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Psychology in a Non-Western
Country
a
Hiroshi Azuma
a
University of Tokyo , Japan
Published online: 27 Sep 2007.

To cite this article: Hiroshi Azuma (1984) Psychology in a Non-Western Country,

International Journal of Psychology, 19:1-4, 45-55

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 International Journal of Psychology 19 (1984) 45-55 45
North-Holland

PSYCHOLOGY IN A NON-WESTERN COUNTRY *

Hiroshi AZUMA
University of Tokyo,Japan

Most psychological phenomena are intrinsically culture bound. Psychological theories developed in
one culture may not automatically be generalizable to the behavior of the people of another
International Journal of Psychology 1984.19:45-55.

culture. The psychology as a science primarily developed in Europe and America, based on the
behavioral data of Western people studied by the psychologists grew in the Western culture. This
obviously limits the applicability of psychology as it is to developing countries. This does not
mean, however, that there should be as many psychologies as there are cultures. More generally
valid psychology will emerge by identifying what is culturally specific in the main stream
psychology and adopting new concepts of general applicability from other cultures. In the article
below, stages of interaction between Western psychology and indigenous thought are described
based on the history of psychology in Japan.

The process of development is a process of change. Industrial and

economic development is always accompanied by ecological change.
When such development occurs within a short time span, the ecological
change may be drastic. To be competitive in the present world system, a
“developing” country needs to achieve within a few years what “devel-
oped” countries took generations or even centuries to accomplish.
Consequently, the sweeping nature of ecological change in the Third
World is far beyond anything that “developed” countries ever experi-
enced. This often results in the violent destruction of a people’s
traditional ways of living and thinking which constitute the bases for
their identity, educability, and potential for original contributions to
the world.

* Revision of this paper was made during the period when the author was a Sloan Fellow at the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California Advice. given by
Wayne Holtzman of The University of Texas, Harold Stevenson of the University of Michigan,
and Muriel Bell of the Center is greatly appreciated.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Hiroshi Azuma, Faculty of Education, University of
Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113, Japan.
 46 H.Aruma / Psychology in a non -Western country

An important role for psychology in developing countries is to help

people master the necessary changes and cope with the psycho-cultural
shock they bring while preserving psycho-cultural continuity. To do this
requires mapping the existing state, the external influences, and the
interaction between the two into the psychological space of the people in
that particular developing culture. For this purpose, the standard
psychological framework may not be adequate since for the most part it
was devised in the cultural milieu of industrialized Europe and the U.S.
Modern Japan is not a “developing” country in the usual sense of
the word. It does, however, share one important feature with many
developing countries. For many centuries its cultural tradition was
outside the “ Western” tradition which descended from Greco-Roman
International Journal of Psychology 1984.19:45-55.

civilization, incubated in the culture of Christianity, fermented in

Renaissance humanism, achieved the industrial revolution, and pros-
pered upon rationalism and individualism. Among the developing
countries, however, Japan is unique in having begun its national efforts
to “catch up” with Western countries in the mid-nineteenth century.
Seemingly, these efforts have succeeded. Because of these two features
- its non-Western tradition and its relatively early industrialization - it
is instructive to look into the way western-originated psychology was
introduced and adapted to Japan.

Development of psychology in Japan

From the time Meiji Japan was first opened up for Western influence,
there was an interest in learning about psychology from the West.
Amane Nishi published an encyclopedia of science around 1870 in
which Western psychology was first introduced. Nishi was a pioneer
who tried to grasp and relay the entire structure of Western thought in
the interest of modernizing Japan. In the Preface to Bain’s Psychology,
which was translated into Japanese in 1882 by T. Inoue, the translator
cautioned the government and the public, then enthusiastic about
importing hard sciences and technology, that Japan should at the same
time learn the science of the mind that produced science and technol-
ogy, implying that otherwise Japan would fail to match Western
achievements.
Indeed, when the University of Tokyo opened in 1877, integrating
two existing colleges, psychology was already included in the cumcu-
 H. Azuma / Psychology in a Ron - Western countIy 47

lum of one of the colleges. Hence, psychology must have been instituted
as a college course within ten years of the Meiji Restoration. Around
1880, the psychology courses at the University of Tokyo were using
textbooks written by Spencer, Bain, Carpenter, and other Western
authors. An annual lecture on “ psychophysics” was started at the
University of Tokyo in 1886, and the first experimental laboratory was
established soon after. By 1900, several other Japanese universities had
departments of experimental psychology. Given that even in the West
experimental psychology was a very young science, its introduction to
Japan was quick and broad (Japanese Psychological Association 1980).
In its early form, Western psychology contributed little to the
understanding of the mind, contrary to Inoue’s expectations. The major
contribution of Western psychology was to introduce methods and
International Journal of Psychology 1984.19:45-55.

concepts for dealing with psychological processes.

