We investigated the causal relationship between hostility and health status and the function of stress coping as its mediating process, by using structural equation modeling. Seven hundred and twenty-five university students participated in the study. Results show that hostility causes health problems such as somatic symptoms, anxiety/insomnia, social dysfunction, and depression. In men, the frequency of problem-solving coping decreased with increased hostility, and this led to a further exacerbation in social dysfunction. In women, the frequencies of cognitive-reinterpretation and problem-solving coping decreased with increased hostility, and this resulted in a further exacerbation in anxiety/insomnia, social dysfunction, and depression. These results suggest that training to attend to information in the environment and to think rationally, as well as training in problem-solving skills, is important for preventing health problems of hostile people.

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The purpose of this study was to extract the factor structure of “caregiving mastery”, which is defined as affirmative self perceptions of the caregiver, and to examine its effects on mental health. We analyzed data from primary caregivers caring for a 65 year old, or older person with dementia, or a fall of ADL. Confirmatory factor analysis (N=166), extracted two factors: “caregiving role mastery” and “coping efficacy with caregiving”, which had an acceptable goodness of fit index. In addition, structural equation modeling indicated that caregiving mastery had a significant positive relationship with caregiving stressors and a significant negative relationship with caregiver's mental health. These results suggest that maintaining the caregiver's mental health requires the evaluation of positive appraisals of care giving (caregiving mastery), as well as the negative ones (caregiving burden).

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We formulated the hypothesis that self-controlled respiration is a useful relaxation method for mitigating provoked anger. We tested 29 university student participants who were divided into two groups: high AHA (anger, hostility and aggression) and low AHA based on the scores of Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire and the T-anger score in the State-Trait Anger Scale. After provocation using a mirror-drawing task, the subjects were asked either to control their respiration by adjusting it to fit auditory and visual stimuli (RC condition), or to do nothing (NRC condition). The result showed that self-controlled respiration (RC condition) decreased systolic blood pressure and the anger mood, and increased refreshing mood. Changes observed in the NRC condition were smaller than those in the RC condition. We have concluded that self-controlled respiration is a useful relaxation method to decrease both psychological and physiological parameters of anger.

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The purpose of this study was to develop a children's self-efficacy scale for physical activity (CSSP), and to identify the determinants of habitual physical activity. In Study1, the subjects were 455 elementary school children (228 boys and 227 girls) in Grade 4 though 6. The pupils completed a battery of questionnaires in the classroom setting. Results of a principal component analysis indicated that the CSSP had a single-factor structure consisting of 8 items. Four hundred and eleven elementary school children (Grade 4 through 6 ; 207 boys and 204 girls) participated in Study 2. A multiple discriminant analysis revealed that “self-efficacy for physical activity” and “likes and dislikes of physical activity” were the strongest predictors of habitual physical activity for both boys and girls and that “parent's support of physical activity” and “parent's exercise habits” were a moderate predictor for boys. These results indicate that increasing self-efficacy for physical activity and teaching the fun aspects of physical activity to children may promote more habitual physical activity in school and at home.

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The purpose of this article is to review the studies on response styles theory (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991) and to examine the problems of these studies, as well as to discuss their future directions. Based on our review, we conclude that: (1) the hypothesis that ruminative responses prolong and intensify depression has been supported, (2) the hypothesis that distractive responses shorten and lessen depression has been supported by experimental studies, but not by field studies, and (3) ruminative responses increase pessimistic thinking and negative-biased memories, and decrease problem-solving ability and optimism. These studies have several problems: (1) the content and factorial validity of the Response Styles Questionnaire, which measures ruminative and distractive responses, has not been sufficiently examined, (2) calculating the total score of the distractive responses scale may not reflect the actual effects of distractive responses, and (3) ruminative responses are composed of several factors and the negative ruminative responses factor in particular is more closely related to depression than the other factors, which suggests that the construct validity of ruminative responses has not been sufficiently examined. Based on these discussions, we have proposed future directions for studies on response styles theory.

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