It is not difficult to find that openness and backwardness converge in the psychology of love, making it a contradiction.
On the one hand, the teaching content of many college love courses does not avoid a series of controversial topics and hot topics around marriage and love; on the other hand, many exaggerated gender differences and stereotyped understanding of gender differences are repeatedly taught in the classroom—many teachers only tell their own marriage and love experience in their teaching methods.
Author | Zhang Wenxi
Edit | Su Wei
Title Picture | "Heartbeat"
"Regardless of whether a woman really wants to have children or not, just verbally claiming that she wants to have more children in the future will greatly increase her attractiveness to men. ”
It's hard to imagine these gender-stereotyped ideas appearing in the classrooms of well-known universities. A few days ago, someone shared the content of the public elective course of love psychology of East China Normal University on the Internet, and these remarks written on the courseware of "Women in Love Chasing Men" quickly attracted a lot of criticism.
More netizens further asked: Who is qualified to teach the love course?
In recent years, love psychology courses have begun to appear in more and more college course selection lists, and even became a hot search. In the love psychology course offered by Wuhan University, many students sat in the aisle with benches to listen, and some even climbed the window to listen to the lecture. "Why is it so difficult to get off the list?" Professor Shen Yifei of Fudan University turned the confused emotional problems of the students in the audience into the theme of the lecture. And Liang Yongan, a professor of the Chinese Department of Fudan University, often has more than 4 million views on a single episode of the love course on station B.
(Photo/"The Year in a Hurry")
According to a survey by China Youth Daily in 2020, nearly 9 out of 10 college students support universities to set up love courses. The popularity of college love classes is due to the curiosity of students, or the desire to "get rid of singles".
But under the hustle and bustle, universities should think more about what kind of content to respond to students' real needs for love and social interaction, and be wary of love classes becoming a farce.
When the love psychology class entered the university
It's easy to get credits, it doesn't seem to be much named, and it's easy to take exams...... These are important reasons why many students take love courses. After all, compared to many courses, there seems to be no theory in love psychology that requires rote memorization, and is considered by some to be a typical "water lesson".
But behind this non-serious attitude is the long-term absence of serious love education needs.
In the long stage of test-taking education, love is often regarded by schools and parents as a flood of beasts that affect grades, and this concept continues until students graduate from high school. When a young person enters college and becomes an adult in the true sense of the word, the restrictions on love are lifted. No one restricts them from socializing with the opposite sex, but they don't know how to get started. The lack of understanding of love can only be made up for by the understanding of generations of college students themselves.
(Photo/"Love Letter")
Jiang Xi, a sophomore at Southwest University of Political Science and Law, chose the general education course "Love Psychology" simply out of curiosity.
Like many universities in China, the "Love Psychology" course of Southwest University of Political Science and Law focuses on the practice of love in life, and divides the course into two parts: "love" and "psychology". "What is the correct view of mate selection and marriage and love?", "Why do lovers quarrel?", "What should I do after a quarrel?", and other common problems in love have become topics of discussion in the course, and teachers often use their own situations to give examples to students.
"Before taking this course, I was actually quite pessimistic about love, thinking that love was a kind of constraint on freedom to some extent. Jiang Xi believes that the love psychology course he took has indeed changed his view of love, and it has also had a positive impact on his intimate relationship.
(Photo/"Cheese Trap")
From the perspective of curriculum setting, love psychology courses in colleges and universities often show a strong pragmatic orientation.
In 2018, Shanghai University conducted a classroom experiment of "Love Psychology Code Course", which allowed male and female students to pair up and complete a 36-question survey together, and in 2014, Nanjing University held the first campus love open class, creating opportunities for students to interact through activities such as love questionnaires, expert consultations and offline friendships.
But at the same time, the practical knowledge in love cannot cover the entire content of love psychology in college.
Duan Xinxing, former dean of the School of Public Administration and doctoral supervisor of China University of Mining and Technology, chose another style for his lecture on love psychology. In addition to practical skills such as "effective communication in intimate relationships", Duan Xinxing also spent a lot of energy discussing metaphysical theories such as the nature and foundation of love, Plato's and Socrates' views on love, and Freud's theory of personality structure.
Duan Xinxing, former dean of the School of Public Administration and doctoral supervisor of China University of Mining and Technology, lectured on the course catalog of "Love Psychology". (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)
Out of curiosity about the course and the requirements of professional coursework, Wang Jialin, a major in Chinese language and literature at Minnan Normal University, took this psychology course on an online platform. Although Wang Jialin didn't think about falling in love, she still felt that "this kind of thing can be said generously, which is quite fun".
