高校生の乗車行動と文化的自己観

抄録

A press often criticises ill-mannered behavior by high school students disturbing smooth traffic flow of crowds of commutation passengers in a train. The problematic behavior is evoked by their group-oriented behavior such as walking sluggishly in a group, gathering just in front of train doors, and securing unnecessary seats.We examined the behavioral characteristics from the viewpoint of cultural-psychological studies on self (e.g., Kitayama, 1995). A questinnaire survey was conducted to clarify the relationship between usual behavior on their way to school and their self image -"independent and interdependent construals of the self." The results showed the following findings. First, their behavior in trains can be classified into four categories. Second, weak "individuality" and high "evaluation apprehension" generate group-centered behavior.Based on these results, the possibility that not only high school students but also college students or even adults have enough potential to ill-mannered collective behavior in a train was discussed because the above two characteristics are dominant in Japanese self constructs for all age groups.