EASTERN PHILOSOPHIES AND PSYCHOLOGY: TOWARDS PSYCHOLOGY OF SELF-CULTIVATION **東亞哲學與心理學: 邁向修養心理學**

EDITED BY: Yung-Jong Shiah, Kwang-Kuo Hwang and Kin-Tung Yit PUBLISHED IN: Frontiers in Psychology

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ISSN 1664-8714 ISBN 978-2-88945-334-4 DOI 10.3389/978-2-88945-334-4

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# **EASTERN PHILOSOPHIES AND PSYCHOLOGY: TOWARDS PSYCHOLOGY OF SELF-CULTIVATION**

Topic Editors:

**Yung-Jong Shiah,** National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan **Kwang-Kuo Hwang**, Department of Psychology, Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan **Kin-Tung Yit,** National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan

The publication of this book, *East Asian Philosophies and Psychology: Towards Psychology of Self-cultivation,* signifies an important breakthrough for the indigenization movements of psychology which have happened in many non-Western countries since 1980s. Viewing from the perspective of scientific revolution (Kuhn, 1969), when Western paradigms of psychology are transplanted to non-Western countries and encounter anomalies which can not be explained by the imported theories, the foreign theories are in a state of crisis waiting for scientific revolution.

#### **Academic Anti-colonialism**

Most indigenous psychologists tend to take a position of academic anti-colonialism when faced with such a problematic situation (e.g. Enriquez, 1992). They argue that current mainstream psychology is basically a kind of Westernized or Americanized psychology. Because most Western theories of psychology are culturally bound and research methods contain a Western ethnocentric bias (Berry, Poortinga, Segall & Dason, 1992), when the Western psychology research paradigm is transplanted blindly to non-Western countries, it is usually irrelevant, inappropriate, or incompatible for understanding the mentalities of non-Western people (Sinha, 1984, 1986, 2002).The duplication of Western paradigm in non-Western countries may result in the neglect of cultural factors that may influence the development and manifestations of human behaviors.

The same story also happened in Taiwan. The indigenization movement of psychology in Taiwan was first initiated by K.S. Yang who organized a conference on "Sinicization of Social and Behavioral Sciences" at Academia Sinica in December 1981. In the preface of the proceedings of the groundbreaking conference, K. S. Yang and Wen (1982) wrote:

The subjects whom we studied are Chinese people in Chinese society, but, the theories and methods we used are mostly imported from the West or of the Western style. In our daily life, we are Chinese; when we are doing research, we become Western people. We repress our Chinese thoughts or philosophy intentionally or unintentionally, and make them unable to be expressed in our procedure of research. … Under such a situation, we can only follow the West step by step with an expectation to catch up their academic trend. … Eventually, our existence in the world community of social and behavioral science becomes invisible at all. (p. ii)

The decision to make psychology more meaningful to Chinese people was reinforced by an episode happened in 1988 when he was invited to Harvard to give a talk on his research on Chinese personality.

#### **Indigenous Compatibility**

In the discussion session after his presentation a well-known developmental psychologist Kagan asked him one question: "What kind of psychology would have been developed by Chinese psychologists if there had not been any Western psychology?" Yang said that he was shocked by this question and admitted that Kagan's question gave him a chance to look more closely and squarely at the naked reality that "little was left in Westernised Chinese psychology after those elements that had been borrowed form, or influenced by, Western psychology were taken away"

The 'Harvard experience' stimulated him to consider seriously the possibility and legitimacy of developing a Chinese indigenous psychology. He felt that the most developed North American psychology, was a kind of indigenous psychology in the sense that its major concepts, theories, methods, and findings have originally evolved partly from the European intellectual traditions but mostly from the cultural milieu of American society. To treat American indigenous psychology as the psychology of all human beings was a big mistake. "If American psychologists could have their own indigenous psychology, why did not we Chinese psychologists have our own indigenous psychology?" (p.69)

In order to promote the indigenization movement, Yang organized an Interdisciplinary Symyosium on Chinese psychology and Behavior every two years since 1981; established a Laboratory of Research for Indigenous Psychology, inaugurated the journal for Indigenous Psychological Research in 1993; and proposed the concept of *indigenous compatibility* in the first issue of the journal, hoping to use it as a criterion for evaluating indigenous research (Yang, 1993b). According to K. S. Yang's (1993) original definition, *indigenous compatibility* means:

Owing to the same cultural and biological influence, it tends to form a compatible state between the researcher's activity of research and knowledge system as well as local people's psychology and behaviors. This state of being tightly matched, tied, connected, or compatible, existing between local researcher's concepts as well as local people's psychology and behaviors. (p. 24).

#### **Criterion of Positivism**

But, the adequacy of this concept was questioned by many scholars either within or outside the camp of indigenous psychology. They took the same view to indicate that Yang's criterion represents a worldview of positivism which is very popular among non-Western psychologists.

With an intensive review on related literature, Hwang (2005) indicated that the controversies caused by K. S. Yang's 1993 article resemble those faced by other non-Western psychologists who have been trying to develop indigenous psychology in their own societies (Enriquez, 1993). Most indigenous psychologists advocated ''a bottom-up model-building paradigm'' (Kim, 2000, p. 265) to study people as ''the interactive and proactive agents of their own actions'' that occur in a meaningful context (Kim, Park, & Park, 2000, p. 71), and they believe that indigenous psychology is ''the study of human behavior and mental processes within a cultural context that relies on values, concepts, belief systems, methodologies, and other resources indigenous to the specific ethnic or cultural group under investigation'' (Ho, 1998, p. 94). Through ''the scientific study of human behavior that is native, that is not transported from other regions, and that is designed for its people'' (Kim & Berry, 1993, p. 2), they are able to obtain ''a psychological and practical system based on and responsive to indigenous culture and indigenous realities'' (Enriquez, 1993, p. 158), in an expectation to develop a psychology whose ''concepts, problems, hypothesis, methods, and test emanate from, adequately represent, and reflect upon the cultural context in which the behavior is observed'' (Adair, Puhan & Vohra, 1993, p. 149).

Such advocacy for the indigenization of psychology was criticized by mainstream psychologists who argued that the advantages of indigenous approach are also claimed by anthropologists. Accumulating culture-specific data by this approach may have no direct implication for the progress of scientific psychology (Triandis, 2000). If the difference in behavioral repertoires across cultural populations implies that we need an indigenous psychology, how many indigenous psychologies will we have (Poortinga, 1999)?

#### **Multiple-philosophical Paradigms**

In order to meet the challenge, most indigenous psychologists have argued that is not their final goal. The development of numerous indigenous psychologies. Rather, they are working toward the development of an Asian psychology (Ho, 1988), a global psychology (Enriquez, 1993), or a universal psychology (Berry & Kim, 1993; Kim & Berry, 1993). Even K. S. Yang (1993) also advocated that the final goal of developing indigenous psychologies is to establish ''a human psychology'' or ''a global psychology.''

Hwang (2005) indicated that the goal of universal psychology cannot be attained by any inductive method of positivism. He mentioned a very important principle of cultural psychology "One mind, many mentalities" proposed by Shweder and his colleagues (1998) and advocated that the academic mission for indigenous psychologists is to construct not only universal theory that are supposed to be applicable to various cultures, but also culture-inclusive theories that can be used to explain psychology or behavior in a particular society.

This goal can be attained by the approach of so-called multiple philosophical paradigms (Hwang, 2015a, b). In order to attain this goal, indigenous psychologists in non-Western societies should abandon the inductive approach of positivism, they should change their attitude from anticolonialism to postcolonialism, make themselves be familiar with various paradigms of Western philosophy of science and be able to utilize them as resources for research to overcome various difficulties for constructing such kind of theories.

In order to help Chinese scholars to familiar with Western philosophy of science, Hwang (2000) spent more than 10 years to write a book *Logics of Social Sciences*, which discuss different perspectives on crucial issues relating to ontology, epistemology and methodology taken by 18 major philosophers in the 20th century. This book consists of two parts, the first part addresses the switch in the philosophy of natural science from positivism to post-positivism; the second part expounds the philosophy of social theory including structuralism, hermeneutic and critical science. Because psychology is characterized by both natural and social sciences, Hwang (2012) first demonstrated how to use the strategy of multiple-philosophical paradigms to construct culture-inclusive theories for conducting empirical research, then he organized a research team and encouraged them to use this strategy to construct their own theories. Recently, he even published a book to state this strategy explicitly (Hwang, 2017).

Most contributions of this book are members of this team. Now they label themselves as Siyuan School (思源學派) which means a group of scholars who determine to get familiar with both traditions of Chinese and Western philosophy in doing research of significant psychology or social sciences. Because Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism are most important East Asian philosophies in China, the publication of this book signifies a new era for studying psychology of self-cultivation form the perspective of Asian cultural tradition.

Kwang-Kuo Hwang

#### **References**

**Citation:** Shiah, Y-J., Hwang, K-K., Yit, K.-T., eds. (2017). Eastern Philosophies and Psychology: Towards Psychology of Self-Cultivation. Lausanne: Frontiers Media. doi: 10.3389/978-2-88945-334-4

# Table of Contents

# Editorial: Eastern Philosophies and Psychology: Towards Psychology of Self-Cultivation

Kwang-Kuo Hwang1 , Yung-Jong Shiah2 and Kin-Tung Yit 3 \*

*1 Psychology Department, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 2 Counseling Psychology and Rehabilitation Counseling, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 3 Institute of Philosophy, Center for General Education, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan*

Keywords: Eastern Philosophies, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, self-cultivation, culture-inclusive theiries, multiple-philosophical paradigms

**Editorial on the Research Topic**

#### **Eastern Philosophies and Psychology: Towards Psychology of Self-Cultivation**

Based on rich experience of developing Chinese indigenous psychology in Taiwan for more than 30 years, Hwang proposed a unique epistemological strategy for constructing culture-inclusive theories of psychology which consists of two steps: First, he constructed a Mandala model of self (Hwang, 2011, 2015a) and a Face and Favor model of social interaction (Hwang, 1987, 2012). Because these two models are supported to be universal, the second step of his strategy is using them as frameworks to analyze any cultural system in opposition to the pan-cultural dimensional approach of reductionism prevalent in mainstream psychology (Hwang, 2015b).

In his book Self-exertion and Conscience: Getting out of Weberian maze (Hwang, 2015c), he criticized the fallacy of Eurocentrism and the fallacy of conflation committed in Max Weber's (1864–1920) famous works Religious in China: Confucianism and Taoism (Weber, 1951), and he used this strategy to analyze pre-Qin Classics of Confucian for studying its morphostasis. He then traced the morphogenesis of Confucianism during its major progress in the history of China and Japan respectively (Hwang, 2015c).

Because Confucian ethics and morality are supposed to be the transcendental formal structure for Chinese people's life world, once it has been clearly identified, the formal structure can be utilized to construct a series of culture-inclusive theories with a careful consideration of its manifestations in varies contexts of social interaction (Hwang, 2016). In order to demonstrate the usefulness of this approach, Hwang (2012) constructed a series of theoretical models on social exchange, moral judgments, face dynamism, achievement motivation, and conflict resolution in his book Foundations of Chinese Psychology.

For the sake of establishing an autonomous academic tradition of social science in Confucian culture, we have organized a research team to promote this movement in Taiwan. Hwang encourages his followers to utilize this approach to construct their own theoretical models for conducting empirical research in Chinese society.

Highly impressed by their remarkable performances, we decided to increase the visibility of our research team by publishing their works in an international journal of high reputation, and Frontiers in Psychology became our first choice. We called for paper on Philosophical and Theoretical Psychology from international academic community and obtained total submission of 22 abstracts. Eventually 11 articles had been accepted for publication after a strict procedure of review in accordance with standards of FIP.

