国際誌論文データベース

Yu, Y.-Y.（兪 叶韵） & Ohtsubo, Y.（大坪庸介） (2015).
The implicit association between pride and social status in Japan.
日本におけるプライド感情と社会的地位の間の潜在的連合について
Letters on Behavioral Social Science
doi: 10.5178/lebs.2015.38

Pride is considered to be an emotion related to the attainment of status. People (at least in Canada and Fiji) implicitly associate the pride expression with high status. In a series of four implicit association test (IAT) studies, we explored the implicit association between the pride expression and high status in Japan. Study 1 showed that Japanese participants readily associate the pride expression with high status, and the shame/embarrassment expression with low status. Study 2a, furthermore, confirmed that the pride-high status association is not driven by the shame-low status association, while Study 2b revealed that the pride-high status association cannot be explained by a simple association of pride with general positivity. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated that Japanese participants readily associate the pride expression with high status jobs, and thus conceptually replicated Study 1. Collectively, these studies provide evidence that East Asian people associate the expression of pride with high status.

Oishi, S., Kimura, R.（木村玲欧）, Hayashi, H.（林春男）, Tatsuki, S., Tamura, K., Ishii, K.（石井敬子） & Tucker, J.  (2015).
Psychological adaptation to the Great Hanshin-Awazi Earthquake of 1995: 16 years later victims still report lower levels of subjective well-being.
阪神淡路大震災への心理的適応：16年後もなお被災者の主観的幸福感は低かった
Journal of Research in Personality, 55, 84-90.
doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2015.02.001

We investigated psychological adaptation to the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995, using surveys conducted in 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2011. Respondents whose houses were damaged reported lower life satisfaction, more negative affect, and more health problems than those who did not suffer any damage in all surveys, including in 2011, or 16 years after the earthquake. Likewise, residents with at least one immediate family member who died in the earthquake reported lower life satisfaction, more negative affect, and more health problems than those who did not have any immediate family members killed in all surveys, including in 2011. Surprisingly, the effect of housing damage on subjective well-being remained significant, above and beyond human loss. Equally important, the 2011 survey data showed that pre-existing differences in socioeconomic status between the victims of housing damage and human loss did not change our main findings.

Nishina, K.（仁科国之）, Takagishi, H.（高岸治人）, Inoue-Murayama, M., Takahashi, H., & Yamagishi, T.（山岸俊男） (2015).
Polymorphism of the Oxytocin Receptor Gene Modulates Behavioral and Attitudinal Trust among Men but Not Women.
オキシトシン受容体の遺伝子多型は行動/態度信頼を調節する．ただし，男性に限る．
PLOS ONE.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0137089

A relationship between the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and behavioral and attitudinal trust has been suggested, but the nature of this relationship has not yet been established. We obtained behavioral trust data from 470 Japanese participants (242 women) aged 20–59 years, together with their levels of general trust and personality traits (NEO-FFI). Saliva buccal swabs were collected from 411 of these 470 participants and used for genotyping of OXTR rs53576. Our participants were found to have more AA alleles (40%) than GG alleles (12%). The GG men were more trusting and also rated higher on attitudinal trust than AA men, and this difference did not diminish when personality traits were controlled for. However, this pattern was not observed among women. In addition, controlling for attitudinal trust reduced the difference in behavioral trust among men to a non-significant level, but the difference in attitudinal trust remained significant when behavioral trust was controlled. These results indicate that the OXTR genotype affects attitudinal trust as part of an individual’s relatively stable disposition, and further affects behavioral trust through changes in attitudinal trust.

Takemura, K.（竹村幸祐）, & Suzuki, S (2015).
Self-expression and relationship formation in high relational mobility environments: A study of dual users of American and Japanese social networking sites.
関係流動性の高い環境での自己表現と関係形成：日米SNS利用者の研究
International Journal of Psychology.
doi: 10.1002/ijop.12208

This study proposes that self-expression motivation, an aspect of independent/individualistic psychological tendencies, aids in the formation of social relationships when social relationships are open and mobile. In societies characterised by high relational mobility (e.g., North America), which creates market-like competition in social relationships, individuals must express their uniqueness and worthiness to form new social relationships. Self-expression motivation has a relatively weak effect on relationship formation in low relational mobility societies (e.g., Japan), where social relationships are generally predetermined. This hypothesis was examined and supported through a study on dual users of two social networking sites—Facebook and Mixi (the “Facebook of Japan”). As expected, relational mobility was higher on Facebook than on Mixi. Moreover, the association between self-expression motivation and the number of new friends met on Facebook/Mixi was more positive for Facebook than it was for Mixi. The social functionality of independent tendencies is then discussed.

