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A scan of citation impact suggests that Asian social psychologists have made significant contributions in three areas: indigenous research, culture and social behaviour, and in several topics in social psychology. An analysis of the most cited articles published in Asian Journal of Social Psychology ( AJSP) in 1998–2002 in March 2005 reveals that most papers are concerned with culture, with a focus on either popular topics in the West or indigenous concepts. Asian social psychology seems to be closely associated with cultural issues, but it still lacks unique theoretical contributions, and the number of internationally visible scholars is limited and is mostly confined to East Asia. However, Asian cultures provide a fertile ground for identifying new constructs. Many Asian universities are now under pressure to internationalize, which will motivate more academics to participate in Asian conferences and publish in AJSP. To develop Asian social psychology, effort should be focused on nurturing the next generation of Asian social psychologists, who not only need an international perspective, but also ambition and creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model for individual social behavior, B, that incorporates the contributions of both the personality of the actor, P, and the relevant features of the situation, S, in which he or she is performing. In analyzing the original formula by Lewin, viz., B = f( P. S), the paper first considers the importance accorded the situation in previous theorizing about ' Asianness'. It then analyzes the contributions of the actor's personality, noting in particular that actors come to develop broad expectancies for situational outcomes, P( S), associated with situations they encounter. Those situations are glossed for social psychological purposes in terms of their affordances for potential yields relative to the actor's motivations for sociality and status. These situational affordances are defined by the normative prescriptions believed to be operative in that situation for acceptable enactments of behaviors aimed at attaining the actor's goals for sociality and status. That normative pressure is objective, though it may be judged by the actor, and is termed the O( S) component of the situation. It is held with some degree of consensus, CO( S), by others in, or observers of, the situation. These two components specify the 'strength' of the situation for social psychological purposes, yielding an elaborated Lewinian formula B = f( P. P[ S]. O[ S]. CO[ S]). The culture of the participants, national, organizational, familial or dyadic, will determine the beta weights linking the components of the formula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article is inspired by Liu's () idea on how Asian philosophy can, in general, and Confucianism, in particular, contribute to psychological science and practice. We first clarify potential misunderstandings of Liu's () paper as a theoretical argument for indigenous psychology or as a debate on philosophy or the philosophy of science. To interpret and develop Liu's idea, we then conceptualize the concept of culture as canonic (abstract, philosophical and as it appears in classical books or articles) vs. popular (concrete, experiential and as it appears in people's daily lives). Further, since Liu's main point is about canonic rather than popular culture, we focus on canonic culture and propose three principles of it, namely the principle of diversity, the principle of hermeneutics and the principle of inspiration. These principles respectively reveal the characteristics, the interpretation process and the beneficial function of a canonic culture like Confucianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue (SI), which marks the 10th anniversary of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology, carries the triple roles of taking stock of the past, scouting the present, and envisioning the future. In so doing, it connects with the 6th biennial conference of the Asian Association of Social Psychology held in 2005, in which several keynote speakers (Atsumi, Hofstede, Leung, and Ward) addressed the same troika of concerns. Together with invited commentary from Chiu and Matsumoto they form the substance of this SI. As SI Editors, we read the papers several times, for what they were and, just as enlightening, for what they were not. In the process, we reflected on what is social about Asian social psychology and, equally intriguing, on what is Asian about it. The (tentative) conclusion that we have reached is that a practical and creative social psychology that is in, of, and for Asia, and defines itself as a network of like-minded collaborators gathered around a central purpose rather than as a geographic or genetic entity will have the best chance of realizing the potential of Asian social psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines the role, status and development of Asian social psychology from four perspectives: (i) looking back; (ii) looking in; (iii) looking out; and (iv) looking forward. Looking back elaborates early attempts to ‘add Asians’ to social psychology and replicate classic social psychological research in Asian contexts. Looking in describes more sophisticated developments in Asian social psychology including the indigenization of theory, methods and measurements. Looking out critically examines the position of Asian social psychology in the international arena and discusses its impact on the discipline more broadly. Finally, looking forward makes some cautious predictions about the future of Asian social psychology in both regional and international spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose that part of the problem in combatting prejudice lies in people's dynamic understandings of what prejudice is. To examine this, we asked participants to rate the degree to which they perceived specific group‐relevant attitudes as prejudice. In Study 1, White participants perceived the attitudes as more prejudiced when the attitudes were targeted at Asian people than at White people and when expressed by an Anglo‐European speaker than by an Asian speaker. Study 2 was a direct replication but expanded the sample