Edited and reviewed by: *Markus Werning,*

*Ruhr University Bochum, Germany*

\*Correspondence: *Kin-Tung Yit<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### Specialty section:

*This article was submitted to Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology*

Received: *18 May 2017* Accepted: *12 June 2017* Published: *29 June 2017*

#### Citation:

*Hwang K-K, Shiah Y-J and Yit K-T (2017) Editorial: Eastern Philosophies and Psychology: Towards Psychology of Self-Cultivation. Front. Psychol. 8:1083. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01083*

Following Hwang's (2015a,b) strategy, Wu conceptualized the process of cultivating the ideal self in Confucian education on the basis of her cultural-semantic analysis of the "Lessons for Learning" (Xue-Ji) in the Classic of Rites (Liji). Fwu et al. studied the mediating role of self-exertion on the effects of effort on learning virtues and emotional distress after academic failure; Chen et al. examined high-school teachers' beliefs about effort and their attitudes toward struggling and smart students. Findings of both empirical researches can be used to illuminate Wu's theoretical analyses on the importance of education in Confucian society.

Huang proposed a dynamic model interpersonal harmony and conflict from a yin-yang perspective. Han studied the feeling of having or losing face in maintaining one's psychosocial equilibrium. Chen and Hwang extended the idea of personal face to national face in Confucian society. Hsu and Hwang proposed a tentative theory on the cognitive process of yuanfen to illustrate the idea of serendipity in relationship. All those empirical researches and theoretical analysis indicated the potentiality for the future development of Confucian theory of self-cultivation.

Chien's article reflected his own change from the trait approach of personality to the construction of culture-inclusive theory and showed the productivity of the later for future research on Chinese authoritarian orientation. Liu et al. tried to develop a virtue existential model of career development by integrating Western career theories of modernism and post modernism with the eastern wisdom of I-Ching (Book of Changes). Shiah made the first attempt to propose the Non-self Theory based on Buddhist teachings, as well as

#### REFERENCES

three ways for execution of the self-cultivation principle, namely, giving up desires, displaying compassion, and practicing meditation for seeking Buddhist wisdom. These three ways are essential ways to experience the reality of emptiness and the importance of compassion, leading to a sense of no identity. The transition from the self state to the non-self state is a deeply transformative experience of eliminating the sense of self and its psychological structures, seeing through, and overcoming the illusion of the self leading to authentic-durable happiness. Bianco et al. indicated the urgent necessity of a psychodynamic model for future development of positive psychology. Those articles provide us strong confidence that the strategy of constructing cultureinclusive theories by integrating Western and Eastern philosophies may open a new field of psychology for selfcultivation to compete with the popular positive psychology emphasizing the values of hedonism, individualism, and utilitarianism.

#### AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

All authors listed, have made a substantial direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

#### ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported by grant #103-2410-H-017-008 and MY3 and 105-2410-H-017 -002 -SSS from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, R. O. C.

**Conflict of Interest Statement:** The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Copyright © 2017 Hwang, Shiah and Yit. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

# The Process of Self-Cultivation and the Mandala Model of the Self

#### Meiyao Wu\*

*Department of Education, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan*

In his Mandala model of the self, Taiwanese scholar Kwang-Kuo Hwang sees each human being as a combination or intersection of private individual and social person, and also of knowledge and action. To further elaborate the model—with a particular emphasis on teaching/learning, the development of the ideal self and spiritual transcendence—this article will explore the psychological process of self-cultivation in the light of traditional Confucian thinking, which means keeping a balance between inner/outer and self/other. The Neo-Confucian thinker Zhongsha Mou's theories of "the awareness of unexpected developments" and his meditation/cognitive thinking opposition will also be discussed. The analyzed sources will include the traditional Confucian classics (the Four *Books* and *Liji, or Classic of Rites*) and especially the "*Lessons for Learning* (*Xue-Ji*)" in the *Classic of Rites* (*Liji*), along with the relevant textual research. Based upon a cultural-semantic analysis of these classics as well as of Hwang's central ideas, the author attempts to further conceptualize the process of cultivating the ideal self in Confucian education1 .

#### Edited by:

*Kin Tung Yit, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan*

#### Reviewed by:

*Kwang-Kuo Hwang, National Taiwan University, Taiwan Chih-Hung Wang, National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan Louise Sundararajan, Private Practice, USA*

#### \*Correspondence:

*Meiyao Wu<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### Specialty section:

*This article was submitted to Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology*

Received: *12 December 2015* Accepted: *04 January 2017* Published: *24 January 2017*

#### Citation:

*Wu M (2017) The Process of Self-Cultivation and the Mandala Model of the Self. Front. Psychol. 8:24. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00024* Keywords: Hwang's Mandala model, Confucian education, self-cultivation, inner-outer harmony, psychology, teaching, learning

# THE CONCEPT OF THE SELF IN WESTERN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY

In classical western philosophy, Plato is more focused on absolute ideas (ideals, "forms") than on any concept of the "self "; his student Aristotle does talk about the soul (psyche) as the "form of the body" but still does not really talk about the individual self. In early modern European philosophy, of course, we have the seventeenth-century rationalist Descartes emphasizing the split between the individual cogito or "I think"—"I exist insofar as I am, at least in this moment, a thinking thing"—and the physical body2 . The British empiricist Hume is more body-oriented in the sense that he says "we" are just a series of sense-impressions coming in from outside; our concept of a unified "self " is, like that of "things" and also of "God," an illusion.

The German Kant, influenced by both, separates our rational mind, with it's a priori logical categories, from the act of perception and from the Dinge-an-sich (things-in- themselves) which lie beyond our perception and understanding. For Kant we do not "know" our self as an object of perception but presuppose it as lying "behind" all of our perceptions and thus our empirical

2For Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, and Kant, see Frederick Copleston (1962).

1This Mandala theory of the self, elaborated and understood in terms of classical Confucian thought, may naturally be helpful to people in the course of their daily lives—especially in times of crisis or sudden change—as a way of guiding and clarifying their self-reflections and self-evaluations. It could also become a part of the curricula in university-level social and educational psychology courses, as well as perhaps also in certain high school courses, and perhaps could even be used by student counselors at various levels. This theory might be especially useful and relevant in the context of East Asian cultures and societies.

knowledge. In twentieth-century philosophy we similarly have the split between Continental European "existentialism" (Heidegger, Sartre) and British analytic or empirical philosophy (Russel, Whitehead, A.J. Ayer). As for psychology, we have the Austrian Freud's psychoanalysis on the continental side and behaviorism (e.g., Skinner) on the British side, where Freud's theories, like the existentialists', may seem too "metaphysical" for the more empirically-oriented British thinkers. Kant's point that in one sense we do not "know" our self is arguably echoed with a variation by Freud's notion of the unconscious.

The "self "-concept naturally plays a significant role in western educational psychology (Purkey, 1988; Martin, 2007; Huitt, 2011). Freud's model of the psyche comprises three parts: the Id (Das Es), the Ego (Das Ich), and the superego (Das Über-Ich; Freud, 1923) 3 . Influenced by the self-concept of Freud among others, Erikson emphasized self-development and the self-identity crisis, and his follower Marcia's research also concerned the nature of our self-identity (Marcia, 1993; Erikson, 1994). Moreover, humanistic psychologists such as Rogers and Maslow regarded the self-concept and self-actualization as the core of their psychological theories (Maslow, 1954; Rogers, 1961). The "self " concept in western psychology originated from the rationalist and empiricist views discussed above, and from Hegel's more comprehensive notion of self-consciousness: our subject-object (observer-observed) consciousness forms our thinking and guides our behavior (Morgan, 1903). Self-esteem, self-regulation, and self-efficacy are derived from the ways in which the subject perceives the world around it and becomes self-conscious.

According to the Russian cultural-historical psychologist Vygotsky, the formation of human beings' higher mental functions was greatly influenced by their social-culturalhistorical environment (Vygotsky, 1978). For example, the way Icelanders use language to describe "what is the feeling of cold" will be different from the way those who live near the equator use it to describe this. They grew up in different socio-cultural systems and also were influenced by different historical- semantic systems, and thus they will have different cognitive schema and linguistic symbols for describing "what is cold." Similarly, psychologists who grew up in non-western societies might adopt different cognitive schema and symbols to express the self-concept and descriptions of self-development, etc. In traditional Chinese Confucian culture and society, there may be slightly different ways to describe or express things or concepts that in English would be called "the family" (jya-ting) 4 or "benevolence" (ren) 5 . These Chinese terms/concepts suggest the ancient Confucian concept of "family" might include the "animals living under the house" as well as family members' activities in or around that same place or locus. This view, made clearer by the fact that ancestors were also seen as "extensions" of living individuals, is easily contrasted with the way modern western families may tend to see themselves.

This emphasis on the individual as an integral part of the family in more traditional cultures generally, then, and very clearly in ancient Confucian Chinese culture, is an example of how culture as well as language determines how we think, e.g., how we differentiate subject/object or use terms like "self " and "family." In fact, in ancient (and also present-day) Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese Daoist and Chinese- Confucian thinking the subject itself can also be the object to be observed. That is, there may be no clear distinction between subject and object, and in ways that go beyond Hegel's notion of self-consciousness as the unity or mutual-embracing of subject-and-object (Cheng, 1991, p. 42, p. 70; Man, 2015, p. 2). Thus, in traditional South and East Asian thinking the constitution of the "self "-concept may be based on an inner reflection on oneself which, when seen as part of the whole educational process undergone by young people, is also called "self- cultivation."

Indeed, in ancient Chinese culture there was a tendency to think of human life as a kind of open "field" that could be cultivated, and arguably the horizontality of this image may correlate with other forms of horizontality in ancient Chinese thinking. Most obviously, while western monotheistic religions— Judaism, Christianity, Islam—assume a radically disrupted vertical-transcendent model, according to which an all-powerful Supreme Being and Creator has total power over His creatures, the dominant "religion" in very early Chinese culture was arguably ancestor worship. In the latter, of course, the spirits or ancestors that are honored and remembered by their stillliving descendants are hardly on a higher ontological level, transcending this immanent world like the Supreme Beings of western religions. Rather, they may still be immanent in this world, still "around" us—in our "family" or "house"—and accompanying us, so that rather than a bifurcated vertical or transcendent model we have a model, picture, or conception of "pervasive immanence."

#### HWANG'S MANDALA MODEL OF THE SELF

Taiwanese psychologist and scholar Kwang-Kuo Hwang's Mandala model of the self—which has been influenced by ancient Hindu and Buddhist as well as Confucian thinking, and also by modern European thinkers such as the psychologist Carl Jung—not only pictures but actually already is a sort of highly-energized field, one which we are being invited to deeply reflect or meditate on, absorb, "cultivate." Jung had adopted the symbol of the Mandala, a graphic or pictorial representation of "the center," and used it to depict or represent the Self (Jung and Jaffé, 1963:20; Jung, 1964). According to his Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Jung and Jaffé, 1963), this Mandala includes or embodies the living experience of the collective unconscious of the human race. In other words, the center of the Mandala, as the Self, embodies the harmony and balance of the various opposed forces within the human psyche, which are

3The German term "Ich" is normally translated into English as "I," "the self," "ego." In Freudian research it is translated as "ego."

4According to the etymology, the term of Jia (家) means that there are farm animals living under the house, and human beings living in or "above" the house. The term Ting (庭) refers to human beings' activities in front of or under the building.

5According to the etymology, the term for benevolence, ren (仁), means two persons, i.e., the interaction between person and person.

influenced by its socio-cultural or collective life experience and values.

The Mandala symbol, which originates from the Indian religion and represents the universe, has been widely adopted by Buddhism. Especially after early Indian and Tibetan Buddhism were transferred to China, this symbol became gradually embedded in Chinese philosophy. It was well-known by the time of China's Song (960–1279 AD) Dynasty, when Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist thinking had already been integrated as Neo-Confucianism. The basic form of most Mandalas is that of a circle inside a square which is inside a still larger circle. From the perspective of Chinese philosophy, the mandala means or depicts the "field of an altar (tan-chang, 壇場)" and/or a field within which one's personality can be cultivated and guided toward perfect spiritual happiness6 .

