On December 10th, 2009, Dr. Peter Hays Gries (Ge Xiao-wei), Assistant Professor of the University of Oklahoma visited the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and delivered a talk in both Chinese and English. The topic was “God, guns, and ... China? - How ideology impacts American attitudes & policy preferences towards China” Professor Shu Li chaired the talk session.

Dr. Gries is the Harold J. & Ruth Newman Chair in US-China Issues and Director of the Institute for U.S.-China Issues at the University of Oklahoma. He is author of China's New Nationalism, co-editor of State and Society in 21st-Century China, and has written over two dozen academic journal articles and book chapters. His work focuses on nationalism, the political psychology of international affairs, and China's domestic politics and foreign policy. Currently he is trying to use psychological methods to explore how American people’s attitudes impact American government’s attitudes towards China. The aim of this visit was to discuss his recent research projects with the Chinese psychologists.

In his talk, Dr. Gries introduced two researches about the relation of American ideology and their attitudes and policy preferences towards China. The results showed that the policy preference could be predicted by both American attitudes towards Chinese people and Chinese government. After the talk, the two sides exchanged discussion for future research collaboration on some cross-cutting issues.