Life course, life transition and psychological transmutation in changing times: Oral history and collective memory of the sociologists of the “Educated Youth” generation

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1041.2024.00964

Abstract

Abstract: In the past 40 years of Reform and Opening Up, Chinese society has undergone rapid changes towards modernization. While the changes in economic and social structures have brought about remarkable economic achievements, Chinese values and social patterns have also undergone significant changes. After the reconstruction of Chinese sociology in 1979, as perhaps the most sensitive group to social change and its impact, the educated youth generation of sociologists has become the ideal case to represent the psychological transformation in the transitional era. This is because their personal life history was synchronized with the Reform and Opening Up as well as the reconstruction of sociology.
As 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of the reconstruction of Chinese sociology, we have conducted our oral history interviews with 40 sociologists. Through oral histories of these 40 sociologists, especially the 30 or so “Educated Youth Sociologists”, we analyzed the collective memory of the first generation of scholars after the reconstruction of Chinese sociology, and traced the dual process of transmutation in which their individual psychology and collective psychology intertwine.
In the dimension of individual psychological, transformation affected their cognitive style, emotional world and modernity in personal behavior. In terms of the construction of collective mentality, the discourse narratives formed during their 40-year career on Chinese modernization and the practice of enriching the people, the psychological order of happy life and work, and the localization or sinicization of sociology fully reflect the collective mentality of this unique group in the era of great change. Further, there were many overlapping and common features between their individual psychological transformation and collective psychological construction. These made the psychological evolution of these sociologists a spiritual transformation in individual psychology and collective mentality.
Qualitative research methods have become widely accepted in psychology in recent years. Among these, psychobiography is considered an important qualitative method. So far, however, the application of psychobiography in psychology has only been conducted in relation to individuals. Based on oral histories of 40 sociologists, this study examines the social psychology or collective mentality of people in the 40 years after China’s Reform and Opening Up, taking the psychobiography method a step further, with important psychological, sociological and historical ramifications.

Key words: changing times, psychological history and history of mentality, life course, life transition, psychological transmutation

CLC Number:

B849: C91

HU Jie, ZHOU Xiaohong. (2024). Life course, life transition and psychological transmutation in changing times: Oral history and collective memory of the sociologists of the “Educated Youth” generation. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 56(7), 964-976.

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