国際誌論文データベース

Ogihara, Y. (荻原祐二) (2020).
Baby names in Japan, 2004–2018: common writings and their readings.
日本における新生児の名前, 2004-2018: 一般的な表記とその読み
BMC Research Notes, 13, 553.
doi: 10.1186/s13104-020-05409-3

Objectives: To conduct empirical research on Japanese names, actual name data including both writings and readings are necessary. However, there was no database available that met these conditions. Therefore, in the present article, I provided raw data of approximately 8000 names of Japanese babies born between 2004 and 2018. Data description: The data include common writings of baby names and their readings generated from annual surveys on baby names conducted by a Japanese private company. The data have advantages: (1) they include both writings and readings of baby names, (2) they were collected under the same conditions over 15 years, (3) their sample sizes are relatively large, and (4) they are open to the public. In contrast, the data have limitations: their samples are neither highly representative nor very large. Overall, this article will be useful for empirical research on Japanese names and people in general (especially for medical and educational service workers).

https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-020-05409-3

Ueshima, A. (上島淳史), Mercier, H, & Kameda, T. (亀田達也) (2021).
Social deliberation systematically shifts resource allocation decisions by focusing on the fate of the least well-off.
資源分配について話し合うことは恵まれない⼈への配慮を⾼める
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 92, 104067.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104067

How much inequality should be tolerated? How should the poorest be treated? Though sometimes conflated, concerns about inequality and the fate of the poorest involve different allocation principles with different sociopolitical implications. We tested whether deliberation—the core of democracy—influences reasoning about distributive principles. 322 participants faced allocation decisions for others between egalitarian (low variance in allocation), utilitarian (high total amount), and maximin (maximizing the welfare of the poorest) options. After their initial decisions, participants either reflected upon similar decisions solely or discussed them in pairs before facing the same choices again individually. Social, but not solitary, deliberation led to more maximin and fewer egalitarian choices, and this change lasted at least 5 months after the experiment. Conversation analyses of approximately 7500 utterances suggest that some participants initially made egalitarian choices heuristically, when in fact they mostly cared about the poorest, and dialogue promoted more internally coherent maximin preferences.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103120304078

Maeda, K. (前田楓), & Hashimoto, H. (橋本博文) (2020).
Time pressure and in-group favoritism in a minimal group paradigm.
タイムプレッシャーが最小条件集団パラダイムにおける集団内協力行動に及ぼす効果
Frontiers in Psychology, 11:603117. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.603117

Based on the group heuristic model and the model of intuitive cooperation, we hypothesized that in-group favoritism would be conspicuously shown through an intuitive process. To test this hypothesis, we utilized a minimal group paradigm, which is traditionally used in social psychological studies, and manipulated decision time in a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma game to compare the cooperative contribution level toward in-group and out-group members under three conditions: intuitive, empathic deliberation, and rational deliberation. Our findings confirmed that in-group favoritism was clearly shown in the intuitive condition only, suggesting that the intuitive cooperation model may only be valid in the context of social exchange with in-group members. Additional analysis also showed that in-group favoritism disappeared for participants who had been forced into empathic or rational deliberation for decision making. The theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.603117/full

Ito, T. (伊藤健彦) (2020)
The influence of networks of general trust on willingness to communicate in English for Japanese people.
一般的信頼のネットワークが日本人の英語Willingness to Communicateに与える影響 
Scientific Reports 10, 19939. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77108-9

This study investigates the effect of a network of general trust on the willingness to communicate in English among Japanese people. Previous studies have shown that general trust positively affects the willingness to communicate in English for Japanese people. However, the network structure of general trust and its effects have not yet been revealed. The present study conducted a network analysis with 761 Japanese university students and 601 Japanese social survey participants, for 1362 participants total. Four variables regarding general trust positively affected the willingness to communicate in English for all participants, whereas one variable had a negative effect if each network was estimated for only university students or social survey participants. Centrality indices, such as node strength, closeness, and expected influence, revealed the centrality of several variables in the network of all participants. Bootstrapping methods showed the trustworthiness of the estimated edges and centrality indices. Contrary to the regression analysis, the network analysis can help us understand the profound effect of general trust on the willingness to communicate in a second language, which will prove useful for intervention studies.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77108-9