Partly influenced by Jung's and his followers' interpretations of the Mandala symbol in relation to the Self, then, and drawing upon his own research on the psychology of indigenous peoples, in which a major role is played by the individual's wider sociocultural context, Kwang-Kuo Hwang also proposed a Mandala model of the Self (Hwang, 2015, pp. 87–88). This model also draws upon the ancient Chinese philosophical view of human life as an open field, the cultivation of which is really self-cultivation insofar as the self is formed or developed out of this wider field. For the Self taken as Person we may think of this wider field as one's family/community/society, while for the self-taken as Individual we may think of it also as the totality of one's own life experience, of one's own acts of experiencing life. Thus, these are two different directions or dimensions through which the Self may continue to be cultivated or perfected (Hwang, 2015, pp. 86–90)7 .

According to Hwang's Mandala model, then, the Self is in the middle and there are four forces in the field that it needs to integrate and regulate in order to create a harmonious and balanced way of life (dao, 道). This way of life is dynamic, given both its location within the horizontal context of changing social interactions and its own vertical-temporal dimension.

If the Self as Individual belongs to the psychological level, gathering, and regulating all of its experiences and its biological needs, the Self as Person belongs to the sociological level on which it serves as an agent-in-society, so that all of one's social roles—e.g., the roles of father, son, daughter, husband, wife, friends, co-workers—here come into play. If we also think of the Individual (as physical organism) as having a certain kind of relationship with (a certain awareness of) death and the cosmos, we may also think of the Person (as social organism) as having a certain but slightly different relationship with death and the cosmos (Hwang, 2014, pp. 38–39; Hwang, 2015, pp. 90–94).

Then we may see the horizontal line in the above model as extending from inner reflection (wisdom) to outer social action (praxis). The self is aware of the inevitable obstacles facing it, both in terms of its social roles within various contexts of social interaction and its biological needs and limitations. It absorbs the relevant knowledge based upon its own physical condition and social-historical-cultural background, and then transforms this knowledge into "insight wisdom" which it may act upon or project in the form of concrete social action or praxis. Here it would seem that Hwang is attempting to draw a universal model of the human mind on the one hand, and on the other hand a model that could describe the operation of the mind within the limits and under the constraints of various socio-cultural systems.

In other words, he is trying to elaborate an all-inclusive cultural theory which can describe not only the morphostasis (permanent or unchanging form or basis) of Confucian culture but also this culture's morphogenesis, its transformation within various East-Asian Confucian societies (e.g., China, Japan, Korea,

6 In tan-chang, the left side of the character tan (壇) means or pictures the soil or ground, and its right side pictures/means to clean a space, a field where a ceremony like that of giving sacrifices to the ancestors or gods can be held; the characterchang (場) means a place or area.

7 In fact, Huang was much influenced by indigenous studies and by the anthropologist Grace Harris (who had originally proposed the individual/person/self-concept). Like Harris, he thought that while all nonwestern (including East Asian) cultures share with indigenous cultures an emphasis on the inter- connectedness of people and the community, so that individuals also tend to already be or will easily become members of the group or social "persons," western cultures tend to focus too much on the individual which they see "as a member of the human species, not so different from other creatures in the universe." For Huang, within the conceptual framework of the **Figure 1**, the Self is the locus of experience and as such is able to unite the roles of Individual and Person, interconnect various actions in different social contexts, and engage in self-reflection when blocked from attaining its goals. The Individual tends to have a more inward focus, while the Person takes a certain standpoint in the social order and plans a series of actions to attain a certain goal. Hwang was also much influenced by the French psychologist Piaget, whose theory of childhood development uses the core concepts of personal and social knowledge, and by the French sociologist Bourdieu's constructivist structuralism; the latter's term "habitus" denoted a kind of "structuralized behavioral tendency" (Harris, 1989; Hwang, 2011).

Vietnam, Taiwan, etc.)8 . This self-transformation is just as crucial as the self-cultivation that it follows from, or perhaps these two are virtually the same thing, two sides of the same process. Thus, if again we take into account the "field" of the self that is being cultivated, the Mandala has both spatial and temporal dimensions.

#### A FURTHER ELABORATION OF HWANG'S MANDALA MODEL THROUGH READINGS OF SEMINAL CONFUCIAN TEXTS

#### The Confucian Cultural Value System: Ren, Yi, Li, Zhi in the Context of Existential Relations

In the early Han dynasty (220 BC—9AD), the philosophical thinking of the hundred schools had already been gradually integrated into the mainstream philosophical schools of Daoism and Confucianism. Then, especially beginning from the Song dynasty (960–1279 AD), Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism were integrated into Neo-Confucian thinking, and so the Confucian value system still served as the foundation of mainstream Chinese culture and society, continuing to influence the common people's daily life.

In the Confucian classics or Four Books, especially in the Analects and Mengzi, ren (humaneness, benevolence), yi (righteousness), li (ritual, propriety), and zhi (wisdom) express the core values of Confucian ethics. In the Analects, ren cannot really be separated from li (ritual, propriety). Ren is the most abstract and universal moral principle as it is the principle of humanness in the sense of human interaction: the character ren (仁) depicts "two persons." Thus, in his Lunyu or Analects, Confucius says his "golden rule" is "Doing one's utmost (zhong) and putting oneself in the other's place (shu)." Here we see that the abstract moral principle of ren (humaneness, benevolence) must be solidified through the concrete social actions or forms, the cultural rituals of li9 .

Then in the Mengzi, Mengzi takes yi-righteousness and zhi-wisdom as being in parallel with ren-humaneness and lipropriety10. When the ren-humane mind is represented or manifested via li-propriety, we may say that this manifestation is yi-suitable and yi-right, and so we have yi [義]-righteousness. However, the process of representation or manifestation of inner ren as outer li-action is always complicated by the changing socio-cultural context(s). One needs knowledge and experience in order to properly understand this changing context, and this process of reflection and judgment is called zhi (wisdom). In the context of Confucian self-cultivation, then, not only must innate ren-humaneness be manifested in/as concrete, li-proper social actions or rituals, but zhi-wisdom must be used to judge which social actions are yi- righteous.

#### The Confucian Self-Other(s) Duality and Individual Self-Cultivation

The Individual dimension in Hwang's model, then, is related to the fundamental instincts and needs of human beings. In the Liyun chapter of the Liji (Classics of Rites) it is said that "The things which men greatly desire are comprehended in meat and drink and sexual pleasure; those which they greatly dislike are comprehended in death, exile, poverty, and suffering. Thus, liking and disliking are the great elements in men's minds (Liyun Ch.19)" (Legge, 1885) 11. Here we have a clear duality of physical pleasure and physical pain or suffering, where these further imply the duality of "liking" and "disliking" on the psychological level.

In the Mengzi, there is a famous dialogue on the nature of human beings (or human being). Gaozi said that "to enjoy food and sexual desire is the nature of human being(s)," but Mengzi claimed that this is just one part of human nature. The difference, he said, between human nature and animal nature is that human beings have ren-humanity (benevolence) and thus a sympathetic or "commiserating mind": "All men have a mind which cannot bear to see the sufferings of others12." In other words, for Mengzi and the Confucian scholars this commiserating mind (ren-mind) is the foundation of the social order of Confucian society. Here we see that fundamental needs (e.g., for food and sex) are, in addition to being apparently more animalistic, are oriented toward Individuals (the self and the objects of its desires), while the ren-mind or benevolent mind has a humanistic orientation precisely because it has a social orientation—where here we may more likely think of Hwang's Person.

Here, however, the question arises: If both of these orientations (individual and social) may express the fundamental nature of human beings, then how does the outer (psychological) self-regulate the conflict between them in the inner psyche-self? We might want to set this question alongside one which arises from a passage in the Liyun of the Liji (Classics of Rites): "What are the feelings of men? They are joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, disliking, and liking. These seven feelings belong to men without their learning them" (Legge, 1885). However, if such emotions are natural to human beings, does not their proper expression still need to be cultivated? And if so, how—in the Confucian context—does this emotional education work?

In the Zhong Yong of Liji (the Classics of Rites) we have: "While there are no stirrings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, or joy, the mind may be said to be in the state of Equilibrium. When those feelings have been stirred, and they act in their due degree, there ensues what may be called the state of Harmony" (Legge, 1885) 13. In other words, even when various confused or conflicting feelings begin to arise out of a completely peaceful or "empty" mind where the latter term may seem to more easily fit Daoism and Buddhism, and the practice of meditation—in the Confucian

8Regarding cultural inclusion theories and the concepts of cultural morphostasis and cultural morphogenesis, please also see Archer (1995) and Hwang (2015, p. 38).

9Regarding the Ren-Li issue in the Analects, please see Wu (2013).

10According to the author's analysis of the Analects and Mengzi, the four terms Ren, Yi, Li, and Zhi only appear together in the Mengzi 6 times, while they cannot not be found together in the Analects. In the latter, only ren and li often appear in the same passage. Please see Wu (2013).

11The relevant document retrieved from http://ctext.org/liji/li-yun.

12Mengzi used a well-known example to show this. For the relevant explanation, please see Wu (2013).

13The relevant document was retrieved from: http://ctext.org/liji/zhong-yong.

context a well-cultivated Self or Psyche can still regulate and harmonize them.

In the traditional Confucian classics the teaching of poems and music was highly valued. Confucius said in the Jinjie of Liji (The Classic of Rites): "When you enter any state you can know what subjects (its people) have been taught. If they show themselves men who are mild and gentle, sincere, and good, they have been taught from the Book of Poetry (Shi). If they have a wide comprehension (of things), and know what is remote and old, they have been taught from the Book of History (Shu). If they be large-hearted and generous, bland and honest, they have been taught from the Book of Music (Yue) 14." As a humanist, Confucius believed that the cultivated man's emotional feelings will be well-expressed. He said that "The poem of Guanju in the Book of Poetry (Shijin) is expressive of enjoyment without being licentious, and of grief without being hurtfully excessive (Lunyu 3.20) (Legge, 1861) 15 ." Moreover, "In the Book of Poetry (Shijing) there are three hundred pieces, but the design of them all may be embraced in one sentence—'Having no depraved thoughts' (Lunyu 2.2)" (Legge, 1861) 16 .

In addition to the teaching of poems or literature, the Confucian teaching also emphasized music education. As the Yuji of the Liji (The Classics of Rites) said: "All modulations of the voice spring from the minds of men. When the feelings are moved within, they are manifested in the sounds of the voice; and when those sounds are combined so as to form compositions, we have what are called airs. Hence, the airs of an age of good order indicate composure and enjoyment (Legge, 1885) 17. Confucius also said that "It is by the Odes (shi-Poetry) that the mind is aroused. It is by the rules of li-Propriety that the character is established. It is from Music (yue) that the finish is received (Lunyu 8.8) (Legge, 1861) 18. In other words, the Confucian teaching emphasized literature, poetry and music education in order to harmoniously regulate the instincts and the natural feelings of human beings.

Another significant issue regarding the aspect of the individual is this: the physical life of the individual has temporal limits, and we are naturally conscious of these temporal limits and of the unexpected events which we will inevitably encounter in our lives. In the Analects Confucius sighed sadly when he heard that one of his students was dying. "The sickness is killing him," he said. "It is the appointment of Heaven, alas! That such a man should have such a sickness! That such a man should have such a sickness! (Lunyu 6.10)" (Legge, 1861) 19. In other words, in the real world there is no guarantee that a good man will be rewarded with good fortune; life is filled with unexpected developments. Then, how can one continually live well in the world?