However, she also admitted that the theory in the first half of the theory somewhat "persuaded her to quit", "I only studied the previous course seriously, because the teacher talked about love psychology from the perspective of more serious theoretical concepts at the beginning." There are specific suggestions for love later, but if you continue to study in order, many students may not have the patience to learn the following. ”
Don't let love psychology class,
Becoming more and more toxic
With the popularity of love psychology classes, there are inevitably more controversies.
Before the controversy over the course of East China Normal University, netizens had found a lot of outdated love concepts and gender stereotypes in the teaching videos and handouts of many college love courses.
For example, in the view of some instructors, there is a double standard of sexual morality between men and women. In a class for freshmen at a normal university, the teacher used the expression "girls have the right to 'chastity'", which caused criticism from netizens. More commonly, the sexes are nested into the mold of traditional polarized thinking, blindly emphasizing the differences between the sexes.
(Photo/"Gender-based")
In this regard, psychological counselor Cui Qinglong believes that the gender-based concept of love was very popular in the past, but it does not reflect the whole picture of a person, nor can it show the diversity of relationships.
In Cui Qinglong's view, the "psychology of love" in universities can present the differences between the sexes, but it needs to be further critically extended after mentioning the differences, "I think that contemporary love courses should present something different from that kind of stereotyped cognition, and present the various possibilities that people can create in romantic relationships."
The content of love psychology in universities is sometimes still gender-stereotyped. (Photo/MOOC screenshot)
Behind this series of questions are the very different academic backgrounds of the teachers.
Many love psychology teachers do not have a relevant background in psychology and pedagogy, and they are easily influenced by some wrong popular views when they start classes with enthusiasm, and even bring old love experiences into the classroom, suggesting that women are the objects that need to be selected in marriage and love.
The love psychology of East China Normal University, which has been hotly discussed on the Internet recently, seems to be a typical case.
The instructors for this course are from the Faculty of Geographical Sciences. According to the course handouts and other media verification, there are many expressions of objectification of women in the course, and the ways listed in which women pursue men are based on the premise of amplifying women's reproductive attributes, turning love into a kind of bidding, and women in lower positions have also become the party that lacks independent thinking.
Of course, we do not doubt that a teacher with a non-humanities and social science background is willing to tell young people about the kindness of love and life, but this kind of love psychology, which lacks professional knowledge and serious spirit, is easy to mislead students about love.
Part of the lecture notes of the "Love Psychology" course opened by Gong Li, an associate researcher at the School of Geographical Sciences of East China Normal University, were circulated on the Internet.
It is not difficult to find that openness and backwardness converge in the psychology of love, making it a contradiction.
On the one hand, the teaching content of many college love courses does not avoid a series of controversial topics and hot topics around marriage and love; on the other hand, many exaggerated gender differences and stereotyped understanding of gender differences are repeatedly taught in the classroom—many teachers only tell their own marriage and love experience in their teaching methods.
For example, when "getting out of singles" becomes the measure of the success of a relationship psychology class, it is a potential implication that being single is a state that needs to be changed, that people with boyfriends and girlfriends are more "good" than those who are single, and that those who have no intention of entering into intimate relationships for the time being are stigmatized as "single dogs". Under the dominance of this utilitarian purpose, some love classes that are supposed to eliminate anxiety have instead amplified the marriage and love anxiety of young people.
(Photo/"Heartbeat")
Cui Qinglong told reporters that the love skills mentioned in many college love psychology classes often contain an instrumental understanding of another person, such as whether you should be hot and cold to someone, or shape yourself into an image that is not your own at all, and so on. "It's a very superficial methodology, and it's easy to bury the woes of long-term relationships. This knowledge does not help us to understand and deal with the difficulties we encounter in deep relationships. Cui Qinglong said.
In his view, on the one hand, love psychology is a professional course, which needs to use relatively rigorous theories to explain people's demands in relationships, which requires teachers to have theoretical reserves such as evolutionary psychology, personality psychology, and attachment psychology. On the other hand, human beings are experiential beings, and emotional motivations vary from person to person, so teachers also need to have openness and rich feelings to understand relationships.
What kind of love psychology do we need?
After the initial stage of all kinds of love classes, are there any other possibilities for this course?
