Zhang Rui, Weng Liping
Department of Psychology, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, USA.
The Intercultural Institute, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China.
Int J Psychol. 2019 Feb;54(1):144-154. doi: 10.1002/ijop.12436. Epub 2017 Jun 20.
Given its major transformations in recent decades, China has figured prominently in research on cultural change. Previous research converges in showing a general trend towards individualism in contemporary China while noting that rising individualism tends to coexist with enduring collectivism. To further understand this, we tested whether perceived traditional importance of cultural values would modulate the trajectory of cultural change reflected in word usage frequencies in published books. We re-analysed Google's Chinese corpus since 1980 based on a broad sample of words associated with individualism-collectivism. We replicated the pattern of rising individualism and declining collectivism among words of modest and low perceived traditional importance. Most important, however, collectivistic words of high perceived traditional importance increased in usage frequencies with time, thus departing from the general trend towards individualism. Overall, our research underscores the role of core culture in cultural maintenance during times of rapid cultural change.
鉴于中国在近几十年经历了重大变革，它在文化变迁研究中占据显著地位。先前的研究一致表明，当代中国存在一种普遍的个人主义趋势，同时指出个人主义的兴起往往与持久的集体主义共存。为了进一步理解这一点，我们测试了文化价值观的传统重要性认知是否会调节出版书籍中词汇使用频率所反映的文化变迁轨迹。我们基于与个人主义 - 集体主义相关的广泛词汇样本，重新分析了自1980年以来谷歌的中文语料库。我们在被认为传统重要性较低和中等的词汇中重现了个人主义上升和集体主义下降的模式。然而，最重要的是，被认为传统重要性较高的集体主义词汇的使用频率随时间增加，从而背离了个人主义的总体趋势。总体而言，我们的研究强调了核心文化在快速文化变迁时期文化维系中的作用。