According to the Confucian teaching, although our lives are limited by our physical, temporal and social situation, one still can take the time to create a meaningful life for him/herself. Such a life is of course constituted within the self-others context of our social interactions, where to some degree such interactions may be more predictable than spatial and temporal changes or disruptions. Thus, given our temporal (and spatial) limits, we should take the time to develop and sustain meaningful relationships with others, including our family members, partners, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. As Confucius says in the Analects: "While his parents are alive, the son may not go abroad to a distance. If he does go abroad, he must have a fixed place to which he goes (Lunyu 4.19) (Legge, 1861) 20 . Of course, creating a meaningful life through "education" or through "cultivating the next generation" are also regarded as significant ways of going beyond one's limited physical life21 .

#### Learning As Self-Cultivation of the Person within the Confucian Social Matrix

In Confucian relations, a person can play several social roles, e.g., those of father/mother, son/daughter, husband/wife, friends, superior/subordinate in the modern period (or monarch/courtier in the ancient period), etc. A well-cultivated person has to learn to manifest the proper behavior in various social-interaction contexts by playing various social roles. Here the problem is that of how to judge which kind of social actions are proper (li-propriety) or right (yi-rightousness) within given social interaction. According to Confucian ethical doctrine, the fundamental moral standard of ren-virtue or ren- humanity could be expressed or represented in various forms of li-proper actions within different socio-cultural contexts (Wu, 2013). In other words, ren-virtue could also be expressed or represented in various forms of social action. In the traditional Confucian classics, there are particular ways to cultivate a person who has the wisdom to judge and enact li-proper actions within everchanging social contexts.

The main issue when it comes to the cultivation of persons is that of self-environment interaction. A person is born into a given society, one itself constituted by long-established historicalcultural forms with their own particular series of codes and social rituals. In the Confucian society, this means that there is a sum total of all li-proper forms which are based upon those moral principles of ren-humanity; the latter have been described by Hall and Ames as a "social grammar" or as the "underlying syntax of community" (Ames and Rosemont, 1998 p. 51; Hall and Ames, 1998).

According to the Liji (The Classic of Rites), teaching and learning the proper social behavior involve hierarchical steps, i.e., moving from the more to the less familiar in one's life experience, from simpler to more complicated social actions. As the Xueji (Lessons for Learning) said: "The learners could not transgress the order of study (imposed on them; Legge, 1885)." Thus, "as for the craftsman who repaired the ironware, his son should learn to sew a fur coat first, then he can learn how to put the soft hot materials on the ironware; as for the craftsman who produced the well bows, his son should learn how to weave the soft bamboo to make a dustpan22." In other words, the learning process should

14Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/liji/jing-jie

15Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/analects/ba-yi

16Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/analects/wei-zheng

17Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/liji/yue-ji

18Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/analects/tai-bo

19Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/analects/yong-ye

20Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/analects/li-ren

21For a more detailed account of the relevant discussion see (Wu, 2016).

22Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/liji/xue-ji

follow the learners' basic capacities, and thus should proceed step by step. A similar description appeared in the Xueji (Lessons for Learning):

"If a student do not learn (at college) to play in tune, he cannot quietly enjoy his lutes; if he do not learn extensively the figures of poetry, he cannot quietly enjoy the odes; if he do not learn the varieties of dress, he cannot quietly take part in the different ceremonies; if he do not acquire the various accomplishments, he cannot take delight in learning. Therefore, a student of talents and virtue pursues his studies, withdrawn in college from all besides, and devoted to their cultivation; or occupied with them when retired from it, and enjoying himself " (Legge, 1885) 23 .

In other words, the learner should learn the basic knowledge and skills needed in various social contexts within the same and similar contexts, and then he can learn more complicated forms of knowledge and more complex skills.

The strategies of "modeling learning" and "learning by doing" are also widely adopted for teaching a person the various roles he or she may need to play in particular modes of social interaction. As the Xueji (Lessons for Learning) says: "The suitability of the lessons lies in their adaptability to circumstances; and the strength of the influence of examples lies in their relevance to the situation (Legge, 1885)"24. However, for beginning learners it may be difficult to fully grasp the spiritual force of the renhumanity embedded in the various li-proper social actions, social relations or more generally the "social grammar." Therefore, the need to learn the ethical principles by engaging in the relevant social activities (or social relations) is continually stressed by Confucian teaching. For example, in the Analects: "If a man withdraws his mind from the love of beauty, and applies it as sincerely to the love of the virtuous; if, in serving his parents, he can exert his utmost strength; if, in serving his prince, he can devote his life; if, in his intercourse with his friends, his words are sincere—although men say that he has not learned, I will certainly say that he has. (Lunyu 1.7)." (Legge, 1861) 25 .

Moreover, inasmuch as the process through which the renhumane mind is realized or expressed in concrete li-proper social actions is a dynamic one, there are various ways in which it may be displayed or illustrated. Therefore, the ways of teaching which appear in the Confucian classics often tend to include a number of possible social actions as the empirical examples to be looked at, and the emphasis is on flexibility and open-mindedness. That is, the student should learn how to judge which mode of behavior will be best in any given social interaction (or any given situation). As the Xueji (Lessons for Learning) tells us: "In a superior man's (a sage's) teaching, he leads and does not drag; he strengthens and does not discourage; he opens the way but does not conduct to the end (without the learner's own efforts). Leading and not dragging produces harmony. Strengthening and not discouraging makes attainment easy. Opening the way and not conducting to the end makes (the learner) thoughtful" (Legge, 1885) 26. This teaching and learning process is based upon the ren-benevolence of both teachers and leaners which, as a common bond, unites them. It gives the learners enough social space and inner reflection to cultivate their ideal Selves, where here we may think again of this Self in the light of Hwang's social Person and also his biological Individual.

#### Hwang's Mandala Model of the Self and the Confucian Praxis of Self-Cultivation

The self, of course, needs to know how to be pragmatic, to take action. As the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhong Yong) says: "Zhi-knowledge/wisdom,ren-humanity/ benevolence, and yongbravery, these three are the virtues universally binding. And the means by which they carry these duties into practice is singleness." That is, these three virtues are embodied in a single social action.

According to the Confucian teaching, we need to know how to choose the right direction, the right course of action, the one that will serve best to make our lives meaningful. Yet if one sincerely reflects on one's own ren-mind, then one will be able, step by step, to perform those social actions that are most proper to her/himself. That is, we cannot know how to perform these actions only through our pre-existing embedment in society but must look into ourselves, into our own ren-minds, to know this. Therefore, our education must allow us to cultivate ourselves, must give us, or rather allow us to discover, a space within ourselves where or through which we can enrich our own lives, make them meaningful.

As for the art of teaching, Mengzi distinguishes these five levels:

There are five ways in which the superior man effects his teaching. There are some [students] on whom his influence descends like seasonable rain. There are some whose virtue he perfects, and some of whose talents he assists the development. There are some whose inquiries he answers. There are some who privately cultivate and correct themselves. These five ways are the methods in which the superior man effects his teaching (Legge, 1895) 27 .

The best teaching is thus like a seasonable rain which nourishes students, and more generally which nourishes all beings in the world so that they may grow naturally. Therefore, we may say that Confucian teaching is not only very compassionate but—like the rain that nourishes a fertile field—also very open and free. It cultivates one by giving one enough personal—and individual space, enough ren-humanity or ren-benevolence, to self-reflect and transform one's inner knowledge and wisdom into a worthy and fulfilling social praxis.

#### Hwang's Model, Meditation, Confucianism

The Mandala Model of the Self gives us the interaction or "overlapping" of the Individual—who/which may include not only what he/she has learned about the outside world but also his/her innermost depths of thinking and reflection, perhaps even self-reflection or meditation—and the Person, who/which

23Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/liji/xue-ji

24Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/liji/xue-ji

25Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/analects/xue-er

26Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/liji/xue-ji

27Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/mengzi/jin-xin-i

embodies the individual's participation in a larger group, a family or community, or society. As an active member of this larger group, one may choose a suitable job or career or other form of social action, based both on what he/she has already learned and on his/her ongoing experience of life in the world (in the society) (Eckensberger, 2012; Hwang, 2014, p. 42).

However, in order to make proper judgments and perform well in various social interactions, one may also need to learn how to transform his/her knowledge in the process of becominga-person. In the Confucian classics, which greatly influenced Hwang, we find a series of teaching and learning procedures whose purpose is to guide the self to regulate its inner conflicts and its outer social relations while maintaining a harmony between these two domains. As for the pursuit of knowledge, the Confucian teaching generally emphasized the hierarchal order of learning—moving from easier to more difficult subjects, from concrete life experiences to more abstract principles. In the Xueji (Lessons for Learning) of the Liji (Classic of Rites):

According to the system of ancient teaching, for the families of (a hamlet) there was the village school; for a neighborhood there was the xiang (a kind of school); for the larger districts there was the xu (bigger than a xiang); and in the capitals there was the college. Every year some entered the college, and every second year there was a comparative examination..... In the ninth year, when [the students] knew the different types of subjects, had gained a general intelligence (wisdom), and were firmly established and would not fall back, they were said to have made great attainments (Legge, 1885) 28 .

The above passage describes the hierarchical learning order, where the last step is the most difficult: the transformation of knowledge into wisdom. In fact, at this point the Confucian teaching particularly emphasizes "reflection." There is a series of procedures for attaining wisdom step-by-step through selfreflection. In the Great Learning (Daxue) of the Liji (Classic of Rites), there is a paragraph describing this process in detail:

The point where to rest being known, the object of pursuit is then determined; and, that being determined, a calm unperturbedness may be attained to. To that calmness there will succeed a tranquil repose. In that repose there may be careful deliberation, and that deliberation will be followed by the attainment of the desired end. Things have their root and their branches. Affairs have their end and their beginning. To know what is first and what is last will lead near to what is taught in the Great Learning (Da Hsueh) (Legge, 1885) 29 .

Here we see the movement back to one's inner self or mind, to a state of tranquil repose—comparable perhaps to the Hindu or Buddhist meditative state—which makes possible "careful deliberation" and thus "the attainment of the desired end."

After this transforming of his knowledge into wisdom, then, the student will be able to judge the rightness and wrongness of social actions. The Doctrine of the Mean (Doctrine of Moderation) (Zhong Yong) in the Liji (Classic of Rites) says: "He who attains to sincerity is he who chooses what is good, and firmly holds it fast. To this attainment there are requisite the extensive study of what is good, accurate inquiry about it, careful reflection on it, the clear discrimination of it, and the earnest practice of it" (Legge, 1885) 30. That is, once one can carefully reflect and then clearly distinguish right and wrong, the next step is to sincerely practice what is right. If one can often do this, then he or she will have a happy life.

In terms of the Confucian Analects (Lunyu), this means that one (a student) with a ren-humane mind will naturally (spontaneously) know how to perform li-proper actions in the society. Confucian knowledge, then, is based on a moral orientation (ethical distinctions), and not—like cognitive knowledge—on the distinctions made by our senses, our sense perception. In fact Neo-Confucian scholars in the Song dynasty (960–1279 AD), such as Chang Zai or Cheng Hao, distinguished cognitive knowledge (wen jian zhi zhi, 聞見之知) from moral knowledge (de xin zhi zhi, 德行之知), and they also said that moral knowledge provides us with a foundation that is more general or universal than that provided by cognitive knowledge. In other words, we should first determine whether something we have learned or created via our senses has a moral meaning or purpose before we go ahead to base our actions on it31. Finally, then, our wisdom is grounded in our moral knowledge, and our primary goal is to transform our knowledge into wisdom, which is what guides our actions.

In fact, in ancient Confucian culture there are two main stages in the pursuit of self-cultivation: the "inner sage (內聖)" and "outer kingdom (外王)." The "inner sage" refers to the process of inner moral development, while the "outer kingdom" refers to the process of outward social development: here one's social development is regarded as the further fulfillment of his or her moral development. In the Great Learning (Daxue) of the Liji (Classic of Rites), we have these two stages: "Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated" (Legge, 1885) 32 .

