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The authors critique cross-cultural psychology, Wundt's Völkerpsychologie, and Shweder's cultural psychology as Western-centric, and propose doing cultural psychology by "defamiliarizing" our most familiar everyday life.

Shows that cultural psychology can coexist with mainstream psychology, and proposes research methods suited to it: experiments, social representations, discourse analysis, and analysis of activity.

A summary of the author's research on core Korean social-psychological concepts — uriseong (우리성, we-ness), jeong (정), simjeong (심정), chemyeon (체면, face), nunchi (눈치), and pinggye (핑계, excuses) — including types of face and excuses.

A literature review showing that social psychology theories born in Western individualist cultures — on exchange, emotional expression, motives, self-presentation and more — do not simply fit Korea, with proposals for how Korean social psychology should be studied.

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.

Unlike Japanese, Koreans hold strong "positive illusions" about themselves — a theoretical paper proposing to explain this through the Korean "subjective self."

When 1,465 Koreans freely described “who I am” in different situations, their sense of self turned out to be defined by roles in relationships — and to shift sharply depending on whom they were with.

Korean and American men felt about the same overall sense of community, but Koreans felt it more toward alumni associations and relatives, Americans toward family, religion, and friends.

A review concluding that Korean relationships remain clearly collectivist, rooted in Confucianism, but have already begun shifting toward individualism.

A survey of 580 married adults found that collectivism is stronger in older groups and weaker among the more educated, and is unrelated to sex, type of marriage, or living with parents.

Unlike Japanese students, Korean students showed unrealistic optimism — "bad things are less likely to happen to me than to others" — and this was linked to a strong independent view of self.

Contrary to the view that collectivist cultures lack self-enhancement, the study finds that Koreans also tend to see themselves in an inflated light — and that this is linked to psychological adjustment.

A review showing that collectivist cultures value harmony, yielding, and effort when judging others, while individualist cultures value uniqueness, assertiveness, and ability — leading to different ways of explaining why people act as they do.

Han (한) is the feeling of a wounded sense of self-worth; sinmyeong (신명) is the joy of that self-worth being restored. Reviewing the literature, the study maps two paths by which sinmyeong arises.

Asking 3,406 students, parents, and teachers what raises and lowers quality of life, the study found relationships, money, self-regulation, and education at the core.

By asking Koreans when they actually felt happy, the study found that intense happiness comes from achievement, while frequent, everyday happiness comes from family and friends.

Collecting ordinary people's experiences of sinmyeong (신명), the study found it is the joy that bursts out when we rediscover the worth of ourselves or our group — a joy that grows as it is shared and released.

The paper traces North Korean culture to Confucian patriarchal familism and a closed socialist system, and proposes directions for the psychological unification of North and South Korea.

North Korean defectors' tendency to rate themselves highly depended more on felt support from people around them and on optimism than on culture, and its link to adjustment differed between men and women.

North Korean defectors feel large cultural differences between North and South early in their settlement, but what matters is not the difference itself — it is whether they cope by embracing South Korean culture.

Asking Korean adolescents and their parents why they trust each other, the study found trust rests less on ability than on the relationship itself, sacrifice, emotional support, and sincerity and honesty.

Pulling together many empirical studies, the authors show that Koreans trust people on the basis of “we” relationships, emotional bonds, and moral character (sincerity, honesty) rather than ability.

Using available data, the paper shows how nepotism based on blood, school, and regional ties (yeongo-juui, 연고주의) monopolizes and divides Korean society, and proposes its roots and alternatives.

By asking the same questions in 1979 and 1998, the study compared how Koreans' values and the generation gap changed over 20 years.

A review of prior studies showing that Koreans see self-regulation — effort and will — as the key to achievement, while they perceive ability as closer to luck and fate.

The study looked at when and why Koreans lament their palja (팔자, fate written in one's birth date) and found that people with stronger external control beliefs blame hard lives on palja more.

Comparing Korean and Japanese films about funerals, the study shows both portray funerals as tied to the lives of the living, but Korea leans on filial piety (hyo, 효) and reconciliation, Japan on rebirth in the Pure Land (ōjō, 往生) and reflection.

Surveying the fate beliefs behind Koreans’ visits to fortune-tellers, the study found that the biggest belief — and the best predictor of fortune-telling — is yeongmyeong-gwan (역명관): fate is set, but effort can change it.

A review that pinpoints three weak spots in culture-comparing psychology — comparing just two cultures, leaning on student samples, and hunting only for differences explained in circles — and proposes fixes.

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.

Tracking 80 years of Korean individualism through divorce, single-person households, song lyrics, and baby names, the study found family life moving toward individualism while names became less unique — a complex shift.

Why are Korean college students less happy than American ones? The study traces part of the gap to valuing money, looks and others' approval more — a value orientation that increases comparing oneself with others and reduces mutual support, lowering happiness.

Who is happy in Korea, and when? Age, gender, education and income explained little; personality, beliefs about happiness, and doing things one wants to do and finds meaningful explained far more.

Koreans accept women who immigrate through marriage as neighbors, friends and fellow Koreans, but are still reluctant to accept them as their own spouse or their child's spouse — and contact with foreigners improves attitudes.

How do North Korean defectors see marriage migrant women, children of multicultural families, and foreign workers? Satisfaction with one's own life fostered positive views, while seeing them as competitors for resources and feeling discriminated against fostered negative ones.

Asking the same questions in 1979, 1998, and 2010, the study tracked 30 years of Korean values: individualism and gender equality kept rising, and lately people in their 50s have been catching up, narrowing the generation gap a little.

Part of why Koreans distrust politicians and the courts is that they expect as much as they expect of their own parents, or more — and the tendency to see society as a family (family expansionism) raises that bar.