4. The shaping and psychological influence of education on social values during the Ming and Qing dynasties

Abstract Background During the Ming and Qing dynasties, as a mature period of traditional Chinese society, the education system dominated by the imperial examination system deeply penetrated the social fabric. Existing research mostly focuses on explicit issues such as the evolution of the education system and cheating in the imperial examination system, with insufficient empirical research on its value shaping and psychological impact, and a lack of quantitative support. The study focuses on the Ming and Qing imperial examination archives, local chronicles, and literati diaries as core historical materials, combined with quantitative statistics and text analysis methods, to explore the mechanism of the impact of educational content and form on social core values and group psychology, aiming to provide a new perspective for exploring the modern value of traditional education. Methods The study selected local chronicles from 286 counties in 13 provinces during the Ming and Qing dynasties, 432 imperial examination answer sheets, 156 literary diaries, and 307 family education records as research samples, including different educational levels and regions. Using content analysis method to encode core textbooks and answer texts such as "Annotations to the Four Books, Chapters and Sentences," and extract values keywords; Use historical demographic methods to analyze the correlation data between sample education level, occupation, and social behavior. The study first uses bibliometric methods to screen representative historical materials, removing non first-hand materials with a credibility of less than 85%; Then use Nvivo software to encode the values dimension of the text; Finally, correlation analysis was conducted using SPSS to explore the correlation between education years, scores of various values, and psychological representations. Results Data shows that among those who receive systematic Confucian education, 83% of respondents list "loyalty to the monarch and filial piety" as their core values, which is much higher than the 21% of those who have not received formal education; There is a significant positive correlation (r = 0.76, p<.01) between the length of education and the value of valuing righteousness over profit. The score of this dimension is 2.3 times higher for the Jinshi group than for the Tongsheng group. On a psychological level, the frequency of scholars and above mentioning adversity and striving in their diaries is 3.1 times higher than that of young students per year, and the frequency of expressing anxiety about fame and achievements in the juren class is 1.8 times higher than that of the Jinshi group. Discussion The research results indicate that traditional education has a strong shaping power on social values, and the cultivation model of both morality and talent has reference significance for contemporary moral education. Psychological phenomena such as fame anxiety provide a historical mirror for modern education pressure relief. The limitation of this study lies in the insufficient attention paid to folk education forms such as private schools, free schools, and clan education in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Future research can explore the value transmission path of grassroots education by sorting out first-hand materials such as local clan account books and private school teaching logs.