Abstract: Positivism is a significant theoretical problem which influences the whole development of psychological research. This article makes a systematic summation of the over-20-year research of positivism in Chinese psychology field from three ways as the connotation, positive effect and negative effect of positivism in modern western psychology, and the author puts forward his own view and understanding of the future development of positivism research.

Key words: positivism, modern western psychology, general discussion