Saturday, August 28, 2021

Social Sciences in China Press: "推动社会心态研究迈向大数据化" [Promote social mentality research towards big data]

Pix Credit: HERE


Social Sciences in China Press (SSCP), established in 1979 under the administration of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) maintains an interesting website where on occasion fairly important changes to academic and research perspectives may be found--especially important are those academic objectives with significant public policy implications (at home in China and abroad). 

A recent posting provides a case in point: the (deceptively casual) discussion of an important turn in the development and use of big data, and data driven analytics in social science research. 
如何审慎地借助大数据时代的前沿方法,更充分捕捉社会变迁中的新现象、新问题,更好地拓展网络时代社会学研究的新局面,值得学界深入探讨。[Social construction and social governance in the Internet age are facing new opportunities and challenges. How to prudently use the cutting-edge methods of the big data era to more fully capture the new phenomena and new problems in social changes, and to better expand the new situation of sociological research in the network age, is worthy of in-depth discussion by the academic community.] (特别策划:互联网与中国社会变迁 [Special Plan: The Internet and China's Social Changes])
To that end, a series of essays elaborate two goals--one technical, and the other socio-political.  The first seeks to describe an objectives based trajectory for big data, analytics social science research. This takes up much of the focus of the materials developed.  In the process, though, they suggest the forms of research that will be favored in the coming years--and by omission, those research approaches and objectives that will be either marginalized or disfavored. 

More important, perhaps, is the societal dimension of the turn toward big data based social science research, its societal-political dimension.  Here big data analytics in social science has its first task--to develop the means necessary to develop popular trust in and acceptance of both big data research as legitimate, and its approaches as trustworthy.

推动社会心态研究迈向大数据化. 社会心态,一般指在一段时间内弥散在整个社会或社会群体、社会类别中的社会共识、社会情绪和感受以及社会价值取向。积极健康的社会心态是社会稳定的前提,是社会治理及其创新得以有效展开的社会心理基础。客观准确地认识和把握一个时期的社会心态,是社会治理创新的应有之义。[Promote social mentality research towards big data. Social mentality generally refers to the social consensus, social emotions and feelings, and social value orientation that are dispersed throughout society or social groups, social categories over a period of time. A positive and healthy social mentality is the prerequisite for social stability and the social psychological basis for the effective development of social governance and its innovation. To objectively and accurately understand and grasp the social mentality of a period of time is the proper meaning of social governance innovation.]
Social mentality research proceeds apace (see, e.g., HERE; and HERE).  But it has greater utility than the rationalization of individual and collective behaviors. Strategically undertaken, it serves to develop the ways in which trust is manifested, and recognized.  "From this, it can examine how individuals and society construct each other and form the most macro-psychological relationship. It can also examine the shared reality and norms that are diffuse between subjects. Strength-the side that the social mentality of the macro group influences the shaping of the individual mentality. By analyzing the process and results of the construction of this psychological relationship, we can clarify the mechanism of the occurrence and development of social mentality to a greater extent." (推动社会心态研究迈向大数据化).
 
The essay is divided into 9 parts, each of which includes links for further elaboration: (1) 服务“国之大者”:大数据时代社会学定量研究创新 [Serving the "Greatness of the Country": Sociological Quantitative Research Innovation in the Era of Big Data]; (2) 计算社会学范式革命开拓新空间 [The revolution of computational sociology paradigm opens up new disciplinary space]; (3) 复杂社会研究中的计算及其局限 [Computation and its limitations in complex social research]; (4)  数字化赋予社会结构变迁新动力 [Digitalization gives new impetus to social structure change]; (5) 数字时代的城乡治理与乡村振兴 [Urban and Rural Governance and Rural Revitalization in the Digital Age]; (6) 社会治理数字化转型:问题指向与发展趋势 [Digital transformation of social governance: problem orientation and development trend]; (7) 互联网促进零工经济焕发生机 [The Internet promotes the revitalization of the gig economy]; (8) 新型消费驱动日常生活数字化 [New consumption drives the digitization of daily life]; (9) 推动社会心态研究迈向大数据化 [Promote social mentality research towards big data].
 
The essay along with the elaboration of the 9th point (推动社会心态研究迈向大数据化 [Promote social mentality research towards big data]) follows below in the original Chinese and in a crude English translations.