"People are widely praised for 'men and children are ambitious', as opposed to the behavior pattern of 'good wives and good mothers'. These traits have long been accepted and internalized by both men and women, and have become hallmarks of gender division. If you behave in a way that aligns with gender expectations, you will be accepted and approved by society, otherwise you will be ridiculed and even ostracized by those around you. ”
"Where is the dividing line between a warm man and a scumbag? At this time, what the scumbag threw to you is no longer red dates, but a slap. The ancients talked about the art of controlling people, and they often had to use both grace and power, but it was impossible to really control a person by relying on 'grace', and when necessary, they had to sink their faces and suppress you. ”
Zhang Xiaowen's online course "Love Psychology". (Photo/Screenshot of NetEase Open Class Platform)
This content comes from a young teacher's "Psychology of Love" course.
Zhang Xiaowen is an associate professor at the Career Development Center of Wuhan University of Technology, and her "Love Psychology" course is one of the most popular courses for students at Wuhan University of Technology every year - only 130 of the 2,000 students who rush to take classes can be selected.
Zhang Xiaowen and students have a discussion in class. (Photo/Provided by the interviewee)
This popularity is largely due to the teaching style and curriculum of Zhang Xiaowen and his team.
Zhang Xiaowen does not adopt the stereotyped format of separating the curriculum into two parts, theory and content, but combines the theoretical foundation with the topics that students care about. Unlike other love psychology courses where teachers teach based on their own experience, she rarely mentions her own opinions and experiences. She believes that in this class, the teacher should be an invisible persona, and her own experience is not important. 、
In her view, the psychology of love is not an empirical course, and the logical reason why psychology has become a science is that it is based on the data of most people. That's why it's called Love Psychology, not some love experience counseling and sharing conference. What we talk about in class is more about scientific theoretical research and practice. For example, data shows that most women have low self-esteem when they are young, so we have set up a chapter such as 'Anti-Scumbag Use Guide'. ”
"If a teacher puts too much emphasis on his own experience in class, it in itself represents that the teacher has not yet broken through his or her own all-powerful narcissism. Zhang Xiaowen added.
(Photo/"Barbie")
At the same time, Zhang Xiaowen will also emphasize that "some gender stereotypes are outdated" in class, and instead talk about how the gender stereotypes of men and women are shaped in society, and what kind of social pressures people who are trapped in such social expectations will face. She also stresses in class that the "men are from Mars and women are from Venus" narrative is outdated, she said. "We hope to eliminate this gender antagonism, men and women are not from different planets, they should be friends who learn from each other, so that everyone can become well-rounded and perfect people. ”
Roland Miller once stated the similarities and differences between the sexes in his book "Intimacy". In his view, some gender differences are only statistically significant, when in fact they are very small. And in life, this very small difference can easily be exaggerated, thus forming stereotypes.
Zhang Xiaowen agrees with Roland Miller. She believes that the gender differences in modern concepts are more often given by some social cultures, and the differences between the sexes are not as big as people think.
(Photo/"Barbie")
In a class, Zhang Xiaowen once threw out a question: "If a boy has nothing, but is very good to you, will you accept him?"
At that time, almost all 130 students in the class gave a negative answer. But then suddenly a boy who had never spoken much before and was sitting in the back row stood up and said, "I think I'm the boy who has nothing now." I don't have anything, and my family conditions are not good. Isn't my sincerity so worthless, can't I love a girl right now?"
"I told him right then, first of all, you don't have nothing. If you can be admitted to our school, it means that you have the ability to learn, you have the perseverance to persevere, and you have overcome the obstacles of the family environment to come to this school. In the end, the lesson did not turn into a debate because of the question, but the whole class encouraged him to think about what good qualities he possessed. She hopes that students can start to take action and reduce the limitations they set on themselves by taking the course "Love Psychology".
Generations of young people have walked into the campus with longing and confusion about love, and Zhang Xiaowen is using his own efforts to make these longings live up to and let these confusions be answered. Marriage and love is a lifelong college question, and it should not be treated lightly in college classrooms. Of course, learning and thinking about it should not stop at the classroom.
Proofreading: Meet, Operation: Ono, Typesetting: Liang Ningyan
[1] Xinhua Daily Telegraph, the marriage and love class of China Normal University is sought after, and even students from other schools come to the class
[2] Beijing Youth Daily, college love lectures became popular, students moved chairs and turned windows to listen to the lecture Teacher: I hope students can talk about a healthy love
[3] Nanjing University, Nanjing University opened an open course on love to check the pulse of campus love
[4] Pear video, the hall is full!University opens classes to teach love: inside and outside the classroom become "blind date scene" in seconds