decades. As China emerges into a preeminent position in the world of industry, commerce, finance, and political power, “change” is the common currency experienced everyday by the Chinese people. China is quickly developing and on its way to become a global power. With the rise of China’s influence in the world, there is an increasing need for psychological understanding of the Chinese culture and Chinese people. No other country in the world is witnessing as many dramatic transitions in life styles, habits, and even values as is now happening in China. There is massive migration of people from rural to urban centers, changes in traditional family structure, changes in work schedules, changes in the nature of education, as well as dramatic changes in cultural values. The young Chinese are living lives that their elders could not have envisioned a few decades ago. Indeed, China is Change (Zimbardo, 2008).


Why Psychology?

With these rapid changes, come changes in human psychology and interactions between Chinese and the outside. There are new pressures to change behavior, values, and attitudes in particular directions, for the good of society, the family, the office, the team, and so forth. How are those changes taking place in China? How are ordinary Chinese citizens coping with these historical changes? What are the psychological costs the Chinese have to pay for experiencing such dramatic cultural transformation? Is China psychologically ready to be a responsible and contributing member of the world? How would they deal with anticipated cultural conflicts of increasing international trades and exchanges? To the people in the West, how much do we really know China or the psychology of Chinese people? Are we prepared to deal with the rising influence of China? The knowledge of China and the psychology of Chinese people would not only affect the ways in which we deal with China, but also the future development of Chinese societies.


What we can do

The Berkeley Program on Culture and Behavior in Chinese Societies attempts to provide a platform for psychologists and other concerned scholars from China and the world, to discuss issues and ideas relating to understanding the psychology of the Chinese people in the context of the current changes. There are currently six directions we would like to support that would fill the vacuum in our knowledge about China and the Chinese:

  1. We would hold an annual Berkeley-China Forum on Psychology and the Development of China. The first one is to be held at Wuhan University in China this May;
  2. We would provide research grants and scholarships for scholars from Berkeley and from China, concerned about the social psychological issues related to Chinese development and rising importance of China's role in world affairs ($1000 to $10000 depends on the scopes of the research);
  3. We would host young scholars from China to study social psychological issues in Berkeley.
  4. We want to promote international collaborations between Berkeley and Chinese universities to conduct cross-cultural research on cross-cultural communication, cross-cultural understanding; and to help Chinese (as well as people in the other countries) to develop global perspectives. We have six labs in China, including;
  5. We are going to support book and research article publishing in China and in the US, particularly the books and articles focusing on social /cultural psychology and the cross-cultural communication and understanding;
  6. We would like to provide consulting services for people and organizations involved in international relations, international business and cultural exchanges.

Who we are

The Berkeley Program on Culture and Behavior in Chinese Societies should be hosted at the Psychology Department of UC-Berkeley. The founding director of the program is Professor Kaiping Peng, a faculty member at the Psychology Department, who has been helping Tsinghua University to reestablish its Psychology program there. Professor Peng received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1997. Before coming to the US in 1989, he had been a faculty member at the Psychology Department of Peking University of China for five years. He is currently the head of the social/personality psychology area in Berkeley. He also directs the Culture and Cognition Lab at UC-Berkeley, and has published four books and 50 some articles on culture and cognition, and the psychology of Chinese people. Last year, Dr. Peng was named the most cited social psychologist at the level of associate professor in social psychology (SPSP Dialogues, 2007).