Previous findings suggest that Japan and other countries have different parenting styles. As an extension of these cross-cultural differences, the present study examined the mediating effect of emotional dysregulation (the inability to properly modulate and regulate emotions) on the relationship between maternal ADHD symptoms and parenting styles. Participants were 179 mothers of preschool and elementary school children. The results of the mediation analysis revealed that emotional dysregulation does indeed mediate the relationship between maternal ADHD and parenting style. As part of assistance to mothers with ADHD symptoms, it is useful to add coping methods for ADHD while implementing parent training. These results clarify the fact that emotional dysregulation is related to parenting style. This fact suggests that improvement of emotional dysregulation is one of the best ways to cope with ADHD, and this could be added to parental training.

Female university students (N＝299) completed a questionnaire, and factor analysis of the data extracted five factors which were used to develop a scale with five sub-scales to assess mother-daughter relationships (the “Mother-Daughter Relationship Scale”). These sub-scales were used to classify participants into four types: (1) Rebellious (unhealthy separation), (2) Connected (healthy connection), (3) Independent (healthy separation), and (4) Subordination with conflict (unhealthy connection). The results indicated that both “connected” and “independent” types had features of high identity achievement, low “Pressure from mother” and low “Sense of inferiority toward mother.” However, both “Rebellious” and “Subordination with conflict” types had features of low identity achievement, high “Pressure from mother” and high “Sense of inferiority toward mother.” These findings suggest that “separation” or “connection” are not critical issues, but that mother-daughter relations characterized by low “Pressure from mother” and low “Sense of inferiority toward mother” are important for daughters' identity achievement.

The present study investigated young children's assessments of intention and degree of damage inflicted in the hypothetical situation in which the target of an aggressive act was either the child her/himself or a stranger. A total of 56 children, 4- to 6-year-olds, participated in the study. They evaluated the intention of the agent, the difficulty of the situation, the target's ability to cope with the situation, and the intensity of the negative emotions of the target in two conditions: the self-target condition and the other-target condition. The results showed that children evaluated the agent's intention more favorably in the self-target condition than in the other-target condition in cases where they evaluated the other-target condition first, followed by the self-target condition. In addition, they evaluated the target's ability to cope more favorably, the situation as less difficult, and the intensity of the negative emotional experience as weaker in the self-target condition than in the other-target condition. These results suggested a relationship between the children's evaluations of the situations and their emotional inferences.

Previous studies suggest that left-superior asymmetry in brain activity reflects the approach motivation of anger, i.e., when people get upset asymmetry increases. It is unclear whether this asymmetry of brain activity reflects blood flow as evidenced by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). This asymmetry may be greater in elderly adults than in younger adults because of their weaker inhibitory potential in the frontal lobe. The present study showed that elderly participants exhibited left-superior brain activity (front-dorsolateral area) in response to a traffic jam created by a driving simulator, whereas the young adults did not. In addition, slowing down of driving speed in response to unknown car trouble did not yield asymmetric brain activity in the frontal lobe in either younger or older adults. These results suggest that (1) only elderly adults experience subjective anger in a stimulated traffic jam, and (2) elderly adults exhibit left-superior frontal brain activity as evidenced by their NIRS scores. This seems to reflect increased approach motivation (i.e., anger), which suggests vulnerability in the inhibitory potential of elderly adults.