Nakayama, M.（中山真孝）, & Uchida, Y.（内田由紀子） (2020).
Meaning of awe in Japanese (con) text: Beyond fear and respect.
日本語におけるAweの意味：恐れと敬いとの弁別性
Psychologia. 62(1)
https://doi.org/10.2117/psysoc.2020-B004

Awe is theorized as an emotion appraised by perceived vastness and need for accommodation. This theoretical framework was developed with a review of spatially and temporally distributed literature mostly in the American and European cultural context, and is assumed to be culturally universal. However, awe as described by Japanese literature, was not explicitly included in the original theorization. We tested whether this framework generalized to the Japanese context by analyzing how Japanese awe-related words (e.g., “畏敬/ikei”) are used in Japanese text. A topic model was used to extract topics in contexts as an index of meaning. Results show that (1) the meaning of awe was statistically dissociable from similar but distinct meanings of fear and respect, and (2) the dissociating topics included transcendent entities such as god, spirits/ghosts, and powerful beings. Japanese meaning of awe includes vastness (i.e., transcendence) that goes beyond typical respect (i.e., power distance) requiring an accommodation of one’s mental framework.

満天の星空を見上げて自然の美しさ雄大さを感じたり、地震や台風などの自然の脅威を目の当たりにして畏れおののき、人生観や世界観が変わる。このような体験で経験される感情はAweとして研究がされています。しかし、それら研究は欧米での研究が中心であり、Awe感情の意味が文化的に普遍であるか、特に日本語における「畏怖」・「畏敬」・「畏れ」といった言葉の意味と同じであるか、わかっていませんでした。
そこで本論文では、大規模な日本語コーパスをトピックモデルと呼ばれる手法で分析し、Awe関連語の意味を推定しました。特に、「恐怖」や「敬い」といった類義語との意味を比較し、それらとは異なる意味であること、つまり、単なる恐怖や敬いを超えた感情であることを示しました。またその意味は、独自な意味を持ちつつも、恐怖と敬いの中間的な位置を占め、それらが入り混じった感情概念でもあることを示しました。

本論文はフリーアクセスですので、どなたでもご覧頂けます。

Nakayama, M.（中山真孝）, Nozaki, Y.（野崎優樹）, Taylor, P. M., Keltner, D., & Uchida, Y.（内田由紀子） (2020). 
Individual and cultural differences in predispositions to feel positive and negative aspects of awe.
特性的ポジティブAweと特性的ネガティブAweの個人差と文化差
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022120959821

Psychological research on awe has largely focused on its positive dimensions, both in terms of the experiential state of awe and individual trait-based predispositions to awe experience. Little is known, however, about awe’s negative-valence dimensions, such as individual tendencies to experience awe as threatening. To gain a broader understanding of awe, the current study investigates individual predispositions to feel negative aspects of awe (i.e., threat) and positive aspects of awe (e.g., beauty) and examines how these two tendencies are interrelated. Additionally, this study uses both Japanese and US samples to explore whether predispositions to feel awe vary across cultures. Two studies (total N = 1245) suggests that in both Japanese and US samples, predispositions to feel positive and negative aspects of awe were separable. However, there were cultural differences: North Americans were more predisposed to feel positive aspects than Japanese, and the predispositions to feel positive and negative aspects were positively correlated for Japanese, but not North Americans. This contributes to a better understanding of how the valence of awe may be influenced by culturally-mediated patterns of affect.

