Yang Kuo-shu
Chinese psychologist and political activist (1932–2018)
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Education and career
Yang was born on 22 December 1932 into a peasant family in Qingdao, Shandong, Republic of China, and moved to Taiwan with his parents in 1947. When he was little, a fortune-teller predicted that he would not become an educated person, and he was determined to prove the prediction wrong. After graduating from National Taiwan University (NTU) with a bachelor's degree in psychology, he became a faculty member at NTU in 1959.
Yang later went to study at the University of Illinois in the United States and earned his Ph.D. in 1969. He returned to teach at NTU afterwards and became the first person in Taiwan with a Ph.D. in psychology. He served twice as chair of NTU's psychology department, and became a research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology of Academia Sinica in 1972. He was appointed Vice President of Academia Sinica in 1996, and was elected an academician in 1998.
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Academic contributions
Yang is considered the founder of indigenized Chinese psychology. He proposed the distinction between indigenized versus westernized psychology. He argued that Western psychology, largely based on research done in American or Western societies, is in fact the "indigenous psychology for Americans or Westerners"—it is based on Western values and traditions and may not be applicable in non-Western countries. Beginning in the 1970s, he conducted research on Chinese cultural societies, studying unique phenomena such as yuanfen, filial piety, guanxi, and face. His theories and research tools have been adopted by scholars in Taiwan and abroad.
Political activism
During the Martial Law era, Yang was a strong advocate for political freedom and democracy and was frequently critical of the Kuomintang government. He and three other liberal scholars, Hu Fo, Li Hung-hsi, and Chang Chung-tung, were considered the "Four Bandits" or "Four Poisonous Weeds" by the government. After President Chiang Ching-kuo lifted the martial law in 1987, they established the political group Taipei Society (澄社, Chengshe) in 1989. Yang served as the founding president of the society, which aimed to promote "freedom, fairness, diversity, and the equitable distribution of wealth". He called for the restoration of constitutional rule and the exclusion of military personnel from the government cabinet. He participated in the Wild Lily student movement for democracy in 1990.
Personal life
In 1962, Yang married Li Pen-hua (李本華), the daughter of Lieutenant General Li Li-po (李立柏).
After Yang suffered a stroke, President Tsai Ing-wen and Secretary-General Chen Chu visited him at the nursing home in May 2018. Yang died on 17 July 2018 at National Taiwan University Hospital, aged 85. Tsai praised him for his scholarship and for his courage to protest against government repression, calling him an "exemplary public intellectual".