2024 Volume 67 Issue 3 Pages 341-363
Based on research trends using the sense of coherence (SOC) concept and based on questions that have arisen while conducting research over the past 20 years, doubts have been raised by researchers in various fields. I critically summarized the essential issues surrounding SOC. SOC research is increasing annually, and the range of research areas is expanding. However, the following problems exist. First, in intervention studies for SOC, mixed reports indicate that the intervention is effective, whereas other reports indicate that it is ineffective. Taking into account publication bias, a possibility is that more experimental results showing no intervention effects exist than are published. Second, although self-concept included in the SOC concept is an Oriental concept, it actually includes many individualistic aspects. Furthermore, when we compared SOC in Japan, Scotland, and Canada, we found that Japanese individuals had overwhelmingly lower SOC scores for the total and subscale scores. Many Japanese people have an interdependent sense of self; therefore, SOC may have been counted at a low level.
