79 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
79 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
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# 12. Chinese Social Psychology
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> PSYG2504 Social Psychology
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## Lian Vs. Mianzi
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Hu (1944) proposed that there are 2 basic categories of face in Chinese culture:
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Lian (臉) and mianzi (面子).
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### Lian
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*An individual’s lian can be preserved by faithful compliance with ritual or social norms.*
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Having lian “represents the confidence of society in the integrity of ego’s moral character, the loss of which makes it impossible for him to function properly in the community”.
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Both a social sanction for enforcing moral standards and an internalized sanction.
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- Bu yao lian (‘doesn’t want face’; 不要臉) means that he or she is nasty, shameless, and immoral: A great insult to his or her moral character.
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- Diulian (shame; 丟臉) is a result of wrong-doing regardless of the presence of an audience.
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### Mianzi
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*Mianzi stands for the kind of prestige that is emphasized in a particular place*
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*Similar to the western face concept.*
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Mianzi stands for the kind of prestige that is emphasized in a particular place
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Similar to the western face concept: Chinese – with hierarchical structure of society with its permanency of statues.
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- A reputation achieved through success, e.g. career or interpersonal relationship.
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- Lian has no relationship with successFace behavior
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### Enhancing one’s own face
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Knowing what kind of qualities are most appreciated by others in one’s social network, a person may deliberately do face-work to enhance one’s social or positional status by showing off these most appreciated qualities.
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### Enhancing others’ face
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A person may adopt some tactics of ingratiation to enhance the resource allocators’s face so that the latter might reciprocate by allocating the resources in a way to benefits the ingratiator.
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Tactics include presenting compliments of sufficient credibility, conforming with his/her opinions and behavior, giving gifts or doing other pleasant and rewarding things for others
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### Losing one’s own face
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The losing of face may bring serious consequences for an individual, especially when he/she loses the so-called ‘moral face’.
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‘Not-wanting face’ (pu-yao lien) or ‘having no face’ (mei-yu lien) implying the actor has **lost all claims to being a person**.
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Losing face for someone or some group with whom he/she is closely connected
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### Hurting others’ face
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When a man wants to ask for a favor from a resource allocator of some prestige, he first assesses his position relative to the allocator and the likelihood that he may be successful.
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If the request is accepted, then the allocator ‘gave him mianzi’ and his face is increased.
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If the request is rejected, the allocator does not give him ‘mianzi’, which then reflects badly on his own mianzi and blame the allocator, especially when the allocator occupies a lower social status.
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### Saving one’s own face
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Losing face may cause embarrassment, shame or shyness
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Possible reactions:
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- Compensatory actions: terminating the face-losing behavior, reinterpreting the situation, apologizing, working hard to enhance the social status
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- Retaliatory actions: express dissatisfaction in a subtle and indirect way
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- Self-defensive reactions: devalue the opponent, deemphasize the seriousness of the face-losing event and pretend nothing happened
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### Saving others’ face
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Bond and Lee (1978) studied the face-saving behavior of 100 CUHK students.
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> Participants were told the study was about public speaking.
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> 1 participant in a group of 5 students was chosen to give a 3-minute talk.
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**Four experimental conditions:**
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1. Speaker uninformed condition: comments and ratings would be seen only by the experimenter
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2. Informed anonymous condition: speakers would read the evaluations later alone
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3. Informed face-to-face condition: they would read their comments and their ratings to the speaker privately
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4. Informed-audience condition: they would read their comments and ratings to the speaker in the presence of the next group of 5 students
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ANOVA revealed significant difference across all experimental conditions
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Subsequent test revealed more negative ratings in condition 1 (speaker uninformed condition) than in condition 4 (informed audience condition).
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