日本社会心理学会

Vol.23,No.2 November, 2007

Title: The effect of threat to self on prejudice toward women: An examination from the perspective of ambivalent sexism theory
Author: Kumiko TAKABAYASHI(Graduate School of Social Sciences, Hitotsubashi University)
Summary: Ambivalent sexism theory suggests that there are two forms of sexism: hostile sexism toward nontraditional women and benevolent sexism toward traditional women. Based on the finding that the threat to self motivates self-affrmation, which leads to stereotyping and prejudice, this study investigated how that threat had an impact on the two above-mentioned forms of prejudice toward women. In study 1, it was predicted that, under the threat, hostile sexists among the male participants were less likely than the nonsexist male participants to evaluate a career-woman favorably on a warmth dimension. This hypothesis was supported. In study 2, it was predicted that, under the threat, the benevolent sexists among the male and female participants were more likely than the nonsexist participants to evaluate a homemaker-oriented woman favorably. On the contrary, when the less benevolent sexist male and female participants felt threatened, they were less likely than the sexist participants to evaluate the women favorably on a warmth dimension. The possibility that the way of expressing gender-prejudiced attitudes became diversified was discussed.
Key words: ambivalent sexism, benevolent sexism, hostile sexism, gender stereotype, self-affrmation

Title: The effects of shared attitudes and behavior on self-effacement
Author: Itaru ISHIGURO (Faculty of Humanity, Hirosaki University)
Fumio MURAKAMI (Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Kobe University)
Summary: “Sharing norms” has rarely been studied directly though it is one of the most important key-concepts in self-effacement research. The present study examined the effects of sharing norms on individual behavior by operationalizing the degree thereof regarding self-effacement. Two levels of sharing were measured: in a personal network and in a social system. It was predicted that both levels of sharing would be positively correlated with individual self-effacement behavior. A mail survey covering 12 local communities in Japan was conducted. The results showed that people engage in self-effacement more frequently when 1) positive evaluation and behavior regarding self-effacement were shared in their personal network and 2) behavior regarding self-effacement was shared in the communities where the respondents live. Sharing in a personal network was also correlated with individual attitude toward self-effacement. We discussed the differences of the roles that sharing in a personal network and social system plays in terms of self-effacement.
Key words: self-effacement, self-presentation, sharing norms, network variables, system variables

Title: The influences of situation-oriented and goal-oriented decision-making on risk-related behavior in a natural disaster
Author: Shoji OHTOMO and Yukio HIROSE (Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University)
Summary: We examined the inconsistency between risk-aversive attitude and behavior, which may be generated by a temporal trap. We hypothesized the two processes involved in risk-related behavior in a natural disaster: a situation-oriented process, which may result in risk behavior, and a goal-oriented process, which is more likely to elicit risk-averse behavior. Based on survey data from 239 undergraduate students, our results confirm that the images associated with risk behavior and the descriptive norm were determinants of the situation-oriented process. On the other hand, risk perception, a risk-aversive attitude, and injunctive norm were determinants of the goal-oriented process. Our model suggests that risk-averse behavior may be inhibited or promoted depending upon which influence is the more salient, the situation-oriented process or the goal-oriented process. Implications for dual processes on risk-related behavior in a natural disaster are also discussed.
Key words: descriptive norm, injunctive norm, theory of planned behavior, prototype model, risk-averse behavior

Title: Relationship between intimacy with friends and processes of interpersonal stress among college students
Author: Tsukasa KATO (Research Fellow of Japan Society for the Promotion Science)
Summary: The main purpose of the present study is to investigate the role of the relationship between the coper and the other party in the process of interpersonal stress. Six hundred and ninety undergraduate students completed the measures of interpersonal relationship (intimacy, similarity perception, self-disclosure, expectation of the role behavior), coping with an interpersonal stressor, and psychological distress. Results indicated that interpersonal relationship influenced the selection of coping behavior and moderated the eｆｆect of coping behavior on psychological distress. Increased closeness was associated with a higher score on positive relationship-oriented coping (e.g., “I tried to promote a better understanding of the other party.”) and a lower score on negative relationship-oriented coping (e.g., “I refused to deal with the other party.”) and postponed-solution coping (e.g., “I let the break-up take its own course.”). These findings suggest that the interpersonal relationship is an important factor for in the interpersonal stress process.
Key words: stress, coping behavior, interpersonal relationship, close relationship

Title: The genesis of resource exchange: A study of rotating savings and credit associations in the Okinawa Islands
Author: Masahiro TSUJIMOTO (Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University)
Miyako KUNIYOSHI (Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Kobe University)
Iwao YOKUDA (Faculty of Law and Letters, University of the Ryukyus)
Summary: In order to examine resource exchange organizations in local communities, we conducted a case study of rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs). In a ROSCA, participants regularly contribute resources to form a fund and distribute it to each participant in a rotation. Based on field research in the Okinawa Islands, the following characteristics were apparent: (1) Selection of participants is based on face-to-face relationships, such that participants know each other, in order to solve the free-rider problem; (2) The materialization of a ROSCA leads, in turn, to the strengthening of face-to-face relationships. We suggest that together, these two characteristics enable participants to maintain and develop a resource exchange. In addition, we describe the life history of one of the participants in order to examine the historical background of ROSCA.
Key words: rotating savings and credit association, resource exchange, cooperation, life history

