Sang Min Leo Whang (November 10, 1962 - ) is a South Korean psychologist, author, and popular political commentator. He has empirically investigated "the Korean Peoples' identity & their mass-psychology" by connecting it to a variety of issues such as self, online world identity, consumption behavior, love & relationships, power desire and political decision making. He has mainly researched the different psychological types of people and how the human mind works in on and offline settings. His most well-known projects are WPI (Whang's Personal Identity), research on the identities of online game players, and research on politicians' public images. Whang has been a professor at Sejong University from 1994 to 1997 and at Yonsei University from 1997 to 2016. In January 2016, he was dismissed from his position as a tenured professor at Yonsei University, by excuse of violating an ethical rule, 'having a job outside of professorship without the permission of the university president.' There is controversy and speculation surrounding his dismissal. The unusual dismissal of a tenured professor from his position was a retaliatory decision made because of Whang's criticism against Geun-hye Park, the 11th President of South Korea. She was later impeached and dismissed from the presidency. Whang's dismissal was planned and executed by the late president of Yonsei University, Gap Young Cheung who denied his involvement of this case as a president of university. The late president Gap Young Cheung had a strong reputation that he had wished to hold a government or Blue House position during Ms. Park's presidency. After the impeachment of Ms. Park, Cheung retired from the university and remained as an honorary professor. Whang's dismissal is appreciated as an example of an evidence of latent oppression on academia by power. Dr. Whang currently runs a podcast WhangShimSo, where he provides free consultations on personal and career conflicts, and commentates on the diverse social issues in Korean Society.
Early life and family He was born as a second child in the town of Jinhae, and lived there until he was 9 years old when his parents decided to move to the bigger city of Pusan for the opportunity to better educate their children. He has said the thought “I need to do well academically in order to be treated like a person” was a motivating factor in his youth to study hard. In an interview with Chosun Ilbo, he recalled “Once I received grades that put me in 25th place in class and the kids who used to ask me questions during recess stopped asking me any questions. They would not even reply when I said something. What was even more surprising was that kids who were known to be physically dominant in the class started bothering me. It was strange. So I came in 2nd place in class on the next test. The teacher told me to stop playing with grades. And the other kids treated me normally again. This led me to think that in Korean society I need to do well academically in order to be treated properly as a person even before having any idea of what I really want to do.”
Education and academic career Since his postdoctoral fellowship, Sang Min Whang focused on the “human mind that operates in the Internet.” Under the guidance of Rob Kling at University of California, Irvine, he started research on the mind in the PC network environment and was a pioneer in early research on the virtual world. He accurately predicted that shopping and other real life activities will occur over the Internet and classified the characteristics of the type of person who first finds new electronic products and the characteristics of the consumer that spreads the use of new electronic products. (Refer to "Digital Freaks Decide Future Consumption")
Academic career and research
In his life as a researcher, Sang Min Whang delved into the subject of the “self,” especially “identification and respect for an individual's disposition” based on the study of “Korean Peoples’ Identity.” In particular, he researched the relationship between “the self oneself perceives” and “the self others perceive,” or the “real self” and the “ideal self” Koreans experience and build in various aspects by connecting it to specific fields in education, development, politics, marketing, etc. He especially asserts that instead of the medical model that defines a student or a child's particular behavior as a “problem” and tries to solve it, the “developmental perspective,” which helps a student or a child understand herself by diagnosing and understanding each individual's character and the meaning each individual attributes to her actions, needs to be applied to education and psychotherapy.