The application of psychology to practical problems was also slower
to start. Conceived as a division of philosophy and taught in the
Faculty of Letters, psychology in those early days had the strong flavor
of a theoretical, knowledge-oriented science. When a science is trans-
planted from abroad, often only a portion of it survives the transition.
The new science exists as a discrete body of knowledge, without
productive roots inside the culture. Understandably, researchers are
sensitive to the facts found, concepts and theories developed, and
achievements valued “ there”, in the developed world. They perceive
and evaluate their colleagues and themselves in terms of the conceptual
framework of that world. Psychologically they belong to the developed
world and are to some extent detached from their indigenous world.
Their psychology thus lacks the indigenous basis that would allow it to
be productive in practical application. Applications will nonetheless be
essayed since psychological topics often have superficial applicability.
After 1920 in Japan, there was a steady increase in the number of
psychological studies of an applied nature. Perhaps what spearheaded
this trend was the mental testing movement, with its substantial practi-
cal influence. Binet-type intelligence tests and group intelligence tests
were adapted to Japanese use in the early 1920s. They were used for
personnel classification in education, labor, and the military. Technical
aptitude tests as well as tests of work habits were developed and
administered in the 1930s. These tests had a certain usefulness in
reducing accidents and improving efficiency. It is difficult, however, to
assess their net contribution to Japanese society.
 48 H.Azuma / Psychology in a non -Wesfern country

Besides university departments of psychology, which were distinctly

academically oriented, by 1935 there were several independent institu-
tions with an applied orientation where psychologists worked, such as
the National Research Institute of Physical Education, the Research
Institute of Labor Science, the Research Institute of the Manchurian
Railroad, and the Division of Aviation Psychology of the University of
Tokyo’s Institute of Aviation Science. Although some of these applica-
tions were of very high-level, their influence was limited to technical
areas and did not affect policy making. The application of social and
clinical psychology, although attempted, did not go very far. One
reason for this failure was the strong experimental emphasis in the
university training of psychologists. Attempts to make the application
International Journal of Psychology 1984.19:45-55.

of psychology more relevant to the Japanese cultural context were few.

Certain attempts were made to extract and systematize the psychol-
ogy implicit in Buddhist philosophy. Disciples of Zen Buddhism in-
fluenced psychotherapeutic practice. They were quite isolated, however,
from the main stream of Japanese psychology.
The next massive influence by Western psychology followed World
War 11. For years, Japanese psychology had been cut off from the
world currents. When psychology from the United States and other
countries was introduced in 1946, it was almost a new science for many
Japanese psychologists. The impact was particularly strong in social
and clinical psychology, which had not yet established a strong foothold
in Japan.
One of the large tasks insisted upon by the ruling occupation powers
was the social and psychological reform of Japanese society. Psychology
was expected, by both Japanese and Allied leaders, to help guide such
reform. Areas of study that quickly spread during this period were
group psychology, clinical psychology, social psychology, and anthro-
pological psychology. Although these areas were known and studied to
some extent before 1945, they were of minor importance.
Kurt Lewin was one psychologist who was well-known in prewar
Japan. Consequently, Lewinian studies of small groups were among the
first to take root in postwar Japan. The advantages that showed for
democratic leadership over autocratic leadership were given great play
in the reform of postwar Japan, and were cited even in popular
magazines. Sometimes these references overgeneralized the finding ob-
tained under limited experimental conditions. Macro-social psychology
also was used to point up the feudal, autocratic and irrational aspects
 H. Amma / Psychology in a non - Western country 49

of prewar and wartime Japan, and invoked to help establish a more

“democratic” society.
Leading psychological counselors from America gave lectures and
workshops as part of the Occupation’s efforts to reform the autocratic
administration of student life. These workshops also represented the
first systematic introduction of clinical and counseling psychology to
Japan.
The positive influence of these new points of view in encouraging
Japanese psychologists to tackle socially significant problems must be
acknowledged. And yet their direct influence upon Japanese society,
education, and administration was less far-reaching than expected.
Many efforts inspired by these newly introduced psychological theories
International Journal of Psychology 1984.19:45-55.

