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Abstract
In this article, the author explores the life of the Chinese psychologist Guo Renyuan (郭任遠 1898–1970). As a radical behaviorist, Guo believed that he could “engineer” the ideal Chinese citizen through a combination of proper political education, militarized discipline, and the wholesale removal of negative social stimuli. Guo was given the opportunity to test his hypotheses through a series of high-ranking administrative positions at Fudan University, Zhejiang University, and in the Nationalist Education Ministry. This article argues that Guo's social engineering pursuits, which were consistently supported by the Nationalist government, reveal the politicized nature of the social sciences in Republican China as well as the direct correspondence between radical behaviorism and Chinese fascism.
Keywords:
Notes
1 Guo Renyuan, letter to Leonard Carmichael, November 3, 1958. The Leonard Carmichael correspondences are held at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
2 Ibid., September 12, 1960.
3 Gilbert Gottlieb, “Zing-Yang Kuo: Radical Scientific Philosopher and Innovative Experimentalist,” republished in Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology, volume 3, ed. Gregory Kimble and Michael Wertheimer (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1998), 197–210.
4 Geoffrey Blowers, “To be a Big Shot or to be Shot: Zing-Yang Kuo's Other Career,” History of Psychology, 4, no. 4 (2001): 369.
5 Ibid., 378.
6 Yung-Chen Chiang, Social Engineering and the Social Sciences in China, 1919–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 1.
7 Guo Renyuan, “Xinli xue limian de gui” (The ghosts of psychology), Ri liming, February 13, 1927.
8 Stanley Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 4.
9 Lloyd Eastman, “Fascism in Kuomintang China: The Blue Shirts,” China Quarterly, no. 49 (January–March 1972): 1–31.
10 Zing-Yang Kuo (Guo Renyuan), Confessions of a Chinese Scientist (1953), chapter 1. Guo's unpublished autobiography is housed at the American Philosophical Society.
11 Guo's earliest articles, published under his English name, Zing-Yang Kuo, include “Giving up Instincts in Psychology,” Journal of Philosophy, 18 (1921): 645–64; “How are Instincts Acquired?” Psychology Review, 29 (1922): 344–65; “A Psychology without Heredity,” Psychology Review, 31 (1924): 427–48.
12 Guo Renyuan, “Fandui benneng yundong de jingguo he wo zuijin de zhuzhang” [Experiences with the anti-instinct movement and my most recent assertions], Beijing daxue rikan, March 28, 1924.
13 Guo Renyuan, “Yi ge xinli xue gemingzhe de kougong” [Confession of a revolutionary psychologist], Dongfang zazhi, 24, no. 5 (1926): 49–57.
14 Edward Chace Tolman, “Can Instincts Be Given Up in Psychology?” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 16 (1922): 139–52.
15 Gao Juefu, Zhongguo xinli xue shi [History of Chinese psychology], (Shanghai: Renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1987) and Yan Guocai, Zhongguo xinli xue shi ziliao xuanbian [Collection of source materials on Chinese psychology], (Beijing: Renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1990).
16 Guo Renyuan, Xinli xue ABC [The ABCs of Psychology], (Shanghai: Shijie shuju chuban, 1928), 1.
17 Fudan nianjian [Fudan yearbook], (Shanghai: n.p., 1925), 146.
18 Hu Jinan, Xinli xue lunwen xuan [Selected essays on psychology], (Shanghai: Xuelin chuban she, 1995), 275.
19 In 1925, with the return of Fudan's regular president from abroad, Guo assumed the vice-presidency. See Fudan daxue bainian jishi bianzuan weiyuan hui, Fudan daxue bainian jishi 1905–2005 [Events in the last hundred years of Fudan University], (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chuban she, 2005), 38.
20 “Fu xiaozhang huan shuanghan” [Vice-president ill with typhoid], Fudan zhoukan, October 13, 1926.
21 “Guo fu xiaozhang ciyi jianjue” [Vice-president Guo's decision to resign affirmed], Fudan zhoukan, December 9, 1926.
22 William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1899).
23 Guo Renyuan, “Fudan daxue xinli xueyuan shiyan xuexiao zhongxue bu zhuren baogao” [Announcement from the director of Fudan University's experimental middle school], Fudan nianjian (Shanghai: n.p., 1926), 189.
24 “Fudan daxue xuesheng hui qu Guo Renyuan qishi” [Announcement for the expulsion of Guo Renyuan by the Fudan student association], Shen bao, March 30–April 1, 1927.
25 Guo Renyuan, Shehui kexue gailun [Outline on the social sciences], (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshu guan, 1928), 5, 21–22.
26 Ibid., 49–50.
27 Lisa Pine, Education in Nazi Germany (New York: Berg, 2010), 2.
28 Xinli xue ABC, 77, 128, and Guo Renyuan, Xingwei zhuyi xinli xue jiangyi [Teaching materials on behaviorism and psychology], (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshu guan, 1928), 128.
