Oral Presentation 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

Positive Psychology in Indigenous Cultures (#203)

Kaiping Peng 1
  1. Tsinghua University, Beijing, BEIJING, China
Positive psychology has become an international movement. Given the fact that there is substantial evidence to support the influence of culture, positive psychology may have to be tested in cross cultural contexts and for its cultural sensitivity. As one of the oldest and most populous cultures in the world, China is a good testing ground of such examinations. There is ample evidence to suggest that Chinese culture is more collective, dialectical and socially oriented. Therefore the definitions, measurements and functions of positive psychology may be subject to scrutiny. I am proposing a Chinese view on human positivity to be more collectivistic than individualistic, more behavioral than mental, more dialectical than linear, more outward than inward, more context-defined than trait-defined. Implications of this indigenous approach in broader contexts will be discussed.