Falk, C. F., Heine, S. J., Takemura, K.（竹村幸祐）, Zhang, C. X. J., & Hsu, C.-W. (2015).
Are implicit self-esteem measures valid for assessing individual and cultural differences?
潜在的自尊心尺度は個人差・文化差を測定できるか？
Journal of Personality, 83, 56-68.
doi: 10.1111/jopy.12082

Our research utilized two popular theoretical conceptualizations of implicit self-esteem: 1) implicit self-esteem as a global automatic reaction to the self; and 2) implicit self-esteem as a context/domain specific construct. Under this framework, we present an extensive search for implicit self-esteem measure validity among different cultural groups (Study 1) and under several experimental manipulations (Study 2).

In Study 1, Euro-Canadians (N = 107), Asian-Canadians (N = 187), and Japanese (N = 112) completed a battery of implicit self-esteem, explicit self-esteem, and criterion measures. Included implicit self-esteem measures were either popular or provided methodological improvements upon older methods. Criterion measures were sampled from previous research on implicit self-esteem and included self-report and independent ratings. In Study 2, Americans (N = 582) completed a shorter battery of these same types of measures under either a control condition, an explicit prime meant to activate the self-concept in a particular context, or prime meant to activate self-competence related implicit attitudes.

Across both studies, explicit self-esteem measures far outperformed implicit self-esteem measures in all cultural groups and under all experimental manipulations.

Implicit self-esteem measures are not valid for individual or cross-cultural comparisons. We speculate that individuals may not form implicit associations with the self as an attitudinal object.

Ida, T., Takemura, K.（竹村幸祐）, & Sato, M. (2015).
Inner conflict between nuclear power generation and electricity rates: A Japanese case study.
原子力発電と電気料金の内的葛藤：日本の事例研究
Energy Economics, 48, 61-69.
doi: 10.1016/j.eneco.2014.11.019 

Since the March 11 earthquake, Japanese households have been facing a trade-off problem between decreasing dependency on nuclear power generation and avoiding an increase in electricity rates. We analyze this inner conflict quantitatively, adopting two economic–psychological approaches: First, we note that the trade-off causes cognitive dissonance after making a choice that results in a wider desirability gap between the chosen and rejected alternatives. Second, the consumer surplus improves by 11.2% with a no-choice option for suspending judgment in the presence of cognitive dissonance. Third, individual characteristics such as gender and annual household income are significantly correlated with both cognitive dissonance and a preference for the no-choice option.

Takemura, K.（竹村幸祐）, Uchida, Y.（内田由紀子）, & Fujino, M.（藤野正寛） (2014).
Extension officers as social coordinators: Comparisons between agricultural and fishing communities in Japan.
社会的コーディネーターとしての農業普及指導員：日本の農業と漁業コミュニティの比較
Psychologia, 57(4), 245-258.

Literature suggests that social capital, which often promotes human welfare, requires sensitive handling to build and maintain. The current study investigated the role of extension officers (fukyu-shidoin) in Japanese agricultural and fishing communities, who help farmers/fishers in both technical and social matters. Past research found that in Japanese agricultural communities, extension officers’ activities, social skills, and relationships with their colleagues had effects on social capital and problem solving in communities. We conducted a nation-wide survey of fishery extension officers and found that the findings in agricultural communities were largely replicated in fishing communities with only one difference: Officers’ activities to provide a future vision had a positive effect for problem solving in agricultural communities. For fisheries, however, such activities were more effective when the officer had worked for the community for a longer period of time. This could be explained by the higher level of uncertainty in fishing than farming.