2022 Volume 93 Issue 2 Pages 89-99
We investigated the relationships between the sense of acceptance by a communication partner and the degree of familiarity with that partner, and the effects of university students’ and older adults’ personalities on the strength of their relationships. The participants played the Settoku Nattoku game, the persuasive game. After each session, the persuader rated their familiarity with the persuaded partner and the degree to which they felt that the partner accepted them. The results of Hierarchical Linear Modeling indicated that familiarity with the partner was positively related to the sense of acceptance in university students. This relationship was stronger among people with typical East Asian psychological tendencies, including high interdependence. Older adults had a higher sense of acceptance than university students, whereas familiarity with the partner was not related to their sense of acceptance. Moreover, the sense of acceptance was higher among older adults who preferred a firm yes or no. These results suggest that Japanese elderly who were free of cultural norms had a high sense of acceptance, regardless of who their communication partners were.