were short-lived. One of the major reasons for these failures was that
the imported theories were applied too directly. Psychological concepts
developed in one culture may be less effective in working with the
minds of another culture.
The reason such ideas sometimes fail to take root is because they
reflect the state of affairs prevailing in the culture in which the science
developed. Concepts dealing with phenomena unknown in a. culture are
unlikely to emerge. As a set of concepts and theories developed in the
industrialized West, modern psychology lacks some concepts crucial to
describing and understanding the mind in a very different culture. It
may even include some concepts that distort perception and block a
deep understanding when applied to another culture. When a psycholo-
gist looks at a non-Western culture through Western glasses, he may
fail to notice important aspects of the non-Western culture since the
schemata for recognizing them are not provided in his science. This
does not mean that the psychology developed in the Western culture
has no value for solving problems in other cultures. It is like using
computer software developed to solve one problem for somewhat
different problems. The existing software provides a good start. But
new nodes and loops must be added and some parts by-passed in order
to deal effectively with the new problem.

Adapting Western ideas while encouraging indigeneous psychology

The importance of adapting Western ideas to Japanese society rather

than incorporating them uncritically was not realized for a number of
 50 H.Azuma / Psychology in a non - Wesrern country

years after World War 11. By way of illustration, a series of studies will
be briefly reviewed. These studies are only illustrative examples; they
do not by any means represent a fair summary of the studies quoted.
The Ch/yysanthemum and the Sword by Ruth Benedict (1949) was an
analysis of Japanese culture and personality that was as revealing for
Japanese themselves as for Westerners. Benedict’s observations are
astonishingly penetrating, the more so because the author had never
visited Japan. Her sympathetic remarks and observations show that she
genuinely tried to understand without being clouded by war-time
prejudices. Nevertheless, at many points, she seems very much Western
to a Japanese reader.
Benedict tried to analyze Japan with Western categories. For exam-
International Journal of Psychology 1984.19:45-55.

ple, she correctly picked out on and giri as key concepts regulating
interpersonal relationships. However, she defines them in terms of a
transactional model that is too rationalistic and reciprocity-oriented.
Benedict likens the on, a protective and benevolent kind of help, to a
loan. As with a loan it carries with it the obligation of repayment. The
party receiving on is bound by giri, the obligation to repay. Benedict
defines girz as indebtedness, bound to be repaid in the same amount
within a certain time. From the Japanese viewpoint, the very thought of
comparing and balancing on and giri is unacceptable. In popular
aesthetics, it is not genuine on if the donor gives help with the
expectation of binding the recipient to giri. And the recipient will be
accused of lacking in the sense of giri if he says he is paying back the
exact amount he received as on and no more.
It took some years before we gradually realized that we had to
develop new concepts in Japanese psychology rather than totally de-
pend upon concepts developed in the West to describe and analyze our
thought and culture. The Anatomy of Dependence by Takeo Doi (1966)
is an early product of such efforts. The key concept of Doi, an
insightful psychiatrist, is amae, which is best defined in English as
passive affectionate attachment. It is the desire for and act of depen-
dence on the object of attachment, accompanied by a secure affective
tie and the expectation that the act of dependence will be generously
acknowledged. Often it actually induces the protective affection on the
side of the object of attachment. A good model of amae is the behavior
of a young infant toward its affectionate mother when it wants to be
caressed. Doi sees a network of reciprocal amae underlying Japanese
interpersonal relationships.
 H. A m m o / Psychology in a non -Western country 51

It is not that such a relationship does not exist in the West, but that
Western culture did not give it a name and hence did not clearly
identify it. Since training in psychology meant looking at the mind
through Western glasses, it took Japanese psychologists years to redis-
cover the significance of the concept in a psychological context. Inci-
dentally, the writer Shusaku Endo (1974) points out that Japanese
Catholics have a tendency to understand Christianity in terms of arnae
rather than in terms of concepts such as sin, God’s anger, punishment,
penance and restitution.
Similarly, Hayao Kawai, a Jungian clinical psychologist, recently
published an interesting analysis of Japanese folklore (1982). According
to him, Japanese folktales are simple, imperfect, flat, and primitive
International Journal of Psychology 1984.19:45-55.