Research on Koreans' psychology
WPI (Whang's Personal Identity)
Sang Min Whang thought there needs to be a tool differentiated from the western psychology tests to measure “Koreans’ psychology” because Asians and Westerners define and think about “the self” in different ways. In the field of personality study, the Big 5 Theory of Personality (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) was already known to exist through Costa & McCrae and others’ research. However, Sang Min Whang thought these five factors would combine and manifest in different ways depending on the sociocultural environment and an individual's experience and beliefs. According to the metaphor he uses frequently, it is important to know the fact that “when making bread, the ingredients you need are ‘flour,’ ‘eggs,’ ‘milk,’ ‘yeast,’ and ‘butter.’ But the bread is not the ingredient. It only becomes bread when you mix the ingredients together to make the dough, proof it, put it in the oven, and bake it. Likewise, a person's mind becomes known not by the score from individual psychological traits or factors, but only after going through a larger frame that can look at those comprehensively.” (<<Reading Your Own Mind (2016), 325p>> He was able to classify two dimensional types, the self that yourself sees (I), and the self that others see (Me) based on Q Methodology and after constructing many statements indicating Koreans’ emotion, lifestyle, and behavior pattern based on the Big 5 Theory of Personality. The way Koreans define themselves have been differentiated into 5 types: (I) Realist, Romantist, Humanist, Idealist, and Agent, and the way they define themselves using others as a medium (Me) was differentiated into these 5 types: Relation, Trust, Manual, Self, and Culture. His findings empirically proved how William James’ theory that the “self” is a combination of “the self that yourself thinks of (I)” and “the self that others see (Me)” manifests itself in a specific sociocultural setting and WPI (Whang's Personal Identity) has been organized as a personality test that is being used in counseling and education.
WPI's 5 Types Realist: A realist tries to have good relationships with other people because he or she acquires his or her sense of being through others’ acknowledgement. She or he is considerate of other people and caters well to others because she or he does not like big changes or conflicts, but also goes through heartache or a “good person complex” as a result. In any organization, if there is not a lot of conflict within it, it could be due to the work of a Realist. Realists think of the organization they belong to, their wealth, and their academic pedigrees as measures they can use to gain others’ recognition and they also strive for self-improvement in order to live textbook definitions of successful lives, which are decided on by the outside world. Romanticist: Romanticists feel alive when they share their feelings with others. If a Romanticist, for whom the sharing of sensibilities and emotions are important, feels that his or her feelings are not appreciated then he or she may have a heart that is the more impoverished than anyone else even though he or she may be living an abundant life. A Romanticist's sensibility, delicate like a glass bead, is sometimes also expressed in an artistic sense. Additionally, when working on something new, Romanticists might appear to be very hesitant because they have a lot of fear and anxiety, but on the contrary, they may also appear to be meticulous and deliberate. Humanist: Humanists acquire their sense of being through relationships with people. They are out-going, sociable and friendly. They have the ability to utilize their personal networks to solve problems. In contrast, they also show a side where they start off strong and end weak by setting up grand goals without being detailed enough and have difficulty putting in any effort for a long time to achieve said goals. They think it is a matter-of-course and natural to treat superiors with respect and to appear authoritative to subordinates. They can be confident in their ability to build relationships, but they have a hard time noticing delicate and subtle feelings. Idealist: Idealists acquire their sense of being when they feel free and gain an understanding about the world. They seek something of their own that is different from others, which gives the impression of being idealistic, abstract, and disconnected from reality. Also, they may appear to another person to be selfish and individualistic at times because idealists are only concerned with what they're interested in and indifferent to everything else. They prefer spending time alone and try to live independently. Idealists can change their interests frequently because they have a lot of curiosity and are creative, but it is important above all else for idealists to become immersed in one thing and build their own expertise. Agent: Agents acquire their sense of being through their achievements. Their work is what they are and they feel a joy greater than anything else when they complete a task in the way they wanted to. They have a tendency to prioritize work above relationships and they do not like someone meddling in their work process. This is because they enjoy themselves becoming immersed in the process of their work as it progresses as they have planned. This tendency may also connect to their hobbies. If they start to approach their hobbies like it is work, they can become scarily absorbed and bring to mind the image of an obsessive-compulsive otaku (geek).
Koreans’ desires and "the Relationship between image and true self" In "The President and Louis Vuitton", Sang Min Whang thought (luxury good) consumption and elections clearly showed how Koreans’ dress up their desires instead of saying what they want, thinking that if they choose the vaguely “good thing,” it will produce the results they want. When you make a decision to dress up your desire without being able to distinguish between “what you really want” and “what you are saying you want,” you feel “duped” and cannot be satisfied even after spending money. On the other hand, he suggested “the mind's MRI,” a development from Q Methodology, for suppliers to use as a method to diagnose the consumer's hidden desire and the desire they freely talk of in a societal setting.
Dismissal from Yonsei University and controversy
Criticism against Geun Hye Park's Regime and Dismissal from Yonsei University's full professorship