The above is seen as inner self-cultivation, which guides one to develop his/her own inner moral discrimination or moral knowledge to know what actions are right or wrong. However, only knowing what is right or wrong is not enough. One needs to further realize this moral knowledge by following the steps of "outer kingdom" to make the world better. These steps are found in the Great Learning (Daxue) of the Liji (Classic of Rites): "Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their States were rightly governed. Their States being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy" (Legge, 1885) 33 .

28Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/liji/xue-ji

29Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/liji/da-xue

30Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/liji/zhong-yong

31Obvious examples are cases involving the use of atomic bombs in war (or even the testing of them on remote Pacific islands), or more recently issues regarding national security that have arisen from the creation of the Internet. These inventions were, of course, a product of the physical sciences.

32Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/liji/da-xue 33Retrieved from: http://ctext.org/liji/da-xue

This process of reaching the "outer kingdom" of selfcultivation could be regarded as moral-based social development and as "outer representation" in the Mandala model. Here, as the "inner sage" stage transforms into the "outer kingdom" stage, it needs wisdom to judge which is the most proper form of behavior or knowledge. Yet this transformation from "inner sage" to "outer kingdom" may also be understood as the transformation of inner self-reflection (of the reflective mind) into outer cognition (the outer cognitive mind).

## Mou's Meditation/Cognition Opposition, His Awareness of Unexpected Developments, and Self-Society-Cosmos-Tian

Self-reflection or meditation is an inner operation of the mind which is peaceful, silent, beyond the subject-object distinction; in contrast, in cognitive learning the mind is oriented toward the outside world and needs the cognitive knowledge provided by the five senses. However, it is not so clear that Hwang's Mandala model of the self, which can clearly account for inward meditative thinking and outward social awareness or social thinking, can also account for or encompass cognitive thinking. The well-known Neo-Confucian scholar Zhongshan Mou, who also influenced Hwang, claims that self-reflection (or meditation) and cognitive learning are not only different mental operations, but that they are mutually exclusive–we cannot engage in both at the same time. Yet he thought that today one also needs scientific knowledge in order to fulfill his/her moral ideals. This means a self-transformation process that moves from inner self-reflection to the outer cognitive mind (Mou, 1980, pp. 44–62).

However, while Hwang was influenced by Mou in some ways, it is not clear that Hwang's Mandala model can enable, account for, serve as a foundation for the acquiring of empirical scientific knowledge. On the other hand, it is also true that Mou, who was influenced by Hegel as well as Kant, believed that no objectivity is possible apart from subjectivity, and he may seem to have ultimately emphasized subjectivity insofar as he believed in an ultimate reality (benti, 本體), and—like the classical Confucians—believed that human morality is ultimately validated by the "Way of Heaven"(Tiandao), the ultimate moral principle. Moreover, Mou claims that a person's uncomfortable reaction to crime and degeneracy indicates the existence of a moral consciousness, which he regards as the inner essence of human beings (Mou, 1990, pp. 37–56).

Coming back to Hwang and his Mandala model, while Inner Balance could clearly be correlated with, or be the goal of, meditation, it is not so clear that Outer Manifestation can be correlated with cognitive thinking/learning/knowledge. The correlation in the model of Knowledge/Wisdom with the Individual may also seem to suggest a priority to private, inward meditation, whose opposite or "other side" may not be cognitive thinking or learning but rather that same social harmony (via the Person) which the original Confucius would correlate with Tian (Heaven) and the Tian Dao. Thus, while it is clear that—as regards the Mandala model—individuals, families and communities today might want to "keep the whole model," it is not so clear that cognitive and empirical subjects such as mathematics and the sciences could be included within it34 .

Moreover, as for Ethics, it could be argued that the concept of "morality" in Chinese philosophy originates from what Zhongshan Mou calls "the awareness of unexpected developments, or existential anxiety" (you huan yi shi, 憂患意 識) 35. On the individual level the self is always already aware of its temporal limitations, for human life is short, temporally very limited within a vast and changing cosmos36, but now, as we are speaking of morality within the context of Neo-Confucian thought, we are already understanding this sense of life's contingency, uncertainty, finitude as it is experienced on a social level (Mou, 1990, pp. 16–18). The self as an Individual has to deal with individual needs and, as a Person, to deal with social needs, with the obligations and proper forms of behavior that arise with social relationships37. Here then the "Confucian awareness of unexpected developments" (you huan yi shi) can be seen as a form of anxiety experienced on both the individual and social level, but the latter is clearly seen by (Neo-) Confucianism as taking priority.

For one thing, while each self as an Individual and thus (in Hwang's model) as a biological entity may be concerned about physical (biochemical) survival, each self as a Person and thus as a member of society may be concerned with something that seems far more momentous—the survival or continuation of the whole society (which would also ensure his/her continuation as a Person). After all, it would be difficult for someone to create a meaningful life for him/herself if there seemed to be a lack of harmony or meaning or happiness in the whole society. It is also possible to see this the other way around, and say that each individual must be well-ordered if the whole society can itself

34However, if we consider Huang's discussion of cultural inclusion theories and the concepts of cultural morphostasis and cultural morphogenesis, then, we can say that the Mandala model is a universal model which can be applied to various cultural systems. If we apply Piaget's concept of adaptation, which is related to the concepts of assimilation and accommodation, to a developing cultural system, we may say that once a cultural system cannot adapt to a new experience, such as western cognitive thinking, by assimilation, then it may develop its schema by means of accommodation, that is, by absorbing new cultural experiences. For example, some Confucian scholars in modern China and Japan suffered from western aggression beginning in the nineteenth century; therefore (as we know from a series of documents) they set out to acquire cognitive, even scientific knowledge in order to save their countries. Here their desire to absorb western knowledge could be regarded as a moral decision to pursue self-cultivation, and thereby transform (their) inner transcendence into outer transcendence, fulfilling the ideal Self. For the relevant research, please see Hwang (2015, p. 38); and Wu (2009, pp. 309–328).

35This anxiety may be similar to that of Heidegger (angst) and existentialism, except that now we are already looking at this awareness and this anxiety as they are experienced by the whole society.

36Laozi said: "What makes me liable to great calamity is my having a body (which I call myself); if I had not the body, what great calamity could come to me? (Laozi Ch. 13)" (Legge, 1891).

37For further discussion of the time-engaged self as individual and as social self, see also Cheng (2004). Regarding the relevant arguments, please see also Wang et al. (1989, pp. 1–78.) In Chapter 1, entitled "the ideal of human life," Wang claims that as one is aware that human life has an objective limit, he/she needs to undertake a series of self-cultivation processes to realize his/her ideal Self. In Chapter 2, "The limitations of our existing life," Zheng discusses how (Neo-)Confucian scholars overcame various difficulties to extend their limited physical lives into permanent spiritual ones.

be in a state of harmony. Thus, in a famous passage from the beginning of a Confucian Classic, Daxue (Great Learning), we read:

"Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy. From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides. It cannot be, when the root is neglected, that what should spring from it will be well-ordered" (Legge, 1885).

Of course, if the "Individual" (in the model) inevitably suffers from anxiety regarding his/her own existence, then the Person may also suffer from a different kind of anxiety regarding the whole family or whole Society. If the actual life of the Individual is at stake, then so is the actual "life" of the Society—its well-being, harmony, ability to avoid war, and so continue to enjoy a Peaceful state38. A poor beggar may die of hunger in the streets of a city whose inhabitants do not care about him or her, just as a whole city may tend to disappear if all its citizens are being killed or starving to death in a terrible time of war and/or famine.

Both Hwang and Mou, who as Confucians have a solid background in classical Confucianism, of course stress the ultimate need for a sort of spiritual transcendence which goes beyond both the Individual and the Person, the self and society and the need for this sort of transcendence might seem to be felt especially in times of social chaos, as for example, once again, in times of terrible war or famine. This giving of priority to a fully transcendent level, beyond both individuals (persons) and the whole society, tends to support the idea of the greater importance of Whole. Here we may think of religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, and perhaps also Near-Eastern religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In fact, while the ancient Chinese conception of Tian (Heaven) implied at first the supernatural or religious power of Fate (the Tian Ming, Decree of Heaven) and then the power of political forces ("imperial decrees"), it had become for Confucius, in the sixth-century AD, an ideal that was at once personal, social and fully transcendent, that is, in some sense "divine." The individual, his society and his ancestors were all seen as a manifestation of Tian.

Tian for Confucius in the later Zhou dynasty was thus paradoxically both an immanent and a transcendent concept, for now everyone had the right to receive the "Decree of Heaven." That is, if one could truly understand and appreciate what Tian had conferred upon him—his essentially good human Nature, his Self—and could then go on to fulfill—through his social actions and social relationships—his own potential, his own true Nature in the society—we could say he was following the will or spirit of Heaven. As Confucius said, Tian gives birth to all things on earth equally and yet lets each one of them "arise differently" (Wu, 2015), Thinking in terms of Hwang's Mandala model, then, we could say that once the Self can regulate its inner conflicts and its outer social relations, transforming its moral knowledge into wisdom, then it/she/he will be able to completely develop and make use of his/her talents in the society as well, in a certain sense, as in the cosmos. We could say that this person has then fully realized within him/herself—and also has seen or understood as being the "decree of Heaven"—that which Hwang tries to encapsulate with, within and through his Mandala model.

#### CONCLUSION

Kwang-Kuo Hwang, in his Mandala model of the self, is influenced by the ancient Chinese Confucian conception of human life as an open field, so that our cultivating of this field is really our own self-cultivation—for after all, our self was formed out of this wider field and as such it (our self) can still be further cultivated. We will also recall that, for Hwang, the Person (at the top of the circle) belongs to the sociological domain, playing various social roles within society, while the Individual (at the bottom) belongs to a purely biological and physical level as an individual being within nature. Correlated with Person and Action/Praxis on the top and on the right, we also have "outer representation" in the top right corner of the square; correlated with Individual and Knowledge/Wisdom on the bottom and on the left, we also have "inner balance" in the bottom left corner. As for the praxis of "cultivating the self or Self," this is of course the function of schools, of education.

Here it is clear that Hwang's Mandala model may capture or express the basic framework, contours, vectors according to which one may fulfill or realize his/her need for selfunderstanding, both as a private Individual and a social Person, through both inward meditative thinking and outward social engagement, social action. After all, the pictorial form of the model suggests a series of overlapping fields to be cultivated. Here we might think first of self-cultivation, but may also think of "education" which comes from the Latin educare—to draw out, bring up, rear, raise (a child). Self-cultivation (self-education) is one thing, but schools are places that "cultivate" (educate) young people, teaching them various subjects but most fundamentally, perhaps, helping them to develop (cultivate) themselves, to grow, both as private Individuals and as social Persons, where the "sociality" would already seem to imply "as moral Persons."

Zhongshan Mou, in addition to his conception of the "selfnegation of consciousness" (lian zhi zhi zi wou kan xian), emphasizes "the awareness of unexpected developments" (you huan yi shi), that is, the Individual's awareness of the spatial and temporal limitations of his/her own life, his/her own finitude, and the utter unpredictability of life, of the future. Yet this awareness may well force the Individual to choose which courses of action to take in life, to determine which actions would be moral, wise, humane, socially correct, and socially beneficial—in other words, force him to become (also) a Person. To be an ideal modern person from the (Neo-)Confucian perspective, one may need to follow two paths—to gain an objective understanding (through perception and objective conscious awareness) of one's role, one position, or location in the world (as Individual and person), and also (through an emptying of the mind) to follow the Tian Dao, Way of Heaven.

38Here one might think of the mass anxiety felt by Clinton supporters, and the widespread rioting in the streets—threatening to create disorder throughout the whole society and put its own peaceful and orderly future at risk—in the wake of Trump's winning of the recent presidential election in the USA.

