Vol.25,No.2 November, 2009

Title

Who are the managers of the commons? : Legitimacy of actors in the red clay flow problem in Okinawa

Author

Hiroshi NONAMI (Kwansei Gakuin University)
Junzo KATO (University of the Ryukyus)
Kazuya NAKAYACHI (Doshisha University)

Summary

The present research investigated the legitimacy of actors that participate in managing natural resources as commons, and the determinants of their legitimacy. Legitimacy was defined as the approvability of the rights of others and the self, to participate in the management of the commons. Traits that actors expected of managers were highlighted as the determinants of legitimacy. We examined the effects of three traits: expertise, partyship, and locality. A questionnaire survey targeted three actors-farmers, fishermen, and other workers-involved in the red clay flow problem that has damaged the local sea in Ginoza village, in Okinawa. As a result, the legitimacy of farmers and fishermen was higher than that of civil servants. Results also indicated that the parties to the problem were more favored as managers than the experts, and that the actors favored local community members as managers over experts. Furthermore, the favored traits of managers as determinants of legitimacy were inconsistent among the actors. These suggested that the subjective locations of actors in participating in the control of the red clay flow were different from each other. The contributions of these findings to the expansion of social governance in managing the commons are discussed.

Key words

legitimacy, commons, favorite traits of managers, social governance, natural resources

Title

A study of different trust-generating processes in urban and rural areas

Author

Yusuke INAGAKI (Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University)

Summary

Yamagishi (1998) predicted that the level of general trust in urban areas would be higher than in rural areas based on the emancipation theory of trust. According to this theory, communities in urban areas, in which both social uncertainty and opportunity cost are high should foster high-level general trust. However, there is no difference in the level of general trust between urban areas and rural areas according to recent surveys conducted in Japan. These results contradict Yamagishi's prediction. This study examines whether and why there is a difference between urban and rural areas in the generating process of general trust. I conducted a mail survey in an urban area (Itabashi Ward in Tokyo) and a rural area (the former Tochio area of Niigata Prefecture) in order to examine the cause of this phenomenon. As a result, some of the analyses suggest that the emancipation theory of trust is likely to be applicable in urban areas; on the other hand, different trust-generating processes are more likely in rural areas.

Key words

general trust, trust-generating process, comparative survey, network

Title

The effects of interpersonal relationships on the motive to share new information or refer to shared information in topic selection

Author

Kazunori INAMASU (Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University of Tokyo: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science)
Ken'ichi IKEDA (Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University of Tokyo)

Summary

In this research, the effects of interpersonal relationships, psychological intimacy, and frequency of conversation on the motive to share new information or refer to shared information were examined by means of a survey using topic selections of conversation. There are contradictory findings in previous research on whether intimacy promotes referring to shared information or unshared information, as the studies confuse psychological intimacy and frequency of interaction. The results of our sampling survey showed that psychological intimacy increased topic selection based on the motive to share new information while frequency of conversations increased topic selection based on the motive to refer to shared information. In addition, psychological intimacy and frequency of conversations had an interaction effect on topic selection based on the motive to share new information. The results indicate that psychological intimacy and frequency of interaction should be distinguished, as this will assist in eliminating the confusion in previous studies.

Key words

information sharing, collective information sampling bias, topic of conversation

Title

Interdependent self as a form of self-presentation in response to a threat of exclusion from the group

Author

Chisato TAKAHASHI, Toshio YAMAGISHI and Hirofumi HASHIMOTO (Graduate School of Letters, Hokkaido University)

Summary

We tested a hypothesis that responses to the Singelis' (1994) interdependent self scale would be enhanced after being exposed to an "exclusion game" -a social dilemma game with an option for excluding uncooperative members. Thirty-nine participants were assigned to one of two conditions. In the self-presentation condition, participants were told that their responses to the interdependence scale would be revealed to other participants after the experiment. In the control condition, participants were assured that their responses would be anonymous. The average interdependence score increased after experiencing the exclusion game in the self-presentation condition, and decreased in the control condition. These findings show that people come to present themselves to others as being more interdependent after being exposed to a social situation in which they face a threat of rejection from their peers.

