Acta Psychologica Sinica

Abstract

The studying and chronicling of the history of psychology has been deeply influenced by the postmodernist movement. The traditional historiography of psychology (THP), in search of objective historical facts, adopts the correspondence theory of truth and considers the natural science model as its paradigm. It regards the development of psychology as a linear, one-dimensional, and accumulative process in which all nations and cultures dealt with the same subject of psychology during different historical periods. THP claims that some drawbacks notwithstanding, the history of psychology is a story of progress. In addition, THP chronicles the manner in which a “center” or a “mark” was set up as a criterion against which all people, schools of thought, events, and activities in the history of psychology were classified as advanced or laggard and as central or marginal. In striking contrast with THP, the postmodern historiography of psychology (PHP) regards the history of psychology as a social construction, claiming that the history of psychology was socially constructed by psychologists. According to postmodern historians, the narratives of history are not representation of historical facts, but the construction of historians. The processes of the construction are deeply rooted in specific cultures of the time. Historiography of psychology is not concerned with natural objects but discursive ones. Categories such as motivation, intelligence, mind and personality refer to historical and social entities, and not to “natural kinds” Postmodern claims have significant implications for the study of the history of psychology. PHP will enable the historians of psychology to effectively recognize the subjectivity of knowledge embedded in the history of psychology. It will also make psychologists aware of the values and ideologies in the study of the history of psychology and enable them to approach the history of psychology from the viewpoints of different cultures.

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