Special Plan: The Internet and China's Social Changes
August 20, 2021 09:51 Source: China Social Science News August 20, 2021 Issue 2234 Author:

  Editor's note: The widespread use of the Internet has promoted Chinese society into a period of big data and digital development. While the social structure is undergoing profound changes, the Internet has profoundly changed the way humans interact, and social concepts, social psychology, and social behavior have undergone profound changes. Social construction and social governance in the Internet age are facing new opportunities and challenges. How to prudently use the cutting-edge methods of the big data era to more fully capture the new phenomena and new problems in social changes, and to better expand the new situation of sociological research in the network age, is worthy of in-depth discussion by the academic community.

   Serving the "Greatness of the Country": Sociological Quantitative Research Innovation in the Era of Big Data

   General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed that making people live a happy life is the "big one in the country." Sociology should think about how to base itself on the overall strategy of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the great changes in the world unseen in a century. It is imperative to think about the great nation and serve the national strategy. In this transformation process, there is an incomplete match between the traditional quantitative social research and the big ones serving the country in terms of problem awareness, analysis objects, and social influence, which to a certain extent weakens the potential of sociology to serve the country's governance capacity modernization. And big data provides an important opportunity for cracking this bottleneck.

  The revolution of computational sociology paradigm opens up new disciplinary space

With the widespread penetration of emerging information technologies in various fields, human society has entered the ternary space (physical space-information space-human society) from the binary space (physical space-human society), and the new COVID-19 epidemic has engulfed all mankind. Into the wave of the digital society. In the digital society, digital technology has played a fundamental role in the process of production and life. One of its main characteristics is the uninterrupted production and wide application of big data. In this context, computing science, data science, and social science intersect, creating an upsurge in computing social science. How sociology can seize the opportunity in the "data-intensive" scientific paradigm, overcome the dilemma of theory and research methods, and break through the boundaries of traditional disciplines is an extremely urgent theoretical issue.

   Computation and its limitations in complex social research

   With the help of the development of the Internet, artificial intelligence and computer science, the rise of computational social science has indeed brought great technological and methodological breakthroughs and expansions to social research. The use of new methods such as network media and cloud computing to obtain and analyze data, especially the "computer algorithm" that obtains data in real time and is empowered by "machine learning", provides an unprecedented new paradigm for research and interpretation of society and prediction of society Or way of thinking. This is also the main reason for the rapid development of computational social science as an interdisciplinary emerging field. However, in the study of complex society, calculations are still difficult to avoid some limitations. Understanding these limitations is helpful to the development of theories and methods of social research by using calculations.

  Digitalization gives new impetus to social structure change

   We are in an era of great changes. In the past, sociology has studied social changes in China over the past 40 years. In order to emphasize the universal historical significance of Chinese experience, the changes in social structure since the reform and opening up are often compared to the era when sociology was born more than 100 years ago, and the development of human society during the rise of modern capitalism. The great transformation experienced is the transition from a traditional agricultural society to a modern industrial society. China's transformation from a planned economic system to a market economic system has completed a century of changes in Western capitalist countries in just a few decades. Marketization, industrialization and urbanization are the driving force behind China's macroscopic social changes. Although our observation and research on social changes, most of them still stay in this paradigm. In recent years, as a new concept, "digitization" has been increasingly used to summarize the new impetus and trends of economic and social development.

   Urban and Rural Governance and Rural Revitalization in the Digital Age

   Leading the digital age with the modernization of the national governance system and governance capabilities is an important part of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. General Secretary Xi Jinping has important elaborations on the modernization of the national governance system and governance capabilities, and has more specific requirements for urban and rural governance. In order to effectively resolve the hotspots, pain points, difficulties, and blockages in governance, various localities use digital technology to promote the participation of multiple entities, sink the focus of governance, expand coverage, improve the predictability, accuracy, and efficiency of serving the people, and explore government corporate society A new way of urban and rural governance that all parties participate, party affairs and government affairs are connected, and people’s sentiments are connected.

  Digital transformation of social governance: problem orientation and development trend

   In recent years, with the advancement of the construction of a digital China, a new generation of information technology has become more widely used in the government, market, and society, with more and more application scenarios. China's social governance is undergoing a rapid digital transformation process. At present, although this kind of digital transformation is still in its infancy stage, it can be seen from the practice and exploration in various places that its obvious problem direction and some future development trends can be seen.