Key words

self-presentation, self-construal, interdependent self

Title

The effects of Internet behavior and attitudes on sociability and aggression: An examination of weblogs and online-games

Author

Kei FUJI and Fujio YOSHIDA (Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, University of Tsukuba)

Summary

The relationship of Internet behavior to sociability and aggression in real life was investigated in a web-based survey. Weblog users (n=395) and online-game users (n=206) were asked to respond to questionnaires that included their behavior on the Internet, as well as to scales that measured real-life sociability, aggression, and social isolation. Results indicated that Self-reflection on weblogs and Feeling of Belonging during online-games related to enhancement of sociability. By contrast, Internet behavior such as flaming, as well as immersive and addictive use, related to decrease of sociability and increase of aggression regardless of the type of application that was used. These findings suggest that the effects of weblogs and online-games use depend on the type of behavior, as well as the types of application, that are used. It is also suggested that social isolation in real life decreased sociability through immersive and addictive use, and increased aggression through flaming.

Key words

Internet, sociability, aggression, weblog, online-game

Title

The relationship between the significance of others and the strength of the linkage between self-representation and other-representation

Author

Tatsunori ISHII (Graduate School of Human Sciences, Sophia University)

Summary

This research examined the hypothesis that the strength of the linkage between self-representa- tion and other-representation varies as a function of the significance of the other people involved in the linkage by analysis of the task facilitation paradigm (Klein et al., 1992) and analysis using an implicit effect of self-representation (Smith et al., 1999). An experiment using friends and fathers for the target persons was conducted with 51 participants. As a result, the strength of the linkage between self-with-father-representation and father-representation varied as a function of the degree of significance of the father. On the other hand, there was a strong linkage between self-with-friend-representation and friend-representation even though the degree of significance of the friend was low. It was thought that these results differ because the meaning of significance was different for father and friend. Moreover, we found a linkage between the father-representation and self-with-friend-representation. The results suggest that further examinations of the factors which determine self-other representation linkage are necessary.

Key words

self-representation, other-representation, significant other, task facilitation paradigm, implicit effect

Title

The effects of consistent judgments and egocentric bias on the perceived fairness of the judgment by the person concerned and the perception of the judge by the person concerned

Author

Kotaro HARADA (Faculty of Literature, Tokushima Bunri University)

Summary

It has generally been expected that inconsistent judgments would have a negative influence on their perceived fairness, and that egocentric bias would force perceivers to make a more positive response to favorable outcomes than to unfavorable ones. In consequence, perceivers with favorable outcomes derived from inconsistent judgments would impair the perceived fairness less than perceivers with unfavorable outcomes. Thus, we can anticipate that this interaction would also be observed in the case of perception of the judge, for the perceived fairness can be considered to correlate with perception of the judge. We had under graduate students (N=270) participating in this study. The results of Analysis 1 supported the effect of consistent judgments, though it did not show the effect of egocentric bias and the interaction we had expected so far. However, the result of Analysis 2, employing a stratified correlation analysis, revealed that egocentric bias could be observed in the perceivers with unfavorable outcomes derived from inconsistent judgments. These findings suggest that framing could be a factor in the appearance of egocentric bias.

Key words

perceived fairness, procedural justice, consistency, egocentric bias

Title

What is the knowledge-sharing community? : A content analysis of posted Q&A and users' perspectives on the community

Author

Asako MIURA (School of Humanities, Kwansei Gakuin University)
Yasuyuki KAWAURA (Faculty of Communication Studies, Tokyo Keizai University)

Summary

This study focused on an online knowledge-sharing community, in which information was exchanged and accumulated actively in the community based on the question-and-answer interaction of users. We examined its characteristics by text mining, one of the most effective methods for the content analysis of enormous quantities of text-based data. Based on an analysis of posted questions and answers, the same gender difference as in previous studies on interpersonal communicative discourse was found. Female users tended to post questions and answers related to their interpersonal relationships. Based on an analysis of their perspectives on the community, it was suggested that many users positively evaluated the usefulness of the community and did not hesitate to post questions and answers. These attitudes of users toward the community should lead to their positive evaluation of both the overall community and the communication made there, as pointed out by Miura and Kawaura (2008).

Key words

knowledge-sharing community, content analysis, text mining, perspective on community, gender difference