Social Mentality: A Path of Writing and Interpreting the History of Group Spirit

The study of social mentality has gone through three historical stages in Western social psychology. After the reconstruction of Chinese social psychology, the social mentality research in China can also be divided into four periods. This article compares the different mechanisms of constructing social mentality in psychology and sociology, by organizing the process of normalizing the concept of social mentality in Chinese and Western academic systems. Furthermore, based on a sociological stance, a more concise and Chinese-appropriate understanding of social mentality is proposed through the proximity of the individual in relation to different categories or levels of otherness. In the context of historical change or social transformation characterized by marketization, this article raises an analytical framework for the study of social mentality that encompasses both micro- and macro-factors, and also facilitates the analysis of the current situation and the study of change.