when analyzed and interpreted in terms of the Jungian symbol system

and theory that Neumann developed, a system used successfully in
dealing with Western folktales. Whereas Neumann saw the folktale as a
chronicle of linear directional development of self and consciousness
put in symbolic terms, Japanese folktales are basically parabolic or
circular. They start from a state of nothingness, or high entropy. Then
things happen, but finally return to nothingness. Marriage. takes place
rather infrequently, the heroine is devoted, enjoys impunity but at the
same time she is possessive and quietly controls the situation, Kawai
hypothesizes that the world of Japanese folktales is the world of the
“Great Mother”, and that femininity rather than masculinity sym-
bolizes “self”. We can see a close link between this hypothesis and the
theory of arnae. In a matriarchial system things are embraced as an
undifferentiated whole, rather than being arrayed in a well-articulated,
hierarchial order. This suggests that Western theories and interpreta-
tions may inadvertently distort features of other cultures and force
them into the Western value system.
Juji Misumi, a group psychologist, has also pointed out the Western-
value orientation of psychological theories. American small group stud-
ies have been concerned primarily with the effectiveness of the group in
attaining an extrinsic goal. In this context the group is an instrument.
But in many cases a group also has an intrinsic goal which is related to
self maintenance and perpetuation. Traditionally in Japan, the intrinsic
goal was shared by group members and considered important. Thus
Misumi writes: “Under the instrumental view of the group, the task of
a leader, formal or informal, is to manage the group to achieve the
extrinsic goal most effectively” (1978). His leadership is ultimately
 52 H. Aruma / Psychology in a non - Western country

evaluated in terms of the productivity of the group. This view of

leadership is somewhat incongruous with Japan’s traditional concept of
a good leader. Many studies of small group leadership conducted in
Japan failed to replicate American results.
Misumi proposed replacing the uni-dimensional criterion of evalua-
tion of leadership with a two-dimensional criterion that differentiates
the performance function and the maintenance function. The latter
defines the task of a leader as care-taking rather than directing. He sees
that human relationships run smoothly, reinforces personal ties, and
gives members emotional support. His role to nurture solidarity is
rather maternal. With such modifications in concepts, psychological
theories of leadership became more often acceptable to Japanese busi-
International Journal of Psychology 1984.19:45-55.

nesses and industries, and hence much more influential. In this theoreti-
cal contribution by Misumi, we again see amae culture shedding light
on an important aspect of human relations.
Recently, we have conducted studies that compared Japanese and
American mothers of young children in their approach to teaching,
guiding, and influencing children. Numerous observations we made
converge upon the interpretation that Japanese mothers prepare their
children for the cultural environment in which psychological interde-
pendence, i.e., amae, plays an important role in social interactions,
including teaching and learning. They direct children’s attention to the
feelings of others (Conroy et al. 1980), they challenge children to guess
what they are thinking, they more often invoke people to whom their
children are attached, such as relatives and close friends, as models of
desired kinds of behavior, and they expect earlier development of
prosocial conformity as opposed to independence and assertiveness
(Hess et al. 1980). Teachability in the Japanese context includes an
adequate level of amae, which makes children sensitive to what others
say, think and feel, and nurtures readiness to accept willingly the
intrusion of significant adults in their learning, thinking and feeling.
As we have already seen, amae is a key concept for studying
Japanese psychology. Indeed, on and giri represent a special form of the
amae relationship, which makes clear how inappropriate it is to think of
them in terms of measurable quantity. Neither has clearly defined
limits. Amae is but one example of indigenous concepts that requires an
indigenous researcher trained in mainstream psychology to pin-point it.
A number of other such concepts are emerging as important keys for
understanding the psychology of the Japanese.
 H. Aruma / Psychology in a non - Western country 53

This is not to argue that a new, indigenous psychology should

develop alongside mainstream psychology. But without the enrichment
contributed by the indigenous culture, mainstream psychology has
limited value. Psychology needs to develop in a particular culture
before it can be profitably applied there.
It takes some time, often two or three generations, before the
significance of cultural tradition is adequately appreciated in the light
of a science developed in another culture. I think the elder and younger
Hatanos provide a good example. Kanji Hatano, born early in this
century and still very productive, made an outstanding contribution in
introducing to Japan the thoughts and works of French and French-
speaking psychologists. In the early postwar period, he had a great
International Journal of Psychology 1984.19:45-55.

