国際誌論文データベース

Ishii, K.（石井敬子）, Kim, H. S., Joni Y. Sasaki, J. S., Shinada, M. （品田瑞穂）, & Kusumi, I. (2014).
Culture modulates sensitivity to the disappearance of facial expressions associated with serotonin transporter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR)
Culture and Brain, March 2014
doi: 10.1007/s40167-014-0014-8

The present research investigated an association between the serotonin transporter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) and sensitivity to the disappearance of facial expressions cross-culturally and found, for the first time, that cultural norms and practices modulate the association. Participants watched both happy-to-neutral and sad-to-neutral movies and judged the point at which the emotional expressions disappeared. As predicted, the results showed that Japanese with the s/s genotype detected the disappearance of facial expressions (particularly the disappearance of smiles) with greater perceptual efficiency than did those with s/l and l/l genotypes, whereas such a tendency was not found in Americans. This suggests that people with the s/s genotype of 5-HTTLPR are more sensitive to environmental changes, but only when the change is culturally important, compared to people with the long allele. Moreover, Asian Americans’ pattern was much more similar to European Americans than to Japanese, supporting the idea that the differences between cultural groups are indeed due to different cultural experiences.

Shiratori, Y., Tachikawa, H., Nemoto, K., Endo, G., Aiba, M.（相羽美幸）, Matsui, Y.（松井豊）, & Asada, T. (2014).
Network analysis for motives in suicide cases: A cross-sectional study.
Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. Article first published online 
doi: 10.1111/pcn.12132

Suicide victims have various distresses or motives. There are few studies on how these motives toward suicide relate with each other. We used network analyses to extract the structures of correlations among the motives for suicide.

We obtained datasets of suicide victims from 2007–2009 in Japan in cooperation with Ibaraki Prefectural Police Headquarters. The data were analyzed by network centrality measures and a structural analysis by block modeling.

Among the motives, depression and physical illness showed relatively high scores of ‘degree centrality’, whereas depression and unemployment showed relatively high scores of ‘betweenness centrality’. Structural analysis by block modeling resulted in eight blocks. The most important block comprised eight motives, including conflict between parent and child, marital conflict, economic hardship, and overloaded with debt.

Depression and physical illness were important and priority areas for completed suicides, although these two motives had different influences on suicide behaviors. Furthermore, structural analysis revealed the important role of a block, including some familial and financial motives, which induced hopelessness. Our results suggest that it might be useful to consider the common ways in which motivations for suicide are tied together when suicide intervention is launched from a social model point of view.”

Watanabe, T., Takezawa, M.(竹澤正哲),　Nakawake, Y.(中分遥), Kunimatsu, A., Yamasue, H., Nakamura, M., Miyashita, Y., & Masuda, N. (2014).
Two distinct neural mechanisms underlying indirect reciprocity.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Published ahead of print March 3, 2014
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1318570111

マイナビニュース：共感こそが見返りのない他人への親切を行う鍵!? – 北大が恩送りの謎を解明 

Goto,　N.(後藤伸彦), Jetten, J., Karasawa, M.(唐沢穣), & Hornsey, M. J. (2014).
The Sins of Their Fathers: When Current Generations Are Held to Account for the Transgressions of Previous Generations.
Political Psychology, Article first published online: 12 FEB 2014.
doi: 10.1111/pops.12172

When are current generations held accountable for transgressions committed by previous generations? In two studies, we test the prediction that current generations will only be assigned guilt for past atrocities when victim group members perceive high levels of cultural continuity between historical perpetrators and the current generation within the perpetrator group. Japanese participants were presented with information describing the current generation of Americans as either similar or dissimilar in personality to the Americans who were implicated in dropping the atomic bomb on Japan during World War II. The results of both studies revealed that victim group members assigned more guilt to current Americans when they perceived high (compared to low) outgroup continuity, and they did so relatively independently of the transgressor group’s guilt expressions.

Ohtsubo, Y.(大坪庸介), Matsumura, A., Noda, C., Sawa, E., Yagi, A.(八木彩乃), &Yamaguchi, M.(山口真奈) (in press).
It’s the Attention That Counts: Interpersonal Attention Fosters Intimacy and Social Exchange.
Evolution and Human Behavior, 35(3), 237-244.
doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.02.004

Human friendship poses an evolutionary puzzle, since people behave more generously toward their friends than the tit-for-tat strategy stipulates. A possible explanation is that people selectively behave in a generous manner toward their true friends, but not toward fair-weather friends. Social psychological studies have suggested that people use a partner’s attentiveness toward them as a cue to distinguish these two types of friends. Accordingly, it was hypothesized that people would increase their intimacy with a partner who was attentive to them. This hypothesis was tested by disentangling the frequent confounding between a partner’s attention and the benefits provided by the attentive partner in two scenario experiments (Studies 1a and 1b) and three laboratory experiments (Studies 2a to 2c). In Study 1, a partner’s attentiveness was manipulated independently of the benefit provided by the partner. In Study 2, the partner’s attention was experimentally dissociated from any potential benefit. These studies consistently showed that the participants increased their intimacy with a partner when they received attention from the partner. This result implies that models of the evolution of friendship must incorporate information exchange regarding the valuation of the relationship, as well as the exchange of fitness-related costs and benefits.

Hitokoto, H., & Uchida, Y. (内田由紀子) (2014).
Interdependent Happiness: Theoretical Importance and Measurement Validity.
Journal of Happiness Studies, 1-29.
doi: 10.1007/s10902-014-9505-8

We proposed the concept of “interdependent happiness,” which is interdependently pursued and attained. A nine-item Interdependent Happiness Scale (IHS) was developed to measure the happiness of individuals who are relationally oriented, quiescent and ordinary. Interdependent happiness correlated with both subjective well-being (SWB) and interdependent self-construal among Japanese students (Study 1); their SWB was more likely to be explained by IHS than the SWB of American students (Study 2); and IHS explained the SWB of working adults in the US, Germany, Japan, and Korea (Study 3) and Japanese adults and elders from collectivist regions of the country (Study 4). Cultural and cross-cultural psychological perspectives were incorporated to shed new light on collective happiness