The Korean Heart

Through everyday examples, folk tales, and scenario experiments, the study found that Koreans believe enduring hardship (ingo, 인고) brings rewards and can even pay off one’s wrongdoing.

Starting from “mi-un jeong, go-un jeong” (hateful and sweet jeong), the study identified what jeong is made of and confirmed a path: jeong → caring actions → a sense of security and someone to lean on.

Analyzing real-life jeong (정) experiences reported by 74 university students, the study finds that jeong grows through caring for each other and works as “psychological insurance” to lean on in hard times.

The study conceptualized chemyeon (체면, face) along two dimensions — morality and competence — and used surveys to find the factors behind its structure, the needs it serves, and people's sensitivity to it.

Building on Koreans’ psychology of simjeong (심정, the hurt or stirred heart within close relationships) and the way they pour it out in talk, the authors propose simjeong therapy as a Korean form of psychotherapy.

A cultural-psychological account arguing that Korean trust rests not on another person's behavior but on their maum (마음, heart/mind).

Using open-ended surveys, a video study, and a scenario experiment, the study showed that Koreans value uiri (의리, loyalty between friends) over social justice.

Discusses, with survey material, what Korean simjeong (심정, the stirred inner heart) is, how it arises, and how it is exchanged in we-ness/jeong relationships.

The paper explains Korean hwa (화, anger) as a feeling mixed with eogul (억울, a sense of unjust victimhood) and bitterness, and maps how anger that cannot be released turns into hwabyung (홧병), an illness swinging between anger and depression.

By asking college students when, toward whom, and why they read and give nunchi (눈치), the study shows nunchi is a shared Korean way of communicating.

A theoretical paper arguing that whether warmth (injeong, 인정) or fairness (gongjeong, 공정) is the right rule depends on whether you see yourself as an individual or as a member of a group.

Through a survey and an experiment, the study analyzes chemyeon (체면, social face) as “self-esteem shown outward”: it matters most to people of high status, and keeping it up among close friends creates distance.

Koreans care more about the heart behind an action — simjeong (심정) — than the action itself, and the author argues that jeong (정) and han (한) can only be understood through this psychology of the heart.

Japanese amae-like behavior (childlike pleading and dependence) is common in Korea too, but Korean has no single word for it; a corpus analysis suggests the feeling underneath is jeong (정).

College students with more nunchi (눈치, reading the room) had less social anxiety — partly because they had a clearer sense of who they are (self-concept clarity).

A new scale for how much today's Korean college students worry about chemyeon (체면, social face) found five factors: shame sensitivity, evaluation anxiety, ability exposure, emotion exposure, and self-defense.

Comparing what han (한, 恨) brought to mind for college students in 1994 and 2019, the study found today's generation thinks of han more as an emotion, while older meanings still linger at an unconscious level.