Dialogical Exchange Class Using Movies for Mutual Understanding between a Korean and a Japanese University

This study analyzes a process through which university students in Japan and South Korea come to understand the culture of the other country by exchanging comments on a documentary movie “ANNYON SAYONARA (Hello and Goodbye)” which relates to the Asia-Pacific War and Korean colonial rule by Japan. The approach to understand other cultures through movies is called the “Round Table Cinema Method” and is a method whereby individuals with different cultural backgrounds talk about the same movie to discuss “gaps,” “sense of incongruity,” and “internal conflicts” that arise. Through exchanging comments with each other, both countries’ students damaged each other, but this eventually changed and the viewpoint and feeling of the partner became better understood.     

‘Where are you from?’ Identity as a key to parenting by 1.5 generation Korean-New Zealand migrants and implications for counselling

In a qualitative study of the experiences of 1.5 generation Korean New Zealanders as parents, a notable finding was the significant part the participants’ identity-related experiences as migrants played in shaping their parenting practices. Interviews were conducted with 18 Korean “Kiwis” (New Zealanders), colloquially referred to as “Kowis,” who had arrived in New Zealand before 2002 as children or adolescents with their parents and were now married with children. Reflecting on the challenges of their migration and identity journeys enabled them to recognise their vulnerabilities and their advantages, and the multiple ways in which identity-related cultural conflicts and confusion influenced their parenting of their children. The implications are identified for further research and for counselling practice.     

Korean Christian Zionism: A Sociological Study of Mission

From the perspective of the sociology of missions, this study explores the Korean Christian Zionists' mission work after 9/11. The current Pentecostal success in South Korea has spurred the nation to send more missionaries abroad than any other country except the United States. As America has been losing the trust of the world since 9/11, some evangelical fundamentalists argue that Korea should take over the initiative of world mission from the United States. The Jerusalem Jesus March in 2004 and the South Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan in 2007 have served to admonish Korean churches to hastily reconsider coercing their missionaries to proselytize in dangerous areas such as Islamic lands. This study unfolds issues such as “spiritual subjectivism” and “Korea‐centrism”, illustrated by the Jesus March incident and the Afghan controversy, and suggests that the expansionism of Korean Pentecostal/evangelical missionaries taken up with the idea of “global spiritual conquest” is a manifestation of “Korean Christian Zionism”.     

The value tensions in Korean–American mother–child relationships while facilitating academic success

The current study explored mothers’ perspectives concerning their experiences in facilitating the academic success of their adolescents in American schools, using a naturalistic study design, data from transcribed personal interviews of 17 Korean–American mothers, and a phenomenological analysis approach (Giorgi, 1985, 1997). The purposes of this study were to (a) reveal the layers of context that influenced mothers’ thoughts, actions, and mother–child relationships as they assisted their adolescents in realizing academic success, a core value in Korean culture, and (b) uncover the relationship difficulties mothers perceived in these processes. The results indicated that mothers were influenced by their individualistic and collectivist cultural (meta) contexts as they tried to facilitate the academic success for their adolescents. Second, they were struggling with their competing Korean and American value systems (general context) in the adjustment processes of “becoming an American” and “remaining a Korean.” Third, mothers revealed their value tensions with adolescents (specific context) in school and family settings. In the family setting the tensions involved balancing obedience and respect with freedom and equality, similarity preference with diversity tolerance, and achievement and recognition with happiness and fulfillment.     

Art beyond Morality and Metaphysics: Late Joseon Korean Aesthetics

In the history of Chinese philosophy, Mozi calls music a “waste of resources,” considering it an aristocratic extravagance that does not benefit the everyday people. In its defense, Confucians highlight music's moral and metaphysical qualities, arguing that music aids in moral cultivation and that music's form mimics the structure of reality. The aim of this article is to show that Korean philosophers provide yet another reason to think music is important. Music, and art in general, was used to express a national identity at a time Korean philosophers were beginning to develop their own aesthetic consciousness in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A cultural movement called Joseonpoong (???), “Joseon wind,” marked a shift away from Sinocentrism and toward Korea's own unique values and practices. The new attempt to justify art's value apart from its relationship to morality or metaphysics set Joseon thinkers apart from their Chinese predecessors. Using art for identity expression allowed the Koreans to reconceive art's value while Sinocentric cosmological and cultural views were being challenged with the introduction of Western knowledge. Art also became a tool for reversing hermeneutic injustice as new artistic practices and standards allowed the Koreans to meaningfully engage with previously neglected aspects of their lived lives.     