Title: The effect of food consumption by others on the consumption of food by experimental subjects:The study situation in which the experimenter cannot know how much subjects eat
Author: Mariko YAMASAKI (Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Doshisha University)
Kunio MIDZUNO (Department of Human Psychology, Faculty of Human Studies, Seisen University)
Kenjirou AOYAMA (Department of Psychology, Faculty of Letters, Doshisha University)
Summary: The modeling effect on eating means that the more models eat the more participants eat. Herman, Polivy, & Roth (2003) proposed that participants make the amount of food they consume conform to the consumption of others in order to avoid being seen by others as eating excessively. In this study, in order to create a situation in which participants believe no one can know how much they eat, we did not use the usual model. Instead, feigned leftover food was shown to participants before the tasting test. This leftover food (in amounts large or small) was expected to give participants information on how much other participants had eaten. In one condition, participants were misled to believe that the experimenter could not find out how much food the participants had consumed; in another condition, they were not misled. In the former condition, regardless of how much others eat, participants should eat as much as they like, believing that no one can learn of the amount they consume. Contrary to the prediction, the modeling effect arose in both conditions. These results indicate that the modeling effect cannot be explained entirely by self-presentational concern regarding others.
Key words: eating behavior, modeling, remote model

Title: Holistic attention to context in Japan: A test with non-student adults
Author: Keiko ISHII (Hokkaido University)
Shinobu KITAYAMA (University of Michigan)
Summary: In the present work, we sought to determine whether the tendency to attend holistically to both a focal object and its context, identified among college students in Japan, would extend to non-student adults. We administered two diagnostic tasks of holistic attention to 59 Japanese adults of a wide age range (from 22 to 78). One task assessed the degree to which individuals can ignore emotional vocal context when judging the focal verbal meaning of a spoken word. The other task measured both the degree to which individuals can ignore a square frame (context) when making a judgment of the absolute length of a focal line embedded in the frame and the degree to which they can incorporate the contextual frame information when making a judgment of the proportional length of the focal line vis-a-vis the frame. In both cases, Japanese adults were quite sensitive to the contextual stimuli and, thus, to failing to ignore the vocal context and the contextual frame. Importantly, these eｆｆects were observed regardless of age.
Key words: holistic attention, non-student Japanese adults, vocal Stroop task, framed line test, aging

Title: Context dependency of automatic evaluation for the conditioned attitude object
Author: Mikiya HAYASHI (Faculty of Human Sciences, Matsuyama Shinonome College)
Summary: An experiment (N=32) examined whether an affectively neutral attitude object which always accompanied an affectively positive stimulus in a specific context was automatically evaluated as positive only in that same context. In the acquisition phase, one nonsense shape with a colored background context was paired with positive personality traits. In the alternative condition, the nonsense shape was presented with no background color context and was not paired with any stimulus. In the test phase, the affective priming method used that shape as the prime stimulus. Response latencies for positive target words preceded by the shape with the colored background context as the prime stimulus were shorter than those preceded by the shape with no background context. This result shows that automatic evaluation for an attitude-conditioned object depends on the context that was presented in the acquisition phase.
Key words: evaluative conditioning, attitude formation, automatic evaluation, affective priming

Title: An examination of the promoter of gender role stereotype-activation based on terror management theory
Author: Aya NODERA and Kaori KARASAWA (Graduate School of Enviromental Studies, Nagoya University)
Makoto NUMAZAKI (Graduate School of Humanities, Tokyo Metropolitan University)
Kumiko TAKABAYASHI (Graduate School of Social Sciences, Hitotsubashi University)
Summary: The purpose of this study is to examine the promoting effect of a fear of death on the activation of gender role stereotypes. Terror management theory proposes that when mortality is salient, people heighten the tendency to support their cultural worldview. Since stereotypes are considered to represent cultural worldview, a fear of death should increase the responses consistent with the stereotype. In this study, the activation of stereotypes regarding gender roles (e.g., “Housekeeping is a job for women.”) was measured with an Implicit Association Test (IAT). Participants were 48 male undergraduate and graduate students. The results showed that the participants who completed the questionnaire implying mortality had a larger IAT effect than those who completed the questionnaire unrelated to mortality, and that death-related anxiety led to the activation of gender role stereotypes. It is claimed that terror management theory has theoretical value for studies on stereotype activation, as well as a function in justifying a system such as gender role in stereotype activation.
Key words: stereotype-activation, terror management theory, system justification, gender role, implicit association test