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講題：From Description to Explanation: A Dynamic Approach to Understanding Culture

講者：Ying-yi Hong (康螢儀)（Choh-Ming Li Professor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong）

Ying-yi Hong is the Choh-Ming Li Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). She earned her Ph.D. in personality and social psychology from Columbia University. Before joining CUHK, she taught at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Her research focuses on culture and cognition, multicultural identity, and intergroup relations. More information about her research is available at www.yingyihong.org. Currently, she is a Global Scholar visiting the Psychology Department at National Taiwan University until the end of March 2025.

日期：2025年3月18日（週二）15:00-17:00

地點：中研院民族所第三會議室（新館三樓R2319）

報名：即日起至2025年3月14日（週五）截止

　　　https://forms.gle/QSdoPQ36KZQ3S5E48

摘要：

Culture is elusive—pervasive yet often unnoticed. As Clyde Kluckhohn famously noted, “Culture is like the air we breathe.” Its complexity is reflected in the existence of over 160 definitions (Steinmetz, 1999), prompting scholars to develop numerous approaches to study it. While these approaches have provided valuable insights into the development of diverse cultural traditions, they remain primarily descriptive and correlational. This limitation parallels the early phases of many scientific disciplines, which initially identified their subject matter as substances or structures—fire with phlogiston, heat with caloric, and life with vital fluid. Over time, these sciences evolved to understand their subjects as dynamic processes: combustion for fire, random thermal motion for heat, and complex systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium for life.

Similarly, understanding culture demands a shift from static description to dynamic explanation. In response to this challenge, my collaborators and I proposed the dynamic constructivist approach, which examines the causal influence of culture on cognition, affect, and behavior. This framework enables new research directions for understanding how individuals navigate multiple cultural systems and their psychological effects. To illustrate these possibilities, I will present research from my lab on racial essentialism, cultural mixing, and cultural attachment. Taken together, these findings offer deeper insights into the complex processes underlying cultural conflicts worldwide.