Thus, though (Neo-)Confucianism may seem at first to give a priority to moral knowledge (or wisdom) over purely sensory or cognitive knowledge, and to the society over the individual, its core concern is really the interrelationship of individual and society, of knowledge (wisdom), and action (praxis)—as should already be clear from Hwang's model. Moreover, communities, societies, and nations themselves tend also to be transient in the long run, and to experience "existential anxiety" about their own (in)stability, their (im)permanence38. We can see how the individual's awareness of life's finitude and of the inevitability of death, his/her feeling that our own short lives are finally meaningless within the vast universe of space and immense ocean of time, could suggest a perspective closer to that of Hinduism, Buddhism, and perhaps Daoism than to that of Confucianism.

Yet the latter has had, since the late Shang and early Zhou dynasties (circa 1000–1200 BC), the conception of Tian

#### REFERENCES

(Heaven) and the Tian Ming (Decree of Heaven). This at first seemed mainly to represent the emperor's absolute power but then gradually came to represent, and very clearly by the time of Confucius in the 500's BC, something much closer to a transcendent moral ideal that was present in each individual and also embodied in the whole community, society, empire. Thus, perhaps this transcendent moral, individual and also communal ideal of Tian might just embody the fusion of individual/person, wisdom/action, inner/outer, immanent/transcendent. For Confucius himself, who accepted young men from all social classes as his students, the fusion of self/other, the ren-humane putting of oneself in the other one's shoes (so that in a sense the duality disappeared) was of course the essential paradox and the very embodiment of wisdom. For him the concept or ideal of Tian also captured this idea, this paradox.

#### AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and approved it for publication.

#### FUNDING

This research is supported by Taiwan's Ministry of Science and Technology (grant number: MOST 105-2410-H-017-023).

39We may also think about this anxiety, uncertainty, disorder in the realm of political power. "When looking at society we see the importance of the family;... even states in China can be viewed as the family writ large. There is an overall orientation toward conciliation and harmony and a deep-seated anxiety of disorder (luan). Even the Confucian golden rule [do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you] is predicated on the notion that order should prevail, that disorder is dangerous, and hence that discipline is necessary" (Tu, 1992, pp. 17– 18). Here this golden rule is implicitly being contrasted with the "positive" western one: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

**Conflict of Interest Statement:** The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Copyright © 2017 Wu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

# The Mediating Role of Self-Exertion on the Effects of Effort on Learning Virtues and Emotional Distress in Academic Failure in a Confucian Context

#### Bih-Jen Fwu1 , Shun-Wen Chen2 , Chih-Fen Wei3 and Hsiou-Huai Wang1 \*

1 Center for Teacher Education, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, 2 Institute of Learning Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 3 Department of Psychology and Counseling, University of Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan

#### Edited by:

Yung-Jong Shiah, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan

#### Reviewed by:

Vassilis Barkoukis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Shu-Hui Liu, National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan

#### \*Correspondence:

Hsiou-Huai Wang<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### Specialty section:

This article was submitted to Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology

Received: 27 October 2015 Accepted: 19 December 2016 Published: 09 January 2017

#### Citation:

Fwu B-J, Chen S-W, Wei C-F and Wang H-H (2017) The Mediating Role of Self-Exertion on the Effects of Effort on Learning Virtues and Emotional Distress in Academic Failure in a Confucian Context. Front. Psychol. 7:2047. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02047 Previous studies have found that in East Asian Confucian societies, hardworking students are often trapped in a dilemma of enjoying a positive moral image while suffering from emotional distress due to academic failure. This study intends to further explore whether the cultural-specific belief in self-exertion acts as a psychological mechanism to lessen these students' negative emotions. A group of 288 college students in Taiwan were administered a questionnaire to record their responses to past academic failures. The results from structural equation modeling showed that selfexertion functioned as a mediator between the effects of effort on learning virtues and emotional distress. Self-exertion to fulfill one's duty to oneself positively mediated the effect of effort on learning virtues, whereas self-exertion to fulfill one's duty to one's parents negatively mediated the effect of effort on emotional distress. Theoretical and cultural implications are further discussed.

Keywords: self-exertion, effort, learning virtues, emotional distress, Confucianism

# INTRODUCTION

Because East Asian societies in the Confucian circle place much emphasis on effort in academic achievement (Hau and Ho, 2010), students are under great pressure from their parents, teachers, and peers to make effort to pursue academic success (Ang and Huan, 2006; Tan and Yates, 2011). Given the high value of academic achievement in these societies, academic failure tends to be a serious blow to students and cause severe emotional distress. Previous studies have found that effortful Asian students tend to be trapped in a dilemma of enjoying a positive moral image while suffering from emotional distress from academic failure (Fwu et al., 2016b). Despite the positive image, they are often distraught with negative emotions, including loss of face, shame, guilt, anxiety, and depression (Matsumoto, 1991; Mortenson, 2006; Lei, 2009; Tao and Hong, 2014). It is important to inquire if there are any cultural-specific mechanisms that may help these students lessen distressed feelings and cope with academic failure.

Hau and Ho (2010) reviewed evidence on Asian students' motivation for academic achievement and found inconsistency in applying Western achievement motivation theories, such as intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation (Iyengar and Lepper, 1999; d'Ailly, 2003), self-efficacy and competence

beliefs (Leung, 2002; Salili et al., 2004), or salience of mastery vs. performance goal (Ho et al., 2007; Ho and Hau, 2008), to East Asian contexts. The roots to such inconsistency may be traced back to the fundamental views about learning. In the Western intellectual tradition, the purpose of learning is to understand the external world, and its process focuses on developing cognitive/intellectual capacity (Li, 2012). On the other hand, in the East Asian cultures, the purpose of learning is to cultivate internal virtues, and its process focuses on perfecting oneself, with an emphasis on diligence and persistence (Li, 2012).

Central to these East Asian views about learning for selfperfection is the cultivation of one's virtues and fulfillment of filial obligations to one's parents (Li, 2002, 2005, 2012). On one hand, an individual needs to improve oneself constantly to possess learning virtues such as diligence, perseverance, and earnestness. On the other hand, a person has to fulfill filial obligations to glorify his or her parents by attaining high level of achievement. Therefore, making the upmost effort to fulfill (self-exertion, jinji) the dual obligation toward self and parents may serve as both a criterion to evaluate one's learning virtues and a buffer to alleviate negative emotions resulting from failure.

Thus, the present study aims to investigate the role of self-exertion in the relationship among effort, learning virtues and emotional distress. More specifically, we wonder if effort positively predicts self-exertion; second, if effort positively predicts learning virtues and emotional distress; and third, if self-exertion positively predicts learning virtues but negatively predicts emotional distress. In the following sections, specific hypotheses were further developed based on theoretical inferences.

# Vertical Achievement Goal in Confucian Cultural Context

According to Chen et al. (2009), there are two types of achievement goal, personal vs. vertical goals, in the Confucian cultural context. A personal goal is defined as a goal constructed on the basis of autonomous interest and self-determined choice. Children are given the freedom to pursue or give up such a goal. The pattern of learning motivation and behaviors based on personal goals is rather universal and can be explained by the existing achievement motivation theories. On the other hand, a vertical goal, which is based on social expectations, is shaped by cultural and social values. Individuals' performances in the pursuit of these goals will be ranked on a vertical ladder of achievement by others. Individuals are usually under great pressure to compete with their peers to excel and have little choice but to climb higher and higher up the "achievement pyramid" by getting good grades, going to top schools, getting high-paying jobs, acquiring high status and fame, and so on. Individuals are obligated to fulfill their role as filial children to pursue such goals to satisfy parental expectations (Tseng, 2004; Chen et al., 2009; Hwang, 2012; Huang et al., 2015; Fwu et al., 2016a,b). Those who fail to pursue vertical goals tend to feel that they have failed their obligation to their parents. In many East Asian countries, academic achievement is often viewed as a vertical goal for students (King and McInerney, 2014; Tao and Hong, 2014; Fwu et al., 2016a,b). Empirical studies have shown that Taiwanese students perceive a significant difference between academic (vertical) and non-academic (personal) goals. For them, the pursuit of academic achievement is characterized by a stronger sense of role obligation, higher parental expectations, greater social importance, and less personal choice than non-academic pursuits such as hobbies and sports (Fwu et al., 2016a,b). Major achievement motivation theories developed in the West may have overlooked such the culturally unique characteristics of vertical goals, and this may be the reason why the learning performances and behaviors of some East Asian students could not be fully understood.

As vertical goals are so crucial in this cultural context, adults tend to instill the value of vertical goals into the minds of youngsters through the process of socialization at home and in school. In the process, adults' goals for pursuing vertical achievement are so embedded in the consciousness of young children that such goals may be gradually experienced as the children's own goals (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). Children learn to adopt the values and beliefs of their parents about the vertical goals and gradually integrate the goals into their own pursuits (Chao, 1994, 1996). In this way, vertical goals become a common pursuit shared by both parents and children. Through realizing such consensually shared goals, children tend to incorporate and adjust themselves to fulfilling their role obligations in order to maintain harmonious relationships with their parents (Triandis, 1989; Markus and Kitayama, 1991; Su et al., 1999; Heine et al., 2001).

#### Two Types of Self-Exertion in the Pursuit of Vertical Achievement Goals

In Confucian thought, self-exertion is the fundamental principle of being a moral person. According to Confucius' Analects, his doctrine can be summarized in one phrase: exerting yourself to the utmost in order to perfect yourself in both the moral and the social realms. On the one hand, individuals should try their best continuously to cultivate virtues and character. On the other hand, they should also do their best to maintain ethical and harmonious relationships with their parents. In this way, selfexertion (jin ji) in the Confucian tradition is defined as "exerting the utmost effort" to fulfill the dual obligation to oneself morally and to one's parents socially in pursuit of vertical goals.

Underlying the obligation for parents is the deep-rooted Confucian ethical principle for ordinary people (Hwang, 1999, 2012). Since individuals' lives are the continuation of their parents' physical lives, signifying an inseparable blood bond between parents and children, mutual fulfillment of moral obligations is prescribed: parents should be benevolent, and children should be filial (fu ci zi xiao) (Hwang, 1999, 2012; De Bary, 2003; Fwu et al., 2014). Children's education is considered an arena for reciprocal obligation. Benevolent parents should fulfill their duty by providing their children with the best education possible; in return, filial children should do their duty and study hard (Hwang, 1999, 2012).

Moreover, the root to fulfilling one's obligation to the self derives from the need to realize one's optimal potential through

a continuous process of self-perfection. In Confucianism, it is widely believed that an individual's talents and attributes are endowed by Heaven. Only through exerting the utmost effort to do what one is obligated to do can one's potential be realized to the ultimate level, and then one's purpose/destiny of life, which is decreed by Heaven, can be revealed (Hwang, 2012). In this way, an individual has fulfilled his duty to his own life (jinxi zhixing yi zhi tien). In the case of pursuing the consensually shared goal of academic achievement, an individual can exert himself to self-perfect in order to realize his full potential, while simultaneously fulfilling this filial obligation to parents. Furthermore, such self-exertion to pursue academic achievement also signifies a character building process. By exerting the utmost effort in academic learning, an individual gradually cultivates such virtuous qualities as concentration, earnestness, diligence, persistence, and endurance of hardship (Li, 2012). Therefore, self-exertion to fulfill one's duty to both one's parents and oneself are closely related because oftentimes fulfilling one's filial duty is a way to accomplish one's personal duty, based on the inseparable relationship between parents and children.