to include Asian participants. The Study 1 results were partially replicated in Study 2, although the target main effect was stronger among White than Asian participants. Together, the data suggest a normative legitimacy process in which injunctive norms dictate appropriate and inappropriate speakers and targets of specific group‐relevant attitudes. The data also confirm the original proposition of dynamic understandings of prejudice. Prejudice is understood by people not only by what is said but also by who is saying it and whom it is about. To the degree that these latter two variables are dynamic, then prejudice judgements themselves will remain so. We conclude by considering the implications of our data for both psychological theory and applications in prejudice‐reduction efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many people view Asian Americans as 'model minorities' who excel in math, science and music, they are also negatively stereotyped as nerdy and unsociable. Research has shown that Asian Americans have to outperform other races academically to receive equal consideration by colleges. This study is the first to test whether this bias is directed towards all Asian Americans or only those who fit the model minority stereotype. The present experiment investigates the effect of race and stereotypes on perceptions of students in the college admission process. College admission officers ( N = 79) were randomly assigned to view a shortened version of a college application. The participants rated the student whose application they saw according to likelihood of being accepted into college, social competence, academic competence and contribution to a college's diversity. The stereotypical Asian American student was perceived to be significantly less likely to be accepted into college and had a lower perceived social competence than the other three students. Additionally, students who participated in counter-stereotypical Asian activities were perceived as being more likely to be accepted, more socially competent and to contribute more diversity than students who participated in stereotypical Asian activities. A multiple regression revealed that social competence was the only significant predictor of likely acceptance. This study suggests that rather than all Asian American students being disadvantaged in the college admissions process, it is only those who fit common stereotypes who are affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Members of East Asian cultures are more likely to conform in public settings than are members of Western cultures. Little research has examined, however, whether East Asians are more likely to privately accept the views held by others. In two studies we gave European American and Korean participants descriptions of unusual food combinations, information about how much one peer had liked the food combinations, or both kinds of information, and asked them to predict how much they would like the foods. When people knew only how another person felt (without a description of the food combinations), both Koreans and Americans based their predictions on the other person's ratings. When people received descriptions of the foods and the ratings of another person, however, both Koreans and Americans based their predictions more on the descriptions than on how the other person felt. In short, we found no cultural differences in the extent to which people use another person's opinion to inform their own opinions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of action-outcome contingency in the situation in relation to Asian (holistic) and Western (analytic) perspectives and agrees with Professor Michael Harris Bond that Asian social psychologists are more attuned to social complexity. It also discusses Kurt Lewin's equation B = f (P, S) and other related concepts such as Normative pressure (or prescriptions), situational affordance, the power of situation and its role as an institution.

The article discusses the crucial role that culture plays in influencing individual social behavior as an individual’s behavior encompasses more than the personality and the immediate social environment. Some of the different ways according to Michael Bond that culture can influence behaviors are described. Culture has been found to provide individuals with shared representations, that individuals, subsequently, use to impart meanings and display appropriate behaviors.

This study examines the factor structure of Asian child-reported parenting from a Rasch perspective. Participants comprised 291 sixth graders (11 to 13 years) in Singapore. Six different aspects of parenting were measured, namely warmth, rejection, structure, chaos, autonomy support, and coercion. Rasch Analysis was used to transform ordinal data into linear measures; category functioning was examined; residual-based principal components were analysed; differential item functioning was assessed; and items and subjects that were misfitting were removed. Results showed that parenting comprised six dimensions, namely warmth, autonomy support, structure-control, structure-warmth, chaos, and negative parenting. The findings suggest that it is important for Asian parents to provide guidance to their children (in structure-control and structure-warmth) and reaffirms the relevance of warmth in Asian parenting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The no, moderate, and large differences between shares of outcome allocated to the high and low performers are interpreted as the respective rules of equality, ordinal equity, and proportional equity. The ability to employ the proportional rule is also believed to develop around the age of 13 years. The authors hypothesized that: (i) the rule of outcome allocation is subtraction; and (ii) age differences in outcome allocation are mediated by age differences in perceived inputs. In an experiment on Chinese aged 8–20 years, measures of perceived inputs were taken after or before outcome allocation. Results from the input-allocation order supported the hypotheses. Obviously, age effects in outcome allocations by Asians can sometimes be mediated by age differences in the ability to perceive the inputs accurately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]