Yang’s Cultural-Ecological Psychology: A Perspective for Interpreting Cultural Change

Kuo-Shu Yang (d. 2018) developed a cultural-ecological psychology when researching how personality traits can change under the influence of environmental factors. Such factors can include sociocultural values that might affect personality dispositions and behavior. Within this general perspective, Yang also developed two supplemental theories: (1) a cultural theory of personality motivation that expands on the psychology of Abraham Maslow, and (2) a cultural theory of personality development in which Yang describes the various kinds of adaptation responses that persons exhibit when they encounter cultural change. With respect to such adaptation responses, Yang indicates that the response of cultural integration can support a person’s health and continued social functioning. In order to facilitate an acculturation response of integration, Yang recommends the indigenization of new cultural values. In this way, Yang proposes that empirical methods can be indigenized by researchers when they develop culturally-integrated approaches to inquiry in the human sciences.