#### Self-Exertion as a Mediator between Effort and Virtue vs. Distress

Since cultural beliefs, meanings, and values encourage corresponding psychological processes, individuals living in a certain cultural context tend to absorb salient cultural beliefs and develop conforming psychological tendencies (Kitayama and Markus, 1999). Individuals who are brought up in a Confucian cultural system stressing the moral value of self-exertion tend to develop a psychological disposition to appraise the appropriateness of their conduct and regulate their emotions in order to adhere to the cultural norms of self-exertion (Hwang, 2013). According to the teachings of the Confucian classics on self-exertion (jin-ji), if an individual fails to achieve his goals, he should not attribute the failure to external factors or blame others; instead, he should reflect on whether he has exerted the utmost effort in the process (xin you bu de, fan qiu zhu ji) (Dobson, 1963). If an individual decides he has tried his best, he is assured of having fulfilled his obligations both to self and to parents. Therefore, the degree of effort is the criterion by which one evaluates whether one has exerted oneself, for both one's parents and oneself. The more effort one has put in, the more effort one has exerted. We hypothesize that effort positively predicts exertion to oneself (H1) and to parents (H2).

Furthermore, effort also has an impact on learning virtues and negative emotion. Previous studies indicated that the more effort one expends, the more virtuous qualities, such as diligence and responsibility, one may possess (Fwu et al., 2014, 2016a,b). We hypothesize that effort positively predicts learning virtues (H3). Previous research has also indicated that the more effort one expends, the more emotional distress one may suffer (Fwu et al., 2016b). The emotional distress may result from a lack of competence and violation of the "just world" belief that one should reap what one sows. We hypothesize that effort positively predicts emotional distress (H4).

On top of effort, self-exertion also plays a role in predicting learning virtues and emotional distress. There are two types of self-exertion: one to the self (self-exertion\_personal, SE-P), and the other to one's parents (self-exertion\_filial, SE-F). The degrees of both SE-P and SE-F are the criteria for evaluating the extent of one's possession of learning virtues. The more SE-P and SE-F one has expended, the more learning virtues one possesses. We hypothesize that SE-P and SE-F positively predict learning virtues (H5-1 and H5-2). Lastly, self-exertion also functions as a regulatory factor to reduce emotional distress. After reflecting on failure, if an individual is assured that he has exerted himself in the process, he will not feel indebtedness, either to himself or to others. Such peace of mind and a clear conscience would help to regulate the negative emotions. The more SE-P and SE-F one has expended, the less distress one may experience. We hypothesize that SE-P and SE-F negatively predict emotional distress (H6-1 and H6-2). In summary, the proposed model illustrated in **Figure 1** demonstrates the hypothetical framework integrating the above hypotheses in this study.

In sum, the aim of the study is to inquire the cultural-specific mechanisms that may help East Asian students lessen distressed feelings and cope with academic failure. More specifically, we intend to examine the role of self-exertion (jin-ji) in the relationship among effort, learning virtues and emotional distress. We hypothesize that effort positively predicts selfexertion to self and to parents; effort positively predicts learning virtues and emotional distress; and self-exertion to self and parents positively predict learning virtues but negatively predicts emotional distress.

#### MATERIALS AND METHODS

#### Participants and Procedures

Convenience sampling was used to collect data. A total of 317 college students from seven public universities in Taiwan were recruited for the study. Students in Taiwan are admitted to college mainly based on their performance on academic subjects on the competitive college entrance examination. As public universities in Taiwan are generally considered more

prestigious, they are more likely to recruit students with higher levels of academic performance. Such students are likely to take academic work seriously. They usually take around 3–6 required courses in their majors each semester. Participants in our study were recruited from four courses offered by these public universities. A questionnaire was administered in class immediately after the release of mid-term grades to gather their immediate recollections of a course with less satisfactory grade compared with other courses. It was assumed that the participants would have fresh memories of and responses to unsatisfactory grades in these courses. The grade distribution of 288 participants was as follows: 48 participants below 30 points, 127 participants between 30 and 59 points, 80 participants between 60 and 69 points, 29 participants between 70 and 79 points, 4 participants between 80 and 89 points, and none with 90–100 points, indicating that the majority of participants did choose courses with relatively unsatisfactory grades. Participants with missing values on the variables were deleted from the analysis. The valid sample size was 288, with 181 females (M = 21.90, SD = 3.75) and 91 males (M = 23.90, SD = 6.55).

#### Instrument

All participants were asked to read and answer a questionnaire after they gave informed consents. The questionnaire included a recollection of failure on mid-term exams and 18 response items regarding the experience of failure. These items were divided into the following 5 subscales. A Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree) was used.

#### Self-Exertion\_personal (SE-P)

Self-exertion\_personal, based on the aforementioned definition, meant fulfillment of one's responsibility and duty to oneself. It consisted of two items: "I have fulfilled my responsibility" and "I have exerted the utmost effort to fulfill my duty." Exploratory factor analysis revealed that a single factor accounted for 91.62% of the variance (Cronbach's α = 0.91). The average of the two items indicated the participant's level of duty fulfillment to himor herself.

#### Self-Exertion\_filial (SE-F)

Self-exertion\_filial, also based on the definition mentioned above, meant fulfillment of one's responsibility and duty to one's parents. It consisted of two items: "I have fulfilled my obligation to my parents" and "I don't feel indebted to my parents because I have done my duty." Exploratory factor analysis revealed that a single factor accounted for 74.24% of the variance (Cronbach's α = 0.65). The average of the two items indicated the participant's level of duty fulfillment to his or her parents.

#### Effort

Effort was defined as intensity in time or energy used to pursue academic achievement and the persistence in that endeavor before the exam. Cooman et al. (2009) developed a work effort scale (WESC) with a three-factor structure, including direction (the behavior a person chooses to perform), intensity (how hard one works to perform the behavior), and persistence (how hard a person keeps trying to perform the behavior successfully). Five items were modified from the WESC to measure the level of effort. The five items were: "I study hard for good grades" (direction),"I spent plenty of time on this subject/activity," "I put a lot of energy into this subject/activity" (intensity), "I tried my best to figure out what's difficult to understand," and "I don't give up easily in the face of difficulty on tests" (persistence). Exploratory factor analysis revealed that the five items represented a single factor, which accounted for 58.56% of the variance (Cronbach's α = 0.86). The average of the five items indicated the participants' degrees of effort.

#### Learning Virtues

Learning virtues were defined as positive traits/qualities related to academic learning that are deemed to be morally good. Li (2012) proposed attributes of learning virtues, including earnestness, diligence, concentration, perseverance, endurance of hardship, and steadfastness. Six items were developed as follows: I think I am a student with (1) commitment (2) diligence (3) perseverance (4) devotion (5) steadfastness (6) a good learning attitude. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that the six items represented a single factor, which accounted for 78.28% of the variance (Cronbach's α = 0.93). The average of the six items indicated the participants' perceptions of their own learning virtues.

#### Emotional Distress

Emotional distress was defined as the level of negative affect derived from failure. Three items were adopted from previous research (Fwu et al., 2016b), including: After I got my grade on the exam, I felt (1) upset (2) disappointed (3) depressed about my performance. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that the three items represented a single factor, which accounted for 84.61% of the variance (Cronbach's α = 0.91). The average of the three items indicated the participant's level of negative emotions.

#### RESULTS

## Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

**Table 1** presents descriptive and correlational statistics for the variables of self-exertion\_personal, self-exertion\_filial, effort, learning virtues, and emotional distress.

#### Test of Path Model

Structural equation modeling was used to test our path model among effort, negative emotion, self-exertion, and learning virtues (see **Figure 2**). The results showed that the model fit the empirical data well [Chi-square of χ 2 [3] = 0.299, p = 0.826, CFI = 1, AGFI = 0.994, RMSEA = 0.000, SRMR = 0.0095, GFI = 0.999]. The model is presented in **Table 2**, with parameter estimates. Standardized parameter estimates are illustrated in **Figure 2**. Examination of these paths indicated six sets of relations. First, effort was positively correlated with self-exertion\_personal (β = 0.697, p < 0.001), self-exertion\_filial (β = 0.418, p < 0.001), and learning virtues (β = 0.310, p < 0.001). Second, effort was positively related to emotional

TABLE 1 | Descriptive statistics and inter-variable correlations (N = 288).

∗p < 0.05, ∗∗ p < 0.01.

distress (β = 0.396, p < 0.001). Third, self-exertion\_personal was positively related to learning virtues (β = 0.301, p < 0.001). Finally, self-exertion\_filial was positively related to learning virtues (β = −0.13, p < 0.05). We further applied bootstrapping to substantiate the mediation effect. The results showed that selfexertion\_personal as a mediating variable between effort and learning virtues because the bootstrapped confidence interval of indirect effect did not include zero (95% C.I. = [0.109, 0.308]). Similarly, self-exertion\_filial acted as a mediating variable between effort and emotional distress because the bootstrapped confidence interval of indirect effect did not include zero (95% C.I. = [−0.112, −0.008]).

In summary, the model provided a good fit to the empirical data. All but two of the hypotheses were supported. Effort positively predicted SE-P (H-1) and SE-F (H-2), and effort also had a positive impact on learning virtues (H-3) and emotional distress (H-4). Furthermore, SE-P positively predicted learning virtues (H5-1), while SE-F (H6-2) negatively predicted emotional distress. The impacts of effort were mediated by self-exertion, in which SE-P was a source of learning virtues and SE-F was a buffer against negative affect. However, two hypotheses were not supported. SE-P could not predict emotional distress (H6-1), probably due to the relatively stronger prediction of SE-F than of SE-P. Similarly, SE-F could not predict learning virtues (H5-2), possibly because of the relatively greater effect of SE-P than of SE-F.

#### DISCUSSION

In summary, there appears to be a double-edged sword of effort, indicating that those who expend effort but fail tend to possess learning virtues but suffer from emotional distress. In addition,

there is a shielding effect of self-exertion to parents, which reduces emotional distress from failure. The "sword and shield" effect is discussed in the following sections.

## Double-Edged Sword of Effort

In his studies on the effect of effort upon failure, Covington (1984, 2000, 2009) found that many students faced a "double-edged sword" between "making efforts to avoid teachers' reproach" and "feeling incompetent owing to expending too much effort." Behind this dilemma is the conflicting beliefs held by students and teachers. While students generally believe that trying too hard indicated a lack of ability (Nicholls, 1989), teachers tend to stress the work ethic and disapprove of students who did not expend enough effort on academic work (Hamilton et al., 1990;

∗p < 0.05, ∗∗∗ p < 0.001.

Weiner, 1993, 1994). These incompatible beliefs about ability vs. effort in academic achievement create the potential for interpersonal conflict between students and teachers. Covington's notion of a 'double-edged sword' can apply both to failure in academic pursuits, such as math and science, and in nonacademic activities, such as sports and the arts.

Unlike the inter-personal conflict between teachers and students in Covington's study, previous studies conducted in Taiwan have shown that high school teachers and students all hold the same belief that effort is an act of virtue in fulfilling one's duty (Fwu et al., 2014). No inter-personal conflict exists between the two groups. However, Taiwanese high school students also suffer from a double-edged sword of effort, an intra-personal conflict between a potential threat to one's image and one's emotional well-being (Fwu et al., 2016b). They are trapped in a dilemma between "feeling bad" (emotional distress) for exerting too much effort and "being bad" (negative image) for expending little effort. The trapping effect of effort is greater in the academic than in the non-academic domain. The present study corroborated these findings with Taiwanese college students and found that effortful college students were also faced with a double-edged sword, developing learning virtues but suffering emotional distress due to academic failure.

# Shielding Effect of Self-Exertion on Emotional Distress

Our study found that self-exertion to fulfill one's duty to one's parents has a shielding effect on emotional relief. Although the effect is relatively modest, it does reach statistical significance, implying such shielding effect exists and may open a window to explore this overlooked unique phenomenon. One possible explanation for this unique finding is that academic achievement is a culturally specific vertical goal for students in Taiwan. Parents expect their children to exert themselves to study hard and excel on the achievement pyramid. Although students who work hard but fail do not meet parental expectations of achieving academic excellence, they nevertheless tend to view themselves as partially meeting parental expectations and fulfilling their duty to their parents as filial children. Such positive appraisal of oneself may offset the negative feelings caused by one's inability to achieve academic excellence. Moreover, when an individual believes that he has exerted himself, he will not feel he has failed his parents and may thus experience peace of mind and a clear conscience. It is clear that self-exertion to fulfill one's role obligation to one's parents acts as a shield to partially lessen one's negative feelings.

