The Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology Vol. 62(2014) No. 1
THE JAPANESE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

  The English verb climb refers to a motion in which one ascends under one’s own physical power, whereas the Japanese verb noboru does not have such a restriction.  The present study dealt with Japanese university students’ understanding of the scope of meaning of some English verbs commonly misused by Japanese.  In Experiment 1, the Test group (n=44) only took a test, while the Dictionary groups (n=101) read explanations of usage that were like the explanations in an English-Japanese dictionary.  The results revealed that the Test group had an insufficient understanding of some basic verbs (climb, memorize, borrow, teach, and put on), whereas the Dictionary groups had a better understanding of those words.  In Experiment 2, the Practice group (n=39) practiced judging whether some sample sentences were correct ; the Episode group (n=45) read short stories in which misuses of verbs resulted in odd and unexpected meanings.  Both groups in Experiment 2 had 90% correct answers on a posttest, whereas the Dictionary groups in Experiment 1 had 75% correct.  Also, the Episode group’s motivation for learning English vocabulary improved. In addition, the combination of learning materials and learning strategies showed an aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI) with motivation.

  Development of social exclusion judgments regarding out-groups, also known as “the left out”, was investigated.  In Study 1, judgments about the social exclusion of others having behavioral characteristics corresponding to 3 domains (moral, conventional, personal) in social domain theory were tapped by the question, “Do you agree to exclude people from your group?” Reasons for that judgment and conformity judgment were tapped by the question, “Should excluded children change themselves to fit into a group?” Elementary school (57 fourth graders, 67 sixth graders), junior high school (67 eighth graders), and university students (n=64) responded to these questions with respect to personal groups (playmates) and public groups (teams).  The results of Study 1 indicated changes in judgments with increasing age, changing from focusing on the unfairness of exclusion without distinguishing the characteristics of those who are excluded, to judgments that distinguished the excluded others’ characteristics in detail and focused on group functions and objectives.  The elementary school students made judgments that distinguished the 2 groups ; they tended to indicate that the excluded children should change.  In Study 2, the relation between social exclusion and differences in orientation toward groups and friends was examined; participants were elementary school (65 fourth graders, 62 sixth graders) and junior high school (54 eighth graders) students.  The results suggested that when orientation to a closed and fixed group, and demand for conformity with friends, were high, exclusion from a group tended to be accepted.

  The goal of the present study was to identify members of elementary school children’s attachment networks that were composed of multiple attachment figures.  For this purpose, an attachment function scale for children was developed that measured the degree that various individuals fulfilled an attachment function for the child completing the instrument.  In this cross-sectional survey, 555 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders from 2 elementary schools participated.  First, the scale was developed, its validity confirmed, and its internal consistency checked.  Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the factor structure that was predicted on the basis of Hazan & Zeifman (1994).  The relation between this scale, a social support scale, and a self-esteem scale verified its construct validity.  Second, members of the children’s attachment networks were identified by use of this scale.  In a previous study, mothers were shown to be attachment figures; in the present results, fathers, grandparents, siblings, friends, and others were also found to be attachment figures.  These results suggest that elementary school children’s attachment networks include more members of their immediate family than just their mothers, and also include non-family members.  Future research should be conducted from the perspective of attachment networks.

  The present study investigated effects of acceptance-based self-instructions on alleviating undergraduates’ experiential avoidance and speech anxiety.  The participants, 12 men and 18 women with high speech anxiety as assessed by the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale and the Audience Anxiety Scale, were assigned to the acceptance-based self-instruction group, the coping self-instruction group, or the control group.  Each student participated in baseline, treatment, and follow-up speech sessions.  Those in the experimental groups received self-instruction training in the treatment speech sessions, whereas those in the control group received no particular training.  The results indicated that the participants in the acceptance-based self-instruction group scored higher on the Japanese-language version of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-J) in post-test and follow-up assessments than did the participants in the other 2 groups.  Moreover, at post-test and follow-up, the state and trait speech anxiety indices of the participants in the 2 experimental groups decreased compared to the baseline session and to the scores of the participants in the control group.  The present results suggest that acceptance-based self-instructions may be effective for increasing acceptance and alleviating speech anxiety.

  With the growth of the Internet, it has increasingly become a tool for cyberbullying among youth.  Many previous studies have found that most victims of cyberbullying do not consult anyone about the bullying.  The present study examined the process that results in victims of cyberbullying not consulting others.  The hypothesis was that cognition of cyberbullying threats results in increased helplessness which, in turn, suppresses the victims’ behavior of consulting friends and family.  In a preliminary survey of 8,171 high school and undergraduate students, 283 (3.5%) reported that they had been victims of cyberbullying.  In the subsequent main survey, victims of cyberbullying (217 of the 283 identified victims: 85 men, 132 women ; average age 19.69 years) completed a questionnaire that measured their experience of cyberbullying, cognition of threat, helplessness, and consulting behavior.  Factor analysis of the scores for cognition of threat resulted in the extraction of 3 factors: isolation, inescapability, and information-diffusion.  Covariance structure analysis indicated that cognition of threat promoted by the experience of cyberbullying suppressed consulting behavior.  These results supported the research hypothesis.  Interventions that reduce the cognition of threat may be effective in the prompt resolution of psychological problems caused by cyberbullying.

  Attitudes toward people with disabilities should be measured because prejudice toward and discrimination against them still exist.  The present paper reviews implicit measures of attitudes toward people with disabilities, in contrast to other research that used explicit measures such as questionnaires.  Implicit measures tend not to be affected by social desirability, so that they are able to assess automatic, non-conscious, and nonverbal attitudes.  The main categories of implicit attitude measures are projective techniques, physiological and neurological methods, and measures of response latency.  Many of the studies that used these measures revealed implicit negative attitudes toward people with disabilities.  The discussion concerns the relation between implicit and explicit attitudes, the merit of using implicit measures, and issues to be addressed in the future.