満天の星空を見上げて自然の美しさ雄大さを感じたり、地震や台風などの自然の脅威を目の当たりにして畏れおののき、人生観や世界観が変わる。このような体験で経験される感情はAwe（日本語で畏怖・畏敬など）として研究がされています。しかし、それら研究は欧米での研究が中心であり、Awe感情が文化からどのように影響を受けるかはほとんど分かっていませんでした。

そこで、本論文では、Awe感情の意味合いがポジティブかネガティブかという観点からAwe感情の文化差の検討をAwe感情の感じやすさの個人差という観点から行いました。その結果、北米では日本と比べてポジティブなAweを感じやすい一方で、日本ではAweはポジティブなものであると同時にネガティブなものでもあるという混合感情として感じられていることが示されました。

Hamada, D., Nakayama, M（中山真孝）. & Saiki, J. (2020) Wisdom of crowds and collective decision-making in a survival situation with complex information integration.
複雑な情報統合が必要なサバイバル状況における群衆の智慧と集団意思決定
Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications 5, 48.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00248-z

Background
The wisdom of crowds and collective decision-making are important tools for integrating information between individuals, which can exceed the capacity of individual judgments. They are based on different forms of information integration. The wisdom of crowds refers to the aggregation of many independent judgments without deliberation and consensus, while collective decision-making is aggregation with deliberation and consensus. Recent research has shown that collective decision-making outperforms the wisdom of crowds. Additionally, many studies have shown that metacognitive knowledge of subjective confidence is useful for improving aggregation performance. However, because most of these studies have employed relatively simple problems; for example, involving general knowledge and estimating values and quantities of objects, it remains unclear whether their findings can be generalized to real-life situations involving complex information integration. This study explores the performance and process of the wisdom of crowds and collective decision-making by applying the wisdom of crowds with weighted confidence to a survival situation task commonly used in studies of collective decision-making.

Results
The wisdom of crowds and collective decision-making outperformed individual judgment. However, collective decision-making did not outperform the wisdom of crowds. Contrary to previous studies, weighted confidence showed no advantage from comparison between confidence-weighted and non-weighted aggregations; a simulation analysis varying in group size and sensitivity of confidence weighting revealed interaction between group size and sensitivity of confidence weighting. This reveals that it is because of small group size and not the peculiarity of the survival task that results in no advantage of weighted confidence.

Conclusions
The study’s findings suggest that the wisdom of crowds could be applicable to complex problem-solving tasks, and interaction between group size and sensitivity of confidence weighting is important for confidence-weighted aggregation effects.

Significance Statement
The growth and prevalence of the Internet has resulted in an unprecedented system for gathering a large number of individual opinions. This system allows us to aggregate independent information and communicate face-to-face in online chat rooms. Correctly understanding and utilizing the wisdom of crowds, which aggregates information without consensus, and collective decision-making, which aggregates information with consensus, are urgent modern tasks to improve problem-solving efficiency, both in tasks with correct answers in open-ended tasks dependent on expert knowledge. Unlike most previous studies, which have addressed relatively simple problems, this study investigates the performance and process of the wisdom of crowds through a survival situation task involving complex information integration, and additionally compares with weighted subjective confidence and collective decision-making. The findings demonstrate the effective performance of the wisdom of crowds and collective decision-making and an effect of weighted confidence in interaction between group size and sensitivity of confidence weighting. This suggests that the wisdom of crowds can be applied and generalized to complex real-life situations. Weighted confidence based on large group size is compatible with a system that can collect a large number of opinions. Thus, this study expands the potential application of the wisdom of crowds to real-life problems involving complex information integration.

我々は日々意思決定を行なっています。個人が意思決定をするだけでなく、政府・会社組織といった集団での意思決定は日々の重要な位置を占めています。こういった意思決定では複雑な情報を統合した高度な判断が求められます。しかしながらこれまでの集団（合議）による意思決定の研究や「群衆の知恵」とよばれる複数の個人の判断を集約して意思決定を行うアルゴリズムの研究は、比較的単純な課題（例：牛の体重の見積もり）に限られていました。

本論文では、NASA月面サバイバル課題とよばれる複雑な意思決定課題を用いて、個人による意思決定と、集団による意思決定、集約アルゴリズムによる意思決定を比較しました。その結果、複雑な課題においても、個人による意思決定よりも集団による意思決定や集約アルゴリズムによる意思決定の方が、成績が良いことを示しました。また集約アルゴリズムがうまく働く条件もシミュレーションを用いて検討しました。