influence on educational policy-making as a leader of the movement to

minimize the number of Chinese characters, called kanji, (no relation to
Dr. Hatano’s name) used in Japanese, and gradually to replace them
with kana’s, which have a one-to-one correspondence to spoken sound.
Why waste many years of elementary education in learning thousands
of characters when only fifty kana, plus a couple of marks are sufficient
to write everyday Japanese? Sounds quite reasonable. Giyoo Hatano,
the son of Kanji Hatano, however, has been strongly critical of this
position. Based on a few experimental studies he and his associates
made, he argues that kanji are important in learning to read precisely
because of their relative dissociation from phonetic codes and because
of their capacity to form new words the meanings of which are readily
inferable from their parts (Hatano et al. 1981). In this work as well as
his study of abascus masters (Hatano and Osawa 198l), Giyoo Hatano
has demonstrated the utility of some traditional Japanese cognitive
tools in the language of contemporary cognitive psychology.

Stages in the evolution of culturally appropriate psychology

The incorporation and adaptation of Western psychology into Japanese

culture has proceeded through several stages over the course of a
century. We may be able to shorten this process when psychology is
introduced to newly developing countries. If many steps are skipped,
however, the imported psychology may fail to develop a full apprecia-
tion of the traditional culture and may be applied prematurely with
disturbing rather than beneficial consequences, and the indigenous
 54 H.Azuma / Psychology in a non - Western countty

psychology that might have contributed to the development of

mainstream psychology may remain parochial and prescientific.
Here, I will list the stages through which psychology apparently
needed to pass in Japan.

Pioneer period

Intellectual pioneers, native or foreign, realize the potential relevance of

psychology and introduce it at the textbook level (e.g. Amane Nishi, T.
Inoue).

Introductory period
International Journal of Psychology 1984.19:45-55.

Psychology is recognized by a number of people as an important field

of study. Foreign experts and members of the intellectual elite trained
overseas introduce technical knowledge (e.g., M. Matsumoto in the
prewar period, and postwar seminars).
Translation and modeling period
Psychology becomes widely known, and the number of students and
researchers increases. The majority of concepts and theories are transla-
tions of those from “developed” countries. Research is conducted but
modeled after that of “developed” countries. Scattered, isolated at-
tempts at indigenous pyschology begin to appear. Application is feasi-
ble only at a technical level for problems that are relatively culture-free
(e.g., early aviation psychology, tests of manual skills).
Indigenization period
New concepts and theories appropriate to culture-bound phenomena
are advanced by psychologists who know both native and “developed”
foreign cultures.
New concepts of indigenous origin are advanced that relate well to
other concepts in the same culture. The application of psychology to
culture-bound phenomena becomes more effective (e.g., T. Doi 1966;
H. Kawai 1982; J. Misumi 1978).
Integration period
Psychology gets freed, to a certain extent, from-the rigid but otherwise
unnoticed mold of traditionally Western concepts and logic. Psychology
 H. Aruma / Psycho/ogy in a non ~ Western counrry 55

subsumes thoughts and concepts of non-Western origin, deepening and

generalizing the understanding of human nature, and thus becomes
capable of dealing with non-Western phenomena without imposing a
Western mold.

In conclusion, my recommendation is for psychology to be transplanted

by insightful, far-seeing researchers, nourished and helped to take root
in the new soil, and given time to bear fruit.

References

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Benedict, Ruth, 1948. The Chrysanthemum and the sword. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Conroy, M., R.D. Hess, H. Azuma and K. Kashiwagi, 1980. Maternal strategies for regulating
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Doi, T., 1966. The anatomy of dependence (in Japense). Tokyo: Kobundo. English version, 1981.
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La plupart des phenomenes psychologiques sont liC intrins&quement a la culture. Des theories
psychologiques developpks a propos d’une certaine culture ne peuvent pas &treautomatiquement
generalisks au comportement des personnes d‘une autre culture. La psychologie en tant que
science s’est developpk d‘abord en Europe et aux Etats-Unis, se basant sur les donnks du
comportement de sujets occidentaux etudib par des psychologues.elevk dans la culture occiden-
tale. Ceci limite 6videmment l’applicabilite d’une telle psychologie aux pays en voie de developpe-
ment. Ceci ne veut cependant pas dire qu’il faudrait autant de psychologies qu’il y a de cultures.
On devra arriver a une psychologie plus generale en recherchant ce qui est culturellement
spkifique dans la psychologie generale et en adoptant de nouveaux concepts d‘applicabilite
geneale d’autres cultures. Dans I’article precedent les etapes d’interaction entre la psychologie
occidentale et la pens& indigene sont dkrites en se basant sur I’histoire de la psychologie au
Japon.