Profiling Korean sex crimes: Offender characteristics and crime scene actions

The present study aimed to examine the demographic information of sex offenders in South Korea and explore whether a U.K. thematic model of criminal behaviour could be replicated in the Korean context. The 27 variables of crime scene actions derived from 50 Korean sexual offences through a content analysis were analysed with smallest space analysis. Chi‐square was also administered to explore the differences in offender characteristics among behavioural themes. Consequently, three separate action themes, hostility–involvement, theft, and control, were revealed. Next, each case was assigned to one of the dominant or hybrid themes, with 84% of the total cases being classified to the dominant themes. Moreover, there were significant differences in four offender characteristics between the themes: “previous conviction of robbery,” “previous conviction of sexual crime,” “knowing the victim,” and “vehicle use.” These outcomes have implications for the development of the Korean profiling system.     

Countercurrents from the West: “blue-eyed” Zen masters, Vipassanā meditation, and Buddhist psychotherapy in contemporary Korea

One surprising and yet relatively unknown aspect of contemporary Korean Buddhism is the significant influence of American and European Buddhism. Between 1989 and 2009, South Koreans witnessed well-educated “blue-eyed” monastic residents via the Korean media, and the emergence of new bestsellers by authors like Thich Nhat Hahn and Jack Kornfield, written initially for Western audiences but since translated into Korean. The new teachings from the West have inspired a sudden growth of interest in vipassanā meditation as an “alternative” to Kanhwa S?n practice, and the emergence of a new academic field: Buddhist psychotherapy. This new wave of transnational influence from the West has changed not only the way Koreans practice Buddhism but also how they perceive Buddhist history and their own identities. In addition, the perceived “prestige” of Buddhism in the West has provided a new rhetorical strategy to defend Buddhism against other religions, particularly Korean evangelical Christianity.     

“God may NOT be a Personexcl;”: A Case of Cultural Construction of God Representations

This article raises the fundamental questions of God representations: What is the origin and nature of God representations in the context of culture? The subsequent questions that flow from this major question include: What are the psychoanalytic notions of culture and cultural experience? And what is the relationship between the self and God representation? Given the emphasis placed upon the nature of “individual” representational experience in psychoanalytic literature, this article presents a challenge to psychoanalytic object-relations theory by explicating the case of the Korean cultural construction of God representations. The author argues that to understand one’s images of God one needs to consider the relationship between the mental images one has constructed prior to one’s acquisition of language and cultural constructs that are collectively represented and symbolically embodied through the use of language.     

Individualism and Collectivism: Implications for Women

This essay examines the nature and dynamics of individualism and collectivism as social and interpersonal phenomena. It considers the importance of affirming the true self as a key feature of individualism as conceived by Donald Capps. By means of cultural and gender analysis, the essay explores aspects of self-affirmation among women, especially Korean American women in both individualist and collectivist societies. It ultimately proposes a “self-affirming collectivism” that promotes the authentic individual self as imago Dei whose unique identity is expressed within community.     

THE ENCHANTMENTS OF MAMMON: NOTES TOWARD A THEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF CAPITALISM

Tales of “disenchantment” dominate modern intellectual life, and especially accounts of the cultural history of capitalism. Yet Weberian sociology, and especially Marxist notions of “commodity fetishism”, point to the persistence of “enchantment” in the capitalist imagination. If we reformulate these notions of “enchantment” and “disenchantment” in theological terms of sacrament, then we can write new histories of capitalism, as well as articulate new forms of political and cultural criticism. Borrowing from “radical orthodoxy”, the author takes a Cook's Tour of “disenchantment”, explores the possibilities afforded by “sacramental” conceptions of materialism, and gestures toward an account of American cultural history shaped by a sacramental materialism.     

