Theoretical and Empirical Analyses of the Cognitive Operation Process of the Belief in Yuan and the Ideal Coping Actions in Chinese Social Relationship

My doctoral dissertation focuses on theory construction and empirical studies. I propose that the belief in yuan (the Chinese concept of determinism in social relationships), typically occurs during an interpersonal event and is based on two aspects of the mandate of heaven: ren-ming (acceptance of fate) and zhi-ming (knowing fate), which combine cultural knowledge from Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism to make the belief in yuan a feature of dialectical thinking, as well as help people to adopt suitable coping strategies to achieve psychological adjustment in response to problems that arise from interpersonal interactions. I completed four substudies to describe and validate this model. Three psychological structures of the belief in yuan (i.e., the perception of relationship, the perception of miraculous feeling, and the perception of living world) were shown in Study 1. To validate the model of this study, a scale was constructed to analyze the association between the belief in yuan and the ideal coping actions performed by people in Chinese society (Study 2 and Study 3). Study 4 was a qualitative study that proved the practical healing function of the belief in yuan. The expected innovation and contribution that results from the dissertation will be to broaden the subjectivity of social psychology in the Eastern world, and to dialogue with the Western academic league by combining existing psychological knowledge and Eastern cultural views. In addition, I hope that the results will be of practical benefit to local people and psychological practitioners in Taiwan.