なお、本論文はオープンアクセスですので、どなたでもお読みいただけます。

Hiraoka, D.（平岡大樹）, Nishitani, S., Shima, K., Kasaba, R., Fujisawa, T. X.,（藤澤隆史）& Tomoda, A. (2021)
Epigenetic modification of the oxytocin gene is associated with gray matter volume and trait empathy in mothers
オキシトシン遺伝子メチル化と母親の共感性・灰白質体積の関連
Psychoneuroendocrinology, 123
doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2020.105026

Mother’s empathy is an important ability for parenting behavior. Many studies have confirmed that oxytocin affects empathy, but the epigenetic background of oxytocin in maternal empathy has not yet been examined. This study examined the relationship between the oxytocin gene methylation and empathy in mothers of children in early childhood. Additionally, in order to understand a comprehensive mechanism, we also investigated changes in gray matter volume as a function of oxytocin gene methylation and empathy. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index was used to assess cognitive and affective dimensions of empathy of the 57 mothers who participated in this study. Genetic data were collected via saliva samples and analyzed to quantify DNA methylation of oxytocin gene. Gray matter volumes were investigated by means of voxel-based morphometry across the whole brain. A positive correlation was found between oxytocin gene methylation and Personal Distress, an aspect of affective empathy. Moreover, we found an inverse correlation between oxytocin gene methylation and the volume of the right inferior temporal gyrus. In a relationship with oxytocin gene methylation and empathy, the indirect effect of the inferior temporal gyrus gray matter volumes was not significant. Our findings provide empirical evidence for an epigenetic mechanism linking the oxytocin gene, structural variation of brain, and empathy in mothers. Taken together, the current imaging epigenetic findings shed new light on the understanding of the epigenetic basis of oxytocin and parental empathy.

Ogihara, Y. (荻原祐二) (2020).
Unique names in China: Insights from research in Japan—Commentary: Increasing need for uniqueness in contemporary China: Empirical evidence.
中国における個性的な名前: 日本の研究からの洞察—コメント論文: 現代中国における個性欲求の増加: 実証的証拠
Frontiers in Psychology, 11: 2136.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02136

By comparing naming practices between China and Japan, I propose three suggestions on Cai et al.’s (2018) Study 2, which examined historical changes in baby names in China. Their study found that the average daily frequencies of Chinese characters used in baby names decreased between 1950 and 2009. The authors concluded that unique names increased for this period and suggested a rise in the need for uniqueness and individualism in China. However, there are three questions that have remained unanswered. First, did the Chinese characters that were used in names indeed become more unique over time? Second, did the number of Chinese characters in names increase over time? Third, did the reading (pronunciation) of names become more unique over time? Answering these three questions would further increase the validity and impacts of the article and contribute to a better understanding of cultural changes in China.

Hiraoka, D.(平岡大樹), Ooishi, Y., Mugitani, R., & Nomura, M.(野村理朗) (2020).
Relationship between oxytocin and maternal approach behaviors to infants’ vocalizations.
母親の唾液オキシトシンと乳児音声手掛かりに対する接近行動との関連
Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology,4
doi: 10.1016/j.cpnec.2020.100010

Infants communicate their emotions to caregivers mainly through vocalizations. Research has shown that maternal oxytocin levels relate to adaptive parenting; however, little empirical research exists regarding the effects of endogenous oxytocin levels on maternal responses to infant vocalizations. Thus, in this study, we examined the relationship between mothers’ salivary oxytocin levels, subjective feelings, and behavioral response to infants’ emotional vocalizations. Additionally, we examined the relationship between psychological traits and maternal behavioral responses to infant vocalizations. In this study, 39 mothers were asked to stand on a balance board while listening to infant vocalization stimuli, to measure movements of their center of pressure, an index of approach-avoidance behavior. Sixty infant vocalizations (laughter, crying, and neutral) were presented for six seconds each. Afterwards, participants were asked to rate their subjective responses to each stimulus (not aroused – aroused, displeased – pleased, not urgent – urgent, and healthy – sick). Maternal oxytocin levels were negatively correlated with anterior movement of the center of pressure in response to infants’ crying and babbling vocalizations, though no relationship was found between maternal approach-avoidance behavior toward infant laughter and oxytocin levels. This study indicated that maternal approach behavior toward infant vocalizations varies as a function of maternal endogenous oxytocin and the type of infant vocalization.