The psychology of practice and the practice of the three psychologies

The keynote speakers at the 2nd Asian Association for Social Psychology Meetings were asked to clarify the relationship among the three scholarly fields known as cultural psychology, indigenous psychology and cross‐cultural psychology. Are they three names for the same thing? If not are they complementary or antagonistic enterprises? Does one approach subsume the other(s) or make the other(s) possible? What follows is my own general view of the “three psychologies” issue. I suggest that cultural psychology and indigenous psychology are kindred approaches, which differ in significant ways from cross‐cultural psychology. A distinction is drawn between the study of “mentalities” (the proper unit of analysis for cultural and indigenous psychology) and the study of “mind” (a non‐cultural phenomenon). Cultural psychology is a type of interpretive analysis of social practice which asks, “what are the `goals, values and pictures of the world' with reference to which this behavior might be seen as rational?” The essay describes the assumption of rationality and the place of cultural critique in interpretive analysis. Is there any significant difference at all between cultural psychology and indigenous psychology? One aim of cultural psychology (“globalizing the local”) is premised on the view that “indigenous psychologies” may have relevance outside their points of origin. How open is the indigenous psychology movement to the idea that (e.g.) a psychology with a “Chinese soul” might illuminate the psychological functioning of members of non‐Chinese populations?     

Can Culture Influence Body‐Specific Associations Between Space and Valence?

People implicitly associate positive ideas with their dominant side of space and negative ideas with their non‐dominant side. Right‐handers tend to associate “good” with “right” and “bad” with “left,” but left‐handers associate “bad” with “right” and “good” with “left.” Whereas right‐handers' implicit associations align with idioms in language and culture that link “good” with “right,” left‐handers' implicit associations go against them. Can cultural conventions modulate the body‐specific association between valence and left‐right space? Here, we compared people from Spanish and Moroccan cultures, which differ in the strength of taboos against the use of the left hand, and therefore in their preference for the right. Results showed stronger explicit associations between space and valence in Moroccan participants than in Spaniards, but they did not show any increased tendency for right‐handed Moroccans to associate “good” with “right” implicitly. Despite differences in cultural conventions between Spaniards and Moroccans, we find no evidence for a cross‐cultural difference in the implicit association between space and valence, which appears to depend on patterns of bodily experience.     

从跨文化心理学到文化建构主义心理学——心理学中文化意识的衍变

心理学中的文化意识在跨文化心理学、文化心理学、文化建构主义心理学中经历了3次重大衍变。跨文化心理学视文化为心理规律的干扰因素,认为理论研究应力求“去文化”;文化心理学认为心理是文化的“投射”,寻求理论的“文化敏感”;文化建构主义心理学则认为心理与文化是相互灌注、相互建构的关系,因而更加关注“心理”、“意义”与“现实”的双向建构过程。本文详细分析了上述几种不同的文化意识形态的主要特点,并结合历史背景,对其各自的意义、问题做了简要讨论。     

惠能“心量广大”的文化心理学解读

惠能及其开创的禅宗的核心思想“明心见性”是明白“心量广大”。它包括如下几层含义:(1)“本心”中所包含的估量标准或尺度广大;(2)“心”度量、衡量、审度的对象众多,范围广大;(3)“心”的容量广大;(4)人心的耐受程度和转化能力强大;(5)人心的范围广大和创造力强大;(6)人的心态积极强大。“心量广大”具体体现在平常心、包容心或宽容心、认知力、精神力、心理能量等几个方面。“心量广大”具有浓郁的中国文化特色,蕴含有“自强不息,厚德载物”的中国文化精神,“道德自律和躬身自省”的中国文化伦理与价值追求,“以人为本的人道主义和人文情怀”的中国文化核心思想理念。由此来看,惠能的“心量广大”思想在当代社会仍具有积极的现实价值,对当代文化建设,社会道德构建等有积极作用。     