  The Internet promotes the revitalization of the gig economy

   In recent years, with the widespread popularization of mobile devices and the rapid development of information technology, the gig economy has risen rapidly around the world, and has gradually become one of the important themes of the modern employment economy. Especially since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, the traditional economic model and employment system have been severely impacted, and more and more workers are getting paid through the gig economy. The gig economy has become an important component of the current social economy.

  New consumption drives the digitization of daily life

   The rapid changes in daily consumption and life in recent years have far exceeded the pace of in-depth research on it by academia. In particular, driven by the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, my country’s new types of consumption characterized by new business models and new models such as online shopping, mobile payment, online and offline integration have developed rapidly, which not only profoundly changed the traditional consumption patterns, but also created innovations. Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, it has become an "accelerator" for economic recovery and a new driving force for economic growth. This series of new changes urgently requires more and more in-depth research in the academic community to help new types of consumption move towards a healthier development road. At the same time, they also have a deeper understanding of the digital transformation of human daily life.

  Promote social mentality research towards big data

  Social mentality generally refers to the social consensus, social emotions and feelings, and social value orientation that are dispersed throughout society or social groups, social categories over a period of time. A positive and healthy social mentality is the prerequisite for social stability and the social psychological basis for the effective development of social governance and its innovation. To objectively and accurately understand and grasp the social mentality of a period of time is the proper meaning of social governance innovation.

Editor in charge: Zhang Yueying

2021年08月20日 09:51 来源:《中国社会科学报》2021年8月20日第2234期 作者:

  编者按:互联网的广泛应用促进了中国社会步入大数据、数字化发展时期。社会结构深刻变化的同时,互联网深刻改变人类交往方式,社会观念、社会心理、社会行为发生深刻变化,网络时代的社会建设与社会治理面临新的机遇和挑战。如何审慎地借助大数据时代的前沿方法,更充分捕捉社会变迁中的新现象、新问题,更好地拓展网络时代社会学研究的新局面,值得学界深入探讨。

  服务“国之大者”:大数据时代社会学定量研究创新

  习近平总书记提出,让人民生活幸福是“国之大者”。社会学应思考如何立足中华民族伟大复兴战略全局和世界百年未有之大变局,心怀国之大者,服务国家战略,成为当务之急。在这个转型过程中,传统定量社会研究和服务国之大者之间,存在问题意识、分析对象和社会影响三方面不完全匹配现象,在一定程度上削弱了社会学服务国家治理能力现代化的潜力。而大数据为这一瓶颈的破解提供了重要机遇。

  计算社会学范式革命开拓新空间

  伴随着新兴信息技术向各个领域广泛渗透,人类社会已经从二元空间(物理空间—人类社会)进入了三元空间(物理空间—信息空间—人类社会),新冠肺炎疫情更是将全人类裹挟进了数字社会的浪潮。在数字社会中,数字技术在生产和生活过程中发挥了基础性作用,其主要特征之一是大数据的无间断生产和广泛应用。在这个大背景下,计算科学、数据科学和社会科学等学科交叉,掀起了计算社会科学的热潮。社会学如何在“数据密集型”的科学范式中抓住机遇,摆脱理论和研究方法的困境,突破传统学科界限,是个极为迫切的理论问题。

  复杂社会研究中的计算及其局限

  借助于互联网、人工智能和计算机科学的发展,计算社会科学的兴起确实为社会研究带来了很大的技术和方法上的突破和拓展。利用网络媒体和云计算等新方法来获取与分析数据,尤其是实时获取数据并通过“机器学习”赋能的“计算机算法”,为研究与解释社会以及预测社会提供了一种前所未有的新范式或思维方式。这也是计算社会科学作为跨学科的新兴领域发展如此迅猛的主要原因。然而,对复杂社会进行研究,计算仍然难以避免一些局限,理解这些局限对于利用计算来发展社会研究的理论和方法都有帮助。

  数字化赋予社会结构变迁新动力

  我们处在一个大变迁的时代。以往社会学研究中国过去40多年的社会变迁,为了强调中国经验的普遍历史意义,往往把改革开放以来社会结构的变化类比于100多年前社会学诞生的时代、现代资本主义兴起过程中人类社会所经历的大转型,即从传统农业社会向现代工业社会的过渡。而中国从计划经济体制向市场经济体制的转型,是在短短的数十年完成了西方资本主义国家上百年的变迁历程。市场化、工业化和城市化,是中国宏观社会变迁的源动力。尽管我们关于社会变迁的观察和研究,大部分还停留在这一范式之中。近年来,“数字化”(digitization)作为一个新的概念,越来越多地被用来概括经济社会发展的新动力和新趋势。

  数字时代的城乡治理与乡村振兴

  用国家治理体系和治理能力现代化引领数字时代是实现中华民族伟大复兴的重要内容。习近平总书记对国家治理体系和治理能力现代化有重要阐述,对城市和乡村治理更有具体要求。为切实化解治理中的热点、痛点、难点、堵点,各地运用数字技术推动多元主体参与、治理重心下沉、范围覆盖拓展,提升服务人民的预见性、精准性、高效性,探索政府企业社会各方参与、党务政务事务务务相连、民情民意情意相通,可推广的城乡治理新路。

  社会治理数字化转型:问题指向与发展趋势

  近年来,随着数字中国建设的推进,新一代信息技术在政府、市场、社会中的应用范围越来越广、应用场景越来越多,中国的社会治理正在经历快速的数字化转型过程。目前,虽然这种数字化转型仍然处于初期阶段,但是从各地的实践探索中,已经可以看出其鲜明的问题指向,以及未来的一些发展趋势。

  互联网促进零工经济焕发生机

  近年来,随着移动设备的广泛普及与信息技术的快速发展,零工经济在世界范围内快速崛起,并逐渐成为现代雇佣经济的重要主题之一。特别是新冠肺炎疫情发生以来,传统经济模式和用工制度受到严重冲击,越来越多的劳动者通过零工经济获取报酬。零工经济已成为当前社会经济的重要组成形式。

  新型消费驱动日常生活数字化

  近年来日常消费生活发生变化之快速,已经远远超过了学术界对其展开深入研究的步伐。尤其是在新一轮科技革命和产业变革推动下,我国以网络购物、移动支付、线上线下融合等新业态新模式为特征的新型消费发展迅猛,不仅深刻改变了传统的消费形态,而且创造了日益增多的应用场景,成为新冠肺炎疫情发生以来,推动经济复苏的“加速器”和经济增长的新动能。这一系列的新变化,亟须学术界更多更为深入的研究,助力新型消费走向更加健康的发展大道,同时也对人类日常生活正在走向的数字化转型有更深刻的认识。

  推动社会心态研究迈向大数据化

  社会心态,一般指在一段时间内弥散在整个社会或社会群体、社会类别中的社会共识、社会情绪和感受以及社会价值取向。积极健康的社会心态是社会稳定的前提,是社会治理及其创新得以有效展开的社会心理基础。客观准确地认识和把握一个时期的社会心态,是社会治理创新的应有之义。

责任编辑:张月英
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 Promote social mentality research towards big data
August 20, 2021 09:23 Source: China Social Science News August 20, 2021 Issue 2234 Author: Chen Hao

  Social mentality generally refers to the social consensus, social emotions and feelings, and social value orientation that are dispersed throughout society or social groups, social categories over a period of time. A positive and healthy social mentality is the prerequisite for social stability and the social psychological basis for the effective development of social governance and its innovation. To objectively and accurately understand and grasp the social mentality of a period of time is the proper meaning of social governance innovation.

  Social mentality has the ability to tolerate multiple psychological constructs

  Social mentality may be the term second only to "social psychology" in Chinese social psychology, or it may be the term most misused. Scholars use the term "social mentality" from different perspectives or under the guidance of intuition, and their understanding of its connotation is quite different. As a concept with rich meaning, the uniqueness of "social mentality" is also reflected in its multi-psychological construct tolerance. Whether at the theoretical level or at the operational measurement level, the social mentality is more like a conceptual umbrella. Any prominent socio-psychological characteristics and ideological trends of the entire society or specific social groups seem to be included in the field of social mentality inspection. In addition, the structure, mechanism and measurement indicators of social mentality are basically based on subjective theoretical analysis and selection. Lack of the definition and analysis of the necessary elements and basic structure of the social mentality, empirical research on social mentality will inevitably be overwhelming, staying at the one-sided description and understanding of the characteristics of the phenomenon of concern, and lacking systematic explanatory power and predictive power.

   Therefore, we need to ask what are the necessary variable elements that are relatively clear and stable under the conceptual umbrella of social mentality? Is there a more concise internal framework between the elements, that is, the basic structure of social mentality? Regarding the large number of existing social psychology concepts (such as trust, sense of justice) and a small number of localized new constructs (such as sense of acquisition) that are included under the conceptual umbrella and temporarily handled juxtaposed, can we learn from the theoretical model of personality psychology The exploration and development path of its authoritative measurement tools: The research and development of the theory and data-driven "Chinese Personality Inventory" (CPAI) is on the premise of not disturbing the relationship between the lowest level items and the local personality characteristics of the Chinese. , Using the personality level instead of the title as the unit of analysis to reduce the dimension to explore the basic structure of the Chinese personality. Social mentality researchers should also learn from the rich dimensionality reduction methods in big data technology and try to find the "N-dimensional model" of the basic structure of Chinese social mentality similar to the CPAI "four-dimensional model".

  Social media causes situational changes in specific social mentality

   Has the Internet technology platform, especially the social media applications in the Web 2.0 era, caused a substantial change in the formation and development of a specific social mentality, that is, a relatively unique phenomenon and mechanism of the social mentality of the Internet? Or is it just the process of formation and change of social mentality, which is largely visualized by the Internet in real time? This is an unresolved issue worthy of further exploration in academic and empirical fields.

   At the beginning of the rise of Internet psychology based on the perspective of North American psychology, scholars generally held the view that the so-called new virtual social situation brought about by Internet technology will greatly change human psychology and behavior patterns. Exemplary studies in Internet psychology, such as online and offline personality differences, online depersonalization, and group opinion polarization (ie, the metaphorical concepts of "echo wall" and "information cocoon room" in communication science), etc., show that people are in In the Internet social situation, there are some psychological and behavioral characteristics that are different from those in the real situation. However, subsequent studies have continued to tell us that the personality characteristics that people show online and offline are more consistent with each other or have enhanced characteristics, and there is no substantial difference between them. In the anonymized Internet situation, people will indeed have more depersonalization, just like when we are in a huge crowd of real people, but it is easier for individuals on the Internet to show more obvious social identity of the real group. As expected by the classical social psychology theory of collective action, people on the Internet will be more de-heterogeneized and frequently activated at certain moments based on ethnicity, region, gender, class, opinions, values, preferences, etc. A certain real group identity in the body highlights the mentality of group identity and thinks and acts like a typical member of the group.

        After 20 to 30 years of development, Internet psychology has accumulated a large number of research results. There is a lot of evidence showing that Internet technology platforms, as a new social situation, have not brought new changes to the psychology and behavior of human individuals and groups. Only in certain psychological processes and their external behaviors, the situational enhancement or weakening is obtained. Internet psychology research has found that it has not exceeded the existing theoretical boundaries of social psychology based on real situations; therefore, the field of Internet psychology has not yet produced a recognized and influential new theoretical framework.

  Big data technology gives social mentality research paradigm innovation opportunities

   The formation and development of social mentality in the context of the Internet has become possible to study through the massive digital information traces left by individual and group network behaviors. Big data technology has given opportunities for innovation in the research paradigm of social mentality, as well as new opportunities to uncover the problems of social mentality structure and evolutionary mechanism at an empirical level.

          Inspired by the new paradigm of computational social sciences, psychologists such as Yarconi and Kosinski were the first to embark on the road of pioneering big data psychology: Yarconi proposed a new interdisciplinary "psychological information" between psychology and computational science. Kosinski and others creatively use various Internet digital trace information to establish a mapping relationship with the dimensions of psychological scales, and develop network digital trace proxy indicators that replace traditional psychological measurement tools. For example, he and his colleagues used social media Facebook user "like" behavior data to characterize and predict the five personality characteristics of individuals, and their judgment accuracy can even exceed the respondent's relatives, friends and partners. At the same time, similar big data psychology research innovations also include such as the Big Five personality modeling based on social media online text and spatial mobile positioning information, and the modeling of interpersonal social processes based on wearable devices such as mobile phones.

  Building an internet big data index system for measuring Chinese social mentality

  Future social mentality research can build an Internet big data index system for measuring Chinese social mentality based on massive text information data of representative samples of Internet social media platform users, using machine learning and other big data technologies. The network big data indicators formed by the mapping and association modeling of the traditional social mentality questionnaire survey data are expected to reveal the basic dimensional structure of the social mentality after the identification of necessary variable elements and dimensionality reduction processing. Compared with the dimensional indicators generated by the social mentality questionnaire survey data, the new measurement system formed based on the massive digital traces of the Internet can realize automated real-time perception on a more representative and broader population of (Internet users). It can portray the mentality characteristics of individuals and macro-groups in dynamic development. From this, it can examine how individuals and society construct each other and form the most macro-psychological relationship. It can also examine the shared reality and norms that are diffuse between subjects. Strength-the side that the social mentality of the macro group influences the shaping of the individual mentality. By analyzing the process and results of the construction of this psychological relationship, we can clarify the mechanism of the occurrence and development of social mentality to a greater extent.

        Based on the above possible paths, Chinese social mentality researchers can take precautions for the future, and further use panel data analysis and time series analysis to predict the changing trends of Chinese social mentality, and comprehensively promote the paradigmization of Internet big data in Chinese social mentality research. Progress, to facilitate the scientific and modernization of social governance, and to better serve the goal of meeting the people’s ever-increasing needs for a better life.

   (Author's unit: Nankai University Department of Social Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University Guangzhou Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Social Psychology Construction Research Center)

Editor in charge: Zhang Yueying







推动社会心态研究迈向大数据化
2021年08月20日 09:23 来源:《中国社会科学报》2021年8月20日第2234期 作者:陈浩





  社会心态,一般指在一段时间内弥散在整个社会或社会群体、社会类别中的社会共识、社会情绪和感受以及社会价值取向。积极健康的社会心态是社会稳定的前提,是社会治理及其创新得以有效展开的社会心理基础。客观准确地认识和把握一个时期的社会心态,是社会治理创新的应有之义。

  社会心态具备多心理构念包容力

  社会心态可能是中国社会心理学界使用频次仅次于“社会心理”的术语,也可能是被误用最多的术语。学者们从各自不同角度或在直觉指引下使用“社会心态”一词,对其内涵理解存在较大差异。而作为意蕴丰富的概念,“社会心态”的独特之处还体现在它的多心理构念包容力上。无论在理论层面还是在操作测量层面,社会心态更像是概念伞。整个社会或特定社会群体的任一突出社会心理特征和意识形态动向,似乎都可纳入社会心态考察视野之中。并且,社会心态的结构、机制及测量指标,基本是以主观理论分析筛选为前提的。缺乏对社会心态必要要素和基本结构的界定与解析,社会心态的经验研究难免会挂一漏万,停留在对所关注现象的片面描述和特征认识上,缺乏系统解释力与预测力。

  因此,我们需要追问社会心态这一概念伞之下,相对清晰稳定的必要变量要素丛包括什么?要素之间是否存在更为简洁的内在框架,即社会心态的基本结构?针对纳入概念伞之下且暂时被并置处理的大量既有社会心理学概念(如信任感、公正感)和少量本土化新构念(如获得感),我们是否可以借鉴人格心理学理论模型及其权威测量工具的探索开发路径:理论和数据双驱动的《中国人个性测量表》(CPAI)的研发,是在不打乱最底层题项与中国人本土人格特征层面归属关系的前提下,以人格层面而非题目为分析单位进行降维化处理,探寻中国人人格的基本结构。社会心态研究者同时还应借鉴大数据技术中丰富的降维方法,尝试找到类似CPAI“四维模型”的中国社会心态基本结构“N维模型”。

  社交媒体引致特定社会心态情境性变化

  互联网技术平台,尤其是Web 2.0时代的社交媒体应用,是否引致特定社会心态的形成和发展出现实质性改变,即存在相对独特的网络社会心态现象和机制?抑或只是现实社会心态的形成与变化过程,较大程度被网络实时可视化了?这是悬而未决、值得在学理和实证上进一步探究的问题。

  以北美心理学视角为主导的互联网心理学兴起之初,学者们普遍持这样的观点:互联网技术带来的所谓全新虚拟社会情境,将极大改变人类的心理和行为模式。互联网心理学中的典范研究,诸如网上和网下人格差异、网络去个性化、群体观点极化(即传播学中的隐喻型概念“回音壁”“信息茧房”)等,展示出人们处于互联网社会情境中,有了一些不同于现实情境中的心理和行为特征。但是后续大量研究却不断告诉我们,人们在网上和网下所表露出的人格特征,更多程度上是彼此一致的或者是特征增强的,彼此间并无实质性差异。人们在匿名化的互联网情境中,确实会更多出现去个性化现象,犹如我们身处现实的庞大喧嚣人群之中时,但在网上个体也更易展现出更为明显的现实群体社会认同。正如集体行动经典社会心理学理论所预期的那样,互联网中的人们会以民族、地域、性别、阶层、观点、价值观、偏好等为基础,更为去异质化和频繁地在某些时刻激活身上某种现实群体身份,凸显出群体认同心态并以该群体中典型成员角色那样去思考和行动。

  互联网心理学历经二三十年发展,积累了大量研究成果,其中较多证据表明,互联网技术平台作为一种新的社会情境,并未给人类个体和群体的心理、行为带来全新改变,而只在某些心理过程及其外在行为表现上,获得了情境性增强或削弱。互联网心理学研究发现,并未超出基于现实情境的社会心理学既有理论疆界;因而互联网心理学领域至今尚未诞生公认的、有影响力的新理论框架。

  大数据技术赋予社会心态研究范式创新机遇

  互联网情境中社会心态的形成和发展过程,通过个体和群体网络行为所留下的海量数字信息痕迹进行研究却成为了可能。大数据技术赋予了社会心态研究范式创新机遇,以及由此带来的在实证层面上揭开社会心态结构和演化机制难题的新契机。

  受到计算社会科学新范式启发,亚尔科尼和科辛斯基等心理学家最早走上大数据心理学开拓之路:亚尔科尼提出了心理学和计算科学的新交叉学科“心理信息学”;科辛斯基等人则创造性地运用各种互联网数字痕迹信息,与心理学量表维度间建立映射关联,发展出替代传统心理测量工具的网络数字痕迹代理指标。比如,他和同事曾利用社交媒体脸书上的用户“点赞”行为数据,刻画和预测了个人的五大人格特征,其判断准确率甚至能超过作答者的亲友和伴侣。同时期类似的大数据心理学研究创新,还包括诸如基于社交媒体在线文本、空间移动定位信息的大五人格建模,及基于手机等可穿戴设备的人际社交过程建模等。

  构建中国社会心态测量的互联网大数据化指标体系

  未来的社会心态研究,可基于互联网社交媒体平台用户代表性样本的海量文本信息数据,采用机器学习等大数据技术,构建中国社会心态测量的互联网大数据化指标体系。与传统社会心态问卷调查数据映射关联建模形成的网络大数据指标,经由必要变量要素鉴别和降维处理后,我们有望揭示出社会心态的基本维度结构。相比社会心态问卷调查数据产生的维度指标,以互联网海量数字痕迹为基础形成的新测量体系,能够在更具代表性和更为广泛的(网络用户)人群身上实现自动化实时感知。它可刻画出动态发展中的个体和宏观群体的心态特征,由此可考察个人与社会之间如何相互建构并形成最为宏观的心理关系,更可考察作为一种主体间弥散的共享现实和规范力量——宏观群体的社会心态对个人心态影响塑造的一面。通过解析这一心理关系建构的过程和结果,我们能在更大程度上明晰社会心态的发生和发展机制。

  基于以上可能路径,中国社会心态研究者又可未雨绸缪面向未来,进一步采用面板数据分析和时间序列分析等技术,针对中国社会心态的变化趋势展开预测,全面推动中国社会心态研究互联网大数据范式化的进程,助力社会治理的科学化与现代化,更好地服务于实现满足人民日益增长的美好生活需要的时代目标。

  (作者单位:南开大学社会心理学系、中山大学广州粤港澳社会心理建设研究中心) 责任编辑:张月英

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