Vol.26,No.2 December, 2010

Title
Factors regulating citizen participation in activities to prevent crime in Japan: Findings from two surveys in Edogawa ward
Author
Naoya TAKAHASHI (Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, University of Tsukuba)
Summary
In Japan, activities to prevent crime by citizens have been encouraged, but are not developing well. Two studies were carried out to examine factors regulating citizen participation in activities to prevent crime in Edogawa ward. In a survey interview of 15 leaders of activity to prevent crime (Study 1), it was suggested that attachment to city, attitude towards activities to prevent crime, indirect support from administration, and mutually beneficial relations with administration led to development of these activities. In a survey of 141 randomly sampled adults (Study 2), people who participated in activities to prevent crime accounted for 14.2% of the total. Among men, participation was determined by the number of organizational affiliations in the community. Intention to participate was promoted by advanced age and high levels of political interest. In women, participation was determined by youth, number of schoolchildren in the family, and communication with neighbors. Intention to participate was restrained by low levels of political interest and absence of high-school children in the family. Implications for activities to prevent crime were discussed from the viewpoint of gender and benefit from activity.
Key words
crime prevention, citizen participation, social network, benefit from activity
Title
Effects of negative experience on affective forecasting : Does experience make people wiser at forecasting others' affective states?
Author
Ema KUWAYAMA (Graduate School of Social Sciences, Hitotsubashi University)
Eriko KUDO (Tokyo Woman's Christian University)
Summary
People are unaware of the psychological processes that attenuate negative feelings, thus resulting in affective forecasting errors. Since people are unaware that these processes work more efficiently during intense negative feelings, they may expect intense negative feelings to last longer than mild ones. This study aimed to elucidate these affective forecasting errors and demonstrate that they occur in the absence of an external need for affect regulation. Additionally, people's predictions of the emotional states of others in the same situation were investigated. Those who only imagined receiving feedback (forecasters) predicted their affective states would be more negative five minutes after very negative feedback than after mildly negative feedback. However, the affective states of those who actually received very negative and mildly negative feedback (experiencers) differed less than those of forecasters and were less negative than the forecasters' predictions. Furthermore, predictions of an average student's feelings indicated that experiencers predicted that an average student's negative affective state would last longer than their own.
Key words
affective forecasting, predicting others' emotional state, durability bias, negative experience
Title
Acceptance of a result by the restraint of relative deprivation: The short-term effect of procedural justice in a civil action
Author
Kei-ichiro IMAZAI (Hokkaido University of Education)
Keiko IMAZAI (Nagoya University)
Summary
Thibaut & Walker (1975) argued that disputants perceive fairness and are satisfied through a procedure which is easy to control because they intend to maximize their interests in a civil action. In such a theory, it is considered that the nature of procedural justice which disputants feel is satisfaction with the self-interest. However, in this study, we predicted that people would distinguish concern for procedural justice from concern for self-interest. The disputant's concern for self-interest would not be unlimited and the impression that the benefit is maximized within fair procedure would repress their feeling of relative deprivation and promote their acceptance of the result. We conducted research on people who engaged in a trial as disputants of civil actions and made an analysis of advantageous respondents, disadvantageous respondents, juridical persons, natural humans, and all respondents. It was confirmed that procedural justice promotes acceptance of a result through the restraint of relative deprivation.
Key words
procedural justice, relative deprivation, control, civil action
Title
A pitfall in a "one and only" relationship: Two processes involving cooperative and uncooperative orientation of romantic partners
Author
Toshihiko SOUMA (Kawaguchi Junior College)
Mitsuhiro URA (Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Science, Hiroshima University)
Summary
Romantic partners often consider their relationship to be distinct from their other relationships. Moreover, it has been shown that this perceived distinctiveness promotes cooperative orientation while individually suppressing uncooperative orientation. How does this perceived distinctiveness of romantic partners affect their adaptation- We conducted a panel survey on two hundred and eighty-five married and unmarried partners. Path analysis and supplemental analyses revealed the working of two independent processes. In one process, the more distinct romantic partners perceive their relationship to be, the more cooperative orientation they can have and the less they suffer violence at the hands of their partner. In the other process, it was found that the more distinct romantic partners perceive their relationship to be, the less uncooperative orientation they can have and the more they suffer violence at the hands of their partner. Further, from the results obtained from this study, we discuss the originality of this study and prevention policies related to domestic violence.
Key words
intimate relationships, perceived distinctiveness, domestic violence
Title
Women's implicit prejudice and stereotyping toward female subgroups
Author
Kumiko TAKABAYASHI (Hitotsubashi University)
Makoto NUMAZAKI (Tokyo Metropolitan University)
Summary
This study investigated how women show prejudice and stereotyping implicitly toward female subgroups. We examined the effects of primed and chronic self-representations on implicit prejudice and implicit stereotyping. We predicted that when self-representation as a traditional woman was more dominant compared to self-representation as a nontraditional woman, participants would regard housewives as more favorable than career women, and would regard the targets as stereotypic. Female participants, who had completed the Scale of Egalitarian Sex Role Attitude (SESRA), were asked to picture the future themselves as a career woman or a housewife. Then they engaged in two types of IAT to measure prejudiced responses and stereotypic responses toward female subgroups. We found that participants who were primed with their self-representations as a traditional woman enhanced implicit stereotypic responses toward female subgroups compared to those who were primed with self-representations as a nontraditional woman. We also found that traditionalists (i.e., those with low evaluations in SESRA) implicitly evaluated housewives more favorably than career women and than egalitarians (i.e., those with high evaluations in SESRA). These results suggested that prejudiced responses and stereotypic responses are independent.
Key words
prejudice, stereotyping, implicit, female subgro
Title
The causes and effects of embarrassment on using or negotiating to use condoms
Author
Masataka HIGUCHI (Graduate School of Education, Hiroshima University)
Nanako NAKAMURA (Center of Research on Human Development and Clinical Psychology, Hyogo University of Teacher Education)
Summary
The proper use of condoms is one of the most effective types of protection against HIV. One of the major factors that negatively affect the use of condoms is embarrassment caused by using or negotiating to use condoms. To clarify the causes and effects of embarrassment on using or negotiating to use condoms, 186 undergraduate student volunteers were investigated. The results showed that patterns of types of embarrassment were unclear when they used or negotiated to use condoms. Moreover, structural equation modeling revealed that the embarrassment felt by males was strongly promoted by apprehension of the partner's evaluation, while the embarrassment felt by females was strongly promoted by vagueness in the kind of guidelines aimed at behavior regarding condom use or negotiation to use condoms. Implications of this study on HIV prevention, especially the intervention method of promoting condom use or negotiation to use condoms, are also discussed.
Key words
HIV prevention, condom, using or negotiating to use condoms, embarrassment, the causes of embarrassment