History Psychological Research In Mainland China In 2012 - 1978

The Modern Psychology was founded as a scientific subject in the beginning of last centry. This made it possible to further explain history using more precise, mature and systematic psychological theories. It also stimulated to shape a new branch of history, the Psychohistory. The Chinese researches of Psychohistory have been developing on the primary stage since conducting the reform and opening up policy in the mainland in1978. Many tentative ideas and attempts were made by researchers while there were some unavoidable problems. For example, there was no unified theory or method; concepts were used and applied differently, such as "historical psychology","psychological history","psyche history","mental history", etc.; research fields and power distributed unevenly. Therefore, the Psychohistory in the mainland has not become a unique historical subject. Its scholars and researchers explore their own fields independently without an academic base or any relative seminars. Based on the primary stage, the Psychohistory has a great potential to develop itself because of its unique research angles and methods. The author of this thesis summarized the development of Psychohistory in the mainland to sort out its developing clues in modern China and to prospect its future pathway on the basis of observing and studying Chinese scholars’researches since1978.The thesis consists of four parts:The first part is the introduction, briefly stating the purpose and meaning of this study, the research trend of relative field, and the major research method and thoughts in this thesis.The second part reviews the origins and development process of Psychohistory in the West, mainly discussing the modern Psychohistory’s progress. It also explains the differences and relationship between Psychohistory and Marxist History as well as the research situation in the mainland before1978.The third part, on the basis of literature review and content analysis, discusses in detail the current research situation of Psychohistory in the Chinese mainland which uses work publishing and paper issuing as its major expression. This part works as the foundation of reflecting and prospecting its development.Considering the change of research angles, resources of materials and research methods, the fourth part summarizes the current situation and trend of Psychohistory researches in the past forty years and concludes their achievements and shortcomings. The author puts forward with several suggestions and expectations for developing Psychohistory in China after reflecting its modern progress. There may be two major directions for Psychohistory research in the mainland:to be closer to practice and application; to build a local research pattern characterized with Chinese features.