This shielding effect of self-exertion to parents reflects the unique perspective of role obligation in Confucian culture (Hwang, 1999, 2012). In the Western tradition, which tends to hold an autonomous view of the self, individuals are socialized not to violate others' rights nor to view others' expectations as one's own responsibility, which may have a negative effect of restricting one's autonomy (Bedford and Hwang, 2003; Hwang, 2015). On the matter of academic learning, individuals have the right to choose whether they want to expend effort to pursue academic goals, and their parents' will should not influence their choices. Academic learning is in essence is an individualized matter (Wigfield and Eccles, 1992, 2002; Eccles and Wigfield, 1995; Tao and Hong, 2000). In contrast, in the Confucian tradition, which stresses role ethics in the family (Ames, 2011), individuals are cultivated to play appropriate roles, such as those of parents and children, and to meet obligations inherent in the respective roles in the ethical relationship. For children, fulfilling the role of the filial child is a must, and conforming to parental expectations, an act of filial piety. As pursuit of academic achievement is often viewed as a vertical goal that is expected by their parents, children have little choice but to expend effort to pursue the goal. Thus, academic learning is not an individualized matter but a social obligation (Tao and Hong, 2000, 2014; Li, 2002, 2005; Tseng, 2004; Hau and Ho, 2010). When an individual exerts his utmost effort to study hard academically, he will feel that he has fulfilled his obligation to his parents. Such cognition of being filial and ethical through self-exertion to his parents may provide the individual with a sense of worth that may shield him from the psychological distress of failure.

#### Limitations and Future Research

This study has several limitations. First, the data presented are correlational and thus do not imply causal directions. Relations among the variables are likely to be bidirectional. Conclusions concerning cause-and-effect should be drawn with caution. Second, our data were gathered from selfreports based on individuals' intentions, rather than on actual behaviors, and on recollections of past experiences, rather than on responses to current situations. Caution should be exercised in making inferences about individuals' actual behaviors. Third, each participant was asked to select one course grade that was less satisfactory when compared with other required courses. However, since everyone may hold different criteria for assessing level of satisfaction with one's own grade, it is suggested that future research measure directly the subjective self-perception of one's performance on a course to investigate the impact of one's subjective perception on emotional distress. Fourth, since the degree of shielding effect was not high, but reach the level of statistically significant, it is advisable to increase the items measuring the constructs of self-exertion-personal and selfexertion-filial to substantiate the effect of self-exertion on emotional distress. In addition to the emotional effect, it would be interesting to further investigate the relationship between selfexertion and attributional patterns (cognitive), moral sentiment (affective), and future engagement (behavioral). Finally, selfexertion has an effect on learning virtues and emotional distress in academic failure. It would be worthwhile to further explore the degree to which self-exertion is also needed in situations of academic success and its effect on individual psychological processes.

#### AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

All authors substantially contribute to the conception, analysis, and interpretation of data for the work; and revise it critically for important intellectual content; and finally approve the version to be published; and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

#### REFERENCES

fpsyg-07-02047 January 4, 2017 Time: 12:35 # 7

# FUNDING

We would like to thank for the support by the Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology, R.O.C. (MOST 105-2410-H-002-139) during the period of writing this article.

**Conflict of Interest Statement:** The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Copyright © 2017 Fwu, Chen, Wei and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

# High-School Teachers' Beliefs about Effort and Their Attitudes toward Struggling and Smart Students in a Confucian Society

#### Shun-Wen Chen1 \*, Bih-Jen Fwu2 , Chih-Fen Wei3 and Hsiou-Huai Wang2

1 Institute of Learning Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 2 Center for Teacher Education, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, 3 Department of Psychology and Counseling, University of Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan

#### Edited by:

Yung-Jong Shiah, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan

#### Reviewed by:

Gavin T. L. Brown, University of Auckland, New Zealand Jacob Jolij, University of Groningen, Netherlands

> \*Correspondence: Shun-Wen Chen<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### Specialty section:

This article was submitted to Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology

Received: 28 October 2015 Accepted: 26 August 2016 Published: 14 September 2016

#### Citation:

Chen S-W, Fwu B-J, Wei C-F and Wang H-H (2016) High-School Teachers' Beliefs about Effort and Their Attitudes toward Struggling and Smart Students in a Confucian Society. Front. Psychol. 7:1366. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01366 Previous studies conducted in Western societies showed that instructors' beliefs about intellectual ability affected their attitudes toward students. However, in many East Asian societies influenced by Confucian culture, teachers not only hold beliefs of ability but also two kinds of beliefs about effort: obligation-oriented belief (i.e., believing that effortmaking is a student's role obligation) and improvement-oriented belief (i.e., believing that effort can conquer the limitations of one's ability). This study aimed to investigate the relationships between teachers' effort beliefs and their attitudes toward favoritism, praise, and expectations toward struggling and smart students. The participants were 151 Taiwanese high-school teachers. Results of Structure Equation Modeling showed that (1) teachers' obligation-oriented belief about effort was positively correlated with their favoritism, praise, short-term and long-term expectations of struggling students, but negatively correlated with their favoritism and praise of smart students, (2) teachers' improvement-orientated belief about effort was negatively correlated with their shortterm expectation of smart students and favoritism of struggling students, but positively correlated with their praise of smart students, and (3) the entity theory of intelligence was negatively correlated with favoritism and praise of struggling students, but positively correlated with favoritism of smart students. The theoretical and cultural implications are discussed.

Keywords: beliefs about effort, Confucian culture, implicit theory of intelligence, role obligation

# INTRODUCTION

Just as scientists develop theories to interpret the phenomena they investigate, laypersons may develop theories or beliefs about ability and effort. For example, some people believe that a person's ability is something that he/she cannot change much. Others may believe that anyone can improve his/her ability by exerting effort. Furthermore, some people may hold the belief that even if the ability cannot be changed much, one still has a duty to work hard when pursuing certain goals.

In the present paper, we argue that, especially in a society influenced by the Confucian cultural heritage (e.g., Taiwan), people tend to emphasize the value of effort in pursuing specific goals with high social expectations, such as pursuing academic achievements. When pursuing those goals, people may hold two beliefs about effort: an obligation-oriented belief (i.e., believing that effort-making is one's role obligation) and an improvement-oriented belief (i.e., believing that effort can conquer the limitations of one's ability). We investigated the relationship between teachers' effort beliefs and their attitudes about favoritism, praise, and expectations toward struggling and smart students.

#### The Implicit Theory of Intelligence

Previous studies showed that people's beliefs about effort and ability may influence their learning motivation. Dweck and Leggett (1988), Dweck et al. (1995), Dweck (1999), and Hong et al. (1999) proposed a model to explain the relationships between learning motivation and the implicit belief in intellectual ability. According to this model, people may hold different implicit theories about the nature of intelligence. Some believe that intelligence is more of an unchangeable, fixed entity (i.e., an entity theory). Others think of intelligence as a malleable quality that can be developed (i.e., an incremental theory). Many studies conducted in Western societies have shown that students' implicit theories of intelligence may affect their learning motivation. In sum, those holding an entity theory, unlike those holding an incremental theory, tend to draw conclusions about their academic ability from setbacks and are more likely to give up or withdraw effort when faced with difficulty (Dweck and Leggett, 1988; Dweck, 1999; Hong et al., 1999; Heine et al., 2001; Blackwell et al., 2007).

Hong et al. (1999) argued that different implicit theories of intelligence are associated with distinct frameworks or "meaning systems." Therefore, a belief in intellectual ability can affect not only learners' motivation but also teachers' attitudes toward their students. In a simulation experiment (Rattan et al., 2012), undergraduate participants first read an article that manipulated their implicit theories of math intelligence. Then they took the role of a seventh grade math teacher and were asked about their attitudes toward a simulated student who scored 65% on the first test of the year. Results showed that instructors holding an entity (versus incremental) theory were more likely to both comfort the student for his/her low math ability (e.g., explain that not everyone is meant to pursue a career in this field) and use "kind" strategies which were unlikely to promote engagement with math (e.g., assigning less homework). In a follow-up study, graduate students who were actually math-related instructors or teaching assistants in undergraduate courses were recruited. The participants were told to imagine that they were working as teaching assistants for an introductory course in their department and asked about their attitudes toward a simulated student who had received a failing grade on the first test of the course. The results were the same; instructors who held a more entity (versus incremental) theory readily expressed significantly lower expectations of this students' future performance based on one low test score and endorsed the comforting and potentially unhelpful practices (e.g., talking to the student about dropping the class).

# Two Beliefs about Effort in East Asian Societies

Most studies of the dichotomous model of entity versus incremental theory and its consequences have been conducted in Western societies (Dweck and Leggett, 1988). Whether this model can be generalized to East Asian societies (e.g., Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan) is an issue required further investigated. Under the influences of Confucian cultural traditions, parents, and teachers in those East Asian societies generally place a tremendous emphasis on the importance of their children or students' academic achievements. Many high school students in those countries attend cram schools to improve their performance of exams, which influence or even determine they can get into top universities (Crystal and Stevenson, 1991; Morris and Sweeting, 1995; Li, 2012). It has been reported that the primary obligations of children and adolescents in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea are considered to be to study hard and to excel in academic performance (Hong, 2001; Li, 2012). Apparently, East Asians place strong emphasis on making effort to achieve academic goals. We argue that, in order to understand the psychology and behaviors of East Asian people pursuing such goals, it is necessary to use the emic approach of cultural psychology to analyze the internal meanings and values within a cultural system (Hong et al., 1999; Hwang, 2012).

Many East Asian societies are culturally and historically rooted in the Confucian tradition, which has a meaning system stressing role-obligations, effort-making, and academic achievement (Chen et al., 2009; Li, 2012; Fwu et al., 2014). The thoughts and behaviors of a virtuous person, as depicted in the Confucian doctrines, should be in accordance with his/her social roles (Ames, 2011; Hwang, 2012), such as the beliefs that "a son should obey his parents" or "a student should study hard." Chen et al. (2009) proposed a "framework of Chinese achievement goals" and argued that, in many East Asian societies, people are expected to continuously expend great effort to achieve a special kind of goals: vertical goals. Vertical goals are achievements with high social expectations and are related to the obligation of one's social roles. The performances of individuals in their pursuit of these goals are ranked into a vertical ladder of achievement by others. Individuals are usually obliged to meet the expectations of significant others, such as parents, and compete with their peers to climb up the "achievement pyramid" (Fwu et al., 2014). In many East Asian societies influenced by Confucian values, pursuing academic achievement is often regarded as a student's vertical goal (King and McInerney, 2014).

Some cultural psychologists (Chang, 2000; Shweder, 2000; Hwang, 2012) argued that the operationalization of the psychological constructs had better to be contextualized via the cultural meaning system. However, the influential meaning system of values in a society usually coexists with social institutions (Archer, 1995). For over 1000 years (from ∼600 AD to 1905), China implemented an "imperial examination system" (ke-j ¯ u) to select government officials. On the one hand, ˇ this system assessed scholars on their knowledge of traditional

Confucian classics and instilled Confucian values into the mind of the general public for generations. On the other hand, the system in turns was regarded as an effective method by Confucian scholars to select and promote talented and virtuous persons to be officials (Chan, 2014). Consequently, this examination system not only established the influence of Confucianism, but also became a dominant and fair way for ordinary people to acquire high social status (Hwang, 2012; Li, 2012). The impacts of highstakes exam and Confucian cultural system may vary among East Asian societies (Park, 2010; Brown and Wang, 2015), however, academic achievement which is usually assessed by exams is still an important vertical goal in Taiwan nowadays (Chen et al., 2009).