Discussion of Kris Yi’s Paper “From No Name Woman to Birth of Integrated Identity: Trauma-Based Cultural Dissociation in Immigrant Women and Creative Integration”

Using a clinical vignette describing her work with a Korean patient, Kris Yi draws attention to the ways in which ethnic minority cultures are not monolithic. Yi offers the theoretical construct of a “cultural dissociation.” When sexual violence or discrimination is infused with cultural practices, people may seek relief by dissociating themselves from the culture that is fused with emotional pain. In this discussion, using examples that range from Sigmund Freud to Henry Louis Gates, I link Yi’s formulation to one I have developed, namely, that race in America constitutes an adaptive problem. When clinicians take into account the adaptive nature of the problem that race and ethnicity constitute in contemporary American culture, practitioners should expect dislocations. I conclude with a call for our profession open ourselves to the different stories differently situated others have to tell in their own voices and on their own terms.     

Cultural Dimensions,Gender, and the Nature of Self-concept: A Fourteen-country Study

Ratings of the importance of and satisfaction with 20 areas of the self were obtained from 3604 first or second year social science undergraduates from 14 countries (15 cultures). Factor analysis at the culture by gender level supported four factors for both sets of ratings. The resulting factor scores were analyzed for mean differences according to the cultural dimension of Individualism-Collectivism by Gender and by correlations with other cultural dimenions and economic indicators. It was found that participants from the 10 collectivist cultures placed greater salience for their self-concepts on “family values” than did those from the individualist cultures. However, this cultural difference was not found for “social relationships”. The expected gender differences, with females valuing “family values” and “social relationships” more highly, were found only for the individualist countries. The findings indicate that there may be a strong cultural level interaction effect between gender and Individualism-Collectivism on the nature of self-conceptions, and that the “family” and “social” aspects of self-concept in collectivist countries need to be considered separately.     

Transforming Fatherhood: Reconstructing Fatherhood Through Faith-Based Father School in South Korea

Despite the fast growing literature on religion and fatherhood, the majority of research on the topic was conducted in western societies, and the linkage between culture, religion, and fatherhood was understudied. Using in-depth interviews with 20 Korean fathers who completed an evangelical Duranno Father School (DFS) program, this study examines the processes through which they reconstruct fatherhood and become involved fathers in contemporary South Korean society. Results show the DFS program is instrumental in the reconstruction of new fatherhood through the provision of a strong moral foundation. The transformational processes of fatherhood are initiated and sustained within men’s relationships and interactions with families and religious communities in South Korean cultural context. However, reconstructing a new form of fatherhood is a daunting task and the processes of change are marked with constant tensions between old practices and new ways of doing fatherhood. Men must consciously make efforts to sustain new fatherhood through various means and strategies until new fatherhood becomes familiar. This Korean case suggests the significance of looking into the distinctive roles of religion in the processes of reconstruction of fatherhood, particularly in “unsettled times” characterized by social transformation. Implications of the findings for future research are discussed.     

One country,two cultures: Implicit space–time mappings in Southern and Northern Vietnamese

What determines how people implicitly associate the “past” and “future” with “front” and “back”? According to the Temporal Focus Hypothesis (TFH), people's cultural attitudes toward time influence their implicit space–time mappings. However, previous research mainly used cross‐cultural comparison in which the cultures compared differ not only in attentional focus on temporal events, but may also differ in other cultural values. Thus, the specific role of cultural attitudes toward time has not been tested. In the current study, we compared Southern and Northern Vietnamese who have many aspects in common but demonstrate cultural differences in attitudes toward the past and future. The results showed that the two groups of participants tended to think about time according to their temporal focus. Taken together, this pattern of results showed that within‐cultural differences in temporal focus can also predict variation in space–time mappings, which provides further supporting evidence for the TFH.