The present study examined the association between personality characteristics and cognitive tendency, analyzing the variables of individuals' affective traits, affective states, and style of interpreting affective information in 169 university students. The affective traits were measured on 5 discrete affects (joy, interest, sadness, anger, and fear). The affective states were assessed just before the experiment on interpretation of ambiguous human figures. Then, the participants rated the affective condition of the figures. Results indicated that the students interpreted the figures' affective condition according to their own affective traits. They were more likely to project onto the figures what they themselves often felt. In regard to specific affects (sadness and anger, fear and sadness, fear and anger), the traits and the styles of interpreting affective information were related respectively. These associations could be found after removing the effect of the individuals' affective states. These results imply that specific affective traits may influence individuals' cognition styles in affective information, independent of affective states.

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The present study examined the characteristics of metamemory and the relation between metamemory and memory performance. In the experiments, the metamemory of 45 older adults and 45 undergraduate students was measured on 2 occasions: the first, to measure ordinary metamemory, and the second, just prior to a word recall test as a measure of specific state metamemory. Factor analysis of the metamemory questionnaire identified 5 factors. The results indicate the following 3 points: For specific state metamemory, although confidence was lower for the older adults, there was no difference in anxiety about memory. For ordinary metamemory, older adults' confidence about memory was higher than that of undergraduate students. There was a significant negative correlation between older adults' confidence in memory within the specific state metamemory measures and memory performance. That is, older adults who had greater confidence in their memories had poorer memory performance. This relationship was only observed for the older adults.

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The purpose of the present study is to explore how adolescents perceive their friendships and the characteristics of contemporary adolescents. The following were examined: friendship, seii-consciousness, and characteristics of contemporary adolescents. On the friendship scale, 3 indices were adopted: 1) the friendship that they currently have (current-self rating), 2) the friendship that they perceive to be ideal (ideal-self rating), 3) the friendship that they perceive their friends to have (friend rating). On the other scales, current-self rating and friend rating were adopted. The results showed that the ideal-self rating on “emotionally close friendship” and “crowd friendship” subscales in the friendship scale was higher than the current-self and the friend rating. Among high self-consciousness students, the current-self rating on the “emotionally close friendship” subscale correlated with the ideal-self rating. Unlike these adolescents, a correlation between current-self rating and friend rating was found among low self-consciousness students. The adolescents tended to perceive themselves as more self-conscious than their friends, and to show low scores on the “activeness” and “dependency on parents” subscales in the characteristics of contemporary adolescents scale.

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The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relation between social status and communication skills in preschool children. Subsequently, essential skills necessary for a skills training program were examined. Five status groups of children-popular (P), rejected (R), average (A), neglected (N), and controversial (C)-were identified on the basis of positive and negative sociometric nominations for 69 preschool children. Children were videotaped in free-play interaction in which one child entered the play of a pair of same-sex peers. Popular children were more inclined to respond appropriately to the initiations of others, to accept others' requests, and to give feedback to others. Rejected children were less able to adapt to differing social demands of entry versus non-entry contexts, in that they were more likely to use a higher proportion of obligation statements and a lower proportion of informative statements when entering a group. The results suggest that communication skills influence young children's peer acceptance.

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The present study concerns developmental changes in social cognition of interpersonal conflict situations and social problem-solving strategies for interpersonal conflicts. 130 Japanese preschool children, 4, 5, and 6 years old (about equal numbers of boys and girls), answered questions as to how they would feel and behave when provoked by their peers. The variable manipulated was the other's hostility in conflict situations. 5 social problem-solving strategies that the children provided were analyzed by an analysis of variance.(1) The children recognized the other's hostility.(2) Older children shifted from nonverbal and dependent strategies to verbal-assertive and independent strategies.(3) Although the children adopted more verbal strategies when they realized the other's hostility, they took more passive strategies as well. The difference among age groups was most significant between the 5- and 6-year-olds.(4) When the 6-year-olds did not identify the other's hostility, they understood themselves to take a passive strategy, even if they saw the situation as negative. In terms of social cognition, these results suggest a significant relation between the recognition of the other's hostility and social problem-solving strategies in conflict situations.

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The purpose of the present study was to investigate an effective teaching method so that learners would be able to apply a rule when solving problems. The rule taken up in the present research was “if there is competition among companies, then prices are lower.” In preliminary studies, undergraduates were asked why the railway fares on two sections between two stations equally far apart but in different locations were different. The expected answer was because of price competition, but the percentage of participants giving that answer was low. Most of the students' answers referred inappropriately to cost. In response to these results, three experiments were designed. Experiments 1 and 2 examined the effect of instruction on the rule, accompanied by an everyday example, and the effect of explaining the rule from the standpoint of a consumer. The results of these experiments showed that neither of these interventions promoted application of the rule. Experiment 3 examined the effect of the way the rule was described and of practice in applying the rule. These two instructional factors resulted in the participants being able to apply the rule when solving problems.

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The purposes of the present study were to construct a scale for measuring the self-efficacy expectations of college students without disabilities when interacting on campus with students with visual impairments, and to examine the reliability and validity of the scale. Based on the results of factor analyses for visually impaired conditions in the earlier study by Kawauchi & Yokkaichi (1998), 20 items were selected for the Campus Interaction Self-Efficacy Scale (CISES). The scale was administered to 375 college students without disabilites (143 males, 232 females) enrolled in an introductory course in special education. Factor analyses of the data yielded the same 2 factors-“Friendships” and “Self-Assertiveness”-as in the earlier study. Based on those 2 factors, 2 subscales, each consisting of 10 items, were established. The results showed that these subscales had both high test-retest reliability (r =0.778 and 0.814, respectively) and internal consistency (α=0.868 and 0.851, respectively). It was also suggested that these subscales had high convergent, construct, and criterion-related validities.

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In order to investigate developmental changes in independence and interdependence, or self-schemata, as identified with the cultural view of the self in Japanese culture, a new version of Takata et al.'s (1996) scale was constructed for children. In one study, Japanese, divided into 7 age groups from elementary school to senior citizens, took these scales ; participants in another study were Australian, Canadian, and Japanese college students. The results showed that (1) Japanese college students are more interdependent and less independent than Australian and Canadian college students; (2) independence in the Japanese participants was lowest in adolescents; the older the Japanese participants were, the more independent they were; (3) interdependence was highest in the adolescent group, and the adults were rather less interdependent. The mean scale values for Japanese adults thus showed high independence and low interdependence. Based on these results, two hypothetical processes were suggested to explain how the cultural view of the self is internalized as a part of the self schema.

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The purposes of the present paper were to analyze features of linguistic and psychological processing in conversations between native speakers of Japanese and nonnative speakers, and to examine the relationship between these two types of processing. 48 native speakers and 24 nonnative speakers were divided into 12 pairs of native speakers only, and 24 mixed pairs. Each pair was asked to talk about 2 topics for 5-8 minutes. Afterwards, native speakers were asked to rate the topics and their partner, and to answer 21 items concerning their intentions during the conversation. Each contribution to the conversation by one of the pair was classified into pre-defined categories, and the frequency of each category calculated. MANOVA analysis revealed that, in order to understand accurately, native speakers talking with nonnative speakers asked more questions and negotiated more frequently than they did when they were talking with another native speaker. In contrast, native speakers talking with a native speaker offered more information, opinion, and evaluations. Native speakers talking with a nonnative speaker felt the importance of taking the initiative. Native speakers who had talked with another native speaker reported that the conversation was more pleasurable. Path analysis indicated that the partner's questions and evaluation affected the psychological processing of the conversation, and the partner's proficiency in Japanese and familiarity with the partner influenced the content of the conversation, as reflected in the categories analyzed.

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The purpose of the present study was to construct a questionnaire measuring error proneness. 622 university and college students responded to 45 error-behavior items, including 25 items from the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ; Broadbent et al., 1982). Factor (α)(α) analysis yielded 3 factors: Action Slip, Cognitive Narrowing, and Impulsive Error. 25 items were selected to construct these 3 error proneness scales. The scales had an acceptable level of internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The relation between the scales and measures of attentional style or digit-span performance was examined. Action Slip and Cognitive Narrowing correlated significantly and positively with the External/Internal Overload measure of the Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS). Also, Cognitive Narrowing correlated negatively with Broad External/Internal Attention on that same test, and with digit-span performance. No relation was found between Impulsive Error and measures of attentional style or performance. The results confirmed the construct validity of each scale. Further research on the questionnaire is needed for validation.

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The purpose of the present study was to use an orientation-appraisal model to examine the relations among 4 latent variables-learning motive, cognitive appraisal, learning behavior, and performance-in the English learning of Japanese university students. The orientation-appraisal model developed in the present study hypothesizes that learning motive and cognitive appraisal would mutually influence and affect learning behavior, and that learning behavior would influence the performance. The validity of the model was examined using data from 193 humanities students and 136 science-technology students. Factor analysis revealed that learning strategies included in learning behavior were classified into two factors: general strategy and comprehensive strategy. In a covariance structure analysis, both the humanities students and the science-technology students showed the same tendency in terms of the relations among the 4 latent variables. Based on the results of the covariance structure analysis, interventions relating to learning motive and cognitive appraisal were discussed.

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The purposes of the present study were to clarify the self-evaluation of school clinical activities by school counselors, and to examine the relation between school counselors' activities and some characteristics of schools. 86 school counselors responