Institute of Psychology was established under the Decree 23/CP of Government signed by Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet in May 22nd 1993 on the establishment of Center of National Social Sciences and Humanity.
Institute of Psychology is a member unit of Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences and a leading center of psychology in Vietnam and a training center for postgraduate in the field of Psychology. The Institute has the following basic functions and tasks:
- To do basic researches to develop the psychological theories of Vietnam and provide the scientific base for building orientations and setting up policies for Communist Party and State.
- To do practical research on philosophical issues and apply research results in all fields of social life as working and production, management, education, cultural ideas so on. This will help to form new personality for Vietnamese.
- To join in training officers who have degree of graduate and postgraduate.
In the 20 years of formation and development, Institute has followed some research directions and achieved certain results as below:
1. Social Psychology
Institute of Psychology has edited some books on social psychology based on studying documents of Soviet and Western social psychology as well as other local reference documents. Some remarkable books could be listed such as Social Psychology – Theoretical issues (1991), Social Psychology – Fields of application (1991), Social Psychology and Enterprise management (1995), Social Psychology and Management (1995), Ho Chi Minh – Philosophical Issues (1998), Social Psychology (2000), Methods of Social Psychology (1996)…
Research works have systemized the basic theories of social psychology as: To determine research objects, methods and tasks of social psychology, philosophical phenomena of social groups, mechanism and rules of psychology in the relationship with related personality and social life… These research works support to study social philosophical phenomenon and are teaching documents for psychology in universities and colleges of Vietnam. They even help to build basic theories of the national social psychology today.
By studying psychological changes of Vietnamese farmers in the transition to the market economy, Institute has proved that this transition has been changing the knowledge of farmers about producing methods, role of technology and changing the structure of farming animals and plants. The changes of neighborhood between people in a village are described as a relationship with a little bit material and personal color than the pure feeling of the past.
Research results also showed that the psychology of farmers who have fragmented personalities and only see the short term benefits as well as lived without any order through their thoughts and behavior.
There are big changes of the awareness of citizen who are living in urban areas, especially the value orientation, for example, their ideas on rich and poverty, how to become rich or do business. These changes could be seen through some research topics as Psychological changes of urban people in the transition to the market economy; Psychological changes of governmental officers; The motivation of a successful researcher on social sciences. The inflexible and passive mechanism is being replaced by a dynamic environment and it is the signal of the psychological changes of people and explanation of youth adaption to production, business as well as their lifestyles and how they accept the external values of culture.
Institute has also had evidences of some imbalanced behavior in the progress of changing mechanism and legal system through researches on this issue. In social life, there is an increase of violence and illegal behavior, especially young people. The research results showed how people worry about the security in both urban and rural area. Drug addiction of youth has become the most serious issue that families and schools are afraid for now.
2. Psychology on family and age
There are some remarkable conclusions through researches on psychology on family through the years:
- The family relationship which lacks of sharing and connection between parents and kids is the reason of drug addiction at young people.
- Kids from divorced families have suffered psychological pains at different levels but these hurt will negatively impact on their personalities. And the psychological pains will lead to the pains in awareness, emotions and behaviors.
- Researches on the conflicts between generations are basically the conflicts between parents and their kids but they are quite diversified. They are conflicts of the awareness, ideas, orientations of values, and spiritual demands. The most particular conflict is the habits in daily life such as they type of music they listen, the movie they watch and how they dress.
3. Psychology on management
In recent years, Institute of Psychology has conducted some research topics on psychology on management in both theoretical and practical aspects.
- The psychological characteristics of management: deposition, capability, personality… Their impacts on the efficiency of a labor in his group and leaders need to apply the psychological characteristics of their workers in the management.
- Social psychological features of a working group. The changing mechanism of management has led to the appearance of some new types of psychology. The management should understand the social psychology of a labor group so that they could convince, encourage and gather them to implement the general purposes and tasks of whole group. When holding an event of a group, leaders should let members be aware of their responsibilities as well as create a close environment between individuals.
To learn about the capability of the leaders in organizing events. The efficiency of a group depends on the ability of the leaders; hence, leaders should have necessary characteristics such as qualified capability, good knowledge and being able to devote to the group.
- A basic issue which Institute should focus on is the communication between leader and his staff. In order to gather all members, a leader should have ability to evaluate, praise, encourage and listen to wonderings as well as questions of his staff.
It is two way and supporting relationship between leader and staff. This is a difference from the previous period when staff only followed the orders and instructions of leader therefore the authoritarian and bureaucracy become the habit of leaders.
- A new theory of studying on psychology management is about leader crew. It is necessary because there are many misunderstandings about the concept of a “crew”. People normally see it as the collaboration between individuals who belonged to a side of a group. However, a crew means an essential small group for management specifically and organization in general. Because it is a small group in which members have similar psychology and could be able to work together. The research result also pointed out the basic signals of psychology of a leader crew as well as the formation of a crew of leaders. It could be said that it was the first time of basic theories about crew of leaders expressed and discussed under a scientific aspect in Vietnam.
4. Psychology on ethnic and religion
In recent years, the ethnic and religion have become urgent issues in many countries and had negative impacts on the social development. Institute of Psychology has conducted some theoretical and practical researches on ethnics and religions under the aspect of psychology. The research results basically built up the basic theories for these two new faculties of psychology as below:
- The psychology on ethnic has built up the following theoretical bases: the methodology of psychology on ethnic, and issues such as awareness, emotions and characteristics of ethnic, perception, communication and cultural changes between ethnics. The faculty also analyzed the positive and negative impacts of psychological factors on the economic, cultural growth of ethnic specifically and areas in general.
- The psychology on religion has solved the following issues: belief, feelings for religion, the worship and personality of religion. The most important thing is the belief and motivation of behavior of a religion are explained through psychological aspects. For example, why does the region have to exist in social life and why are religions’ members willing to scarify for their belief?
The research results have also become the foundation for teaching these two faculties in many local universities.
5. Consultancy and psychology treatment
This is a new and promising research direction of Institute of Psychology due to the increasing changes of human psychology in the modern society, especially negative changes such as stress, imbalanced behavior at all ages. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for psychology consultancy and treatment. The Institute of Psychology is establishing the Center for Psychology Consultancy and Treatment by doing the following works:
- Organize training courses for staff to provide consultancy and treatment service. Institute of Psychology has worked with University of Psychology Practice in Paris to organize class for consultancy and treatment in recent years. Also, Institute invited some psychologists from America, Australia and Singapore to have discussion about these issues.
- Start to have treatment for some psychology cases and provide advisory when customers request. This is also a chance for staff to improve their skills.
- Work with Dong Da Hospital, Bach Mai Hospital, and National Psychiatric Hospital to provide treatments and have good results. Some officers even join in consultancy service through hot line 1080 and learn more experiences from this service.
6. Psychology Review
Since 1996, Psychology Review has officially been published to public and it is the only specialized journal of Vietnam’s psychology. The journal is not only the mouthpiece of Institute of Psychology but also for the psychology of Vietnam. The magazine has released research results of theories, research achievements and applications done by many researchers. There are articles which introduced about the theories, methods, formation and development of psychology of many countries. The In the past, there were only 4 volumes per year, then up to 6 and 9 volumes per year and now it has become monthly journal. It receives good evaluation from researchers, teaching staff, and psychological students as a useful reference for research activities with the improving quality.
Over 20 years, Institute of Psychology has obtained many significant and remarkable achievements with its contribution to the development of national psychology sciences as well as the determination of theoretical bases which could be used for building orientations, setting policies and strategies of Communist Party and State. The purpose is to improve the renewal, modernization and industrialization of Vietnam. On the occasion of 10th year establishment, Institute of Psychology was received the 3rd class Labor Order and this will be a big motivation for Institute to keep going with the development of country.