29 Xinli xue ABC, 51.
30 Xingwei zhuyi xinli xue jiangyi, 149.
31 Shehui kexue gailun, 286–89.
32 “Zhongyang yanjiu yuan xinli yanjiu suo choubei weiyuan minglu” [The psychological research institute of the Academia Sinica prepares the directory of its council members], Daxue yuan gongbao, 1 (1928): 159, and Zhongguo xinli xue hui, Zhongguo xinli xuehui 80 nian [Eighty years of the Chinese psychological society], (Beijing: Renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 2001), 5, 45–46.
33 Confessions, chapter 4.
34 Z. Y. Kuo (Guo Renyuan), “The Genesis of the Cat's Responses to the Rat,” Journal of Comparative Psychology, 11, no. 1 (October 1930): 1–36.
35 Z. Y. Kuo (Guo Renyuan), “Ontogeny of Embyronic Behavior in Aves,” Journal of Comparative Psychology, 13, no. 2 (1932): 265.
36 Guoli Zhejiang daxue yaolan [Guidebook to Zhejiang University], (Hangzhou: n.p., 1935), 5.
37 Frederic Wakeman, Spymaster: Dai Li and the Chinese Secret Service (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 93.
38 Confessions, chapter 6.
39 Quoted in Hu, 288.
40 See Arlif Dirlik, “The Ideological Foundations of the New Life Movement: A Study in Counterrevolution,” Journal of Asian Studies, 34, no. 4 (August 1975): 945–80.
41 Confessions, chapter 6.
42 Guoli Zhejiang daxue yaolan, 6.
43 Ibid., 6–20.
44 Pine, 25–31. See also Gilmer Blackburn, Education in the Third Reich (Albany: SUNY Press, 1985), 3.
45 Shehui kexue gailun, 287.
46 Zheng Tang and Yu Ru, Fei Gong zhuan: Yige aiguo minzhu jiaoshou de sheng yu si [The story of Fei Gong: The life and death of a patriotic and democratic professor], (Beijing: Shenghuo, dushu, xinzhi sanlian shudian, 1981), 33.
47 Ye Yonglie, Hu Qiaomu (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dang xiao chuban she, 1994), 23–25.
48 Zheng Jing, “Ping Guo Renyuan boshi Shehui kexue gailun” [A critique of Professor Guo Renyuan's Outline on the Social Sciences], Xin sichao, 2, no. 3 (1929): 3.
49 Yang Gesi, “Makesi baidao Guo Renyuan” [Marx prostrates before Guo Renyuan], Huanzhou banyue kan, 3 (1927): 148.
50 Guo Renyuan, Fan kexue de Makesi zhuyi [Anti-scientific Marxism], (Shanghai: Minzhi shuju, 1927), 3–4.
51 James Capshew, “Engineering Behavior,” in Laurence Smith and William Woodward, eds., B.F. Skinner and Behaviorism in American Culture (Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 1996), 128–50.
52 “Qu Guo xuanyan” [Expel Guo manifesto], Guoli Zhejiang daxue xiaokan, 24, no. 203 (December 23, 1935).
53 Ibid.
54 “Jiaoyu xiaoxi” [School news],” Shen bao, December 28, 1935, and “Zheda xuesheng qingyuan” [Memorial from Zhejiang students],” Shen bao, December 28, 1935.
55 Z. Y. Kuo (Guo Renyuan), “Prolegomena to Praxiology,” Journal of Psychology, 4 (1937): 19.
56 Guo to Leonard Carmichael, March 30, 1939.
57 Carmichael to unspecified recipient, January 25, 1937.
58 Guo to Carmichael, March 7, 1939.
59 Portia Kuo to Carmichael, 1970.
60 Guo Renyuan, “Shehui jianshe yu xinli gaizao” [Social construction and psychological reform], Shidai jingshen, 4 (1941): 1–2.
61 Confessions, introduction.
62 Guo Renyuan, letter to Leonard Carmichael, March 31, 1941.
63 Zing-Yang Kuo (Guo Renyuan), “Reconstruction in China,” Nature, 149 (January 10, 1942): 42–43.
64 Cordell Hull, memo to the Chinese Ambassador, in Foreign Relations of the United Sates (April 8, 1944), 1134.
65 Ibid.
66 Guo Renyuan, letter to Leonard Carmichael, December 31, 1959.
67 Guo Renyuan, “Historical Origins of the Behavior Patterns of the Chinese” (1961?) and “A Study of Certain Behavior Characteristics of the Chinese: Their Historical Origin and their Bearings on the Communist Revolution” (n.d.). Both unpublished manuscripts are held at the American Philosophical Society.
68 Confessions, chapter 8.
69 Ibid., chapter 11.
70 Zing-Yang Kuo (Guo Renyuan), The Dynamics of Behavior Development: An Epigenetic View (New York: Random House, 1967), xli.
71 Ibid., xxxviii.
72 Ibid., 125–27.
73 Guo to Carmichael, June 29, 1967. Italics mine.
74 Confessions, chapter 7.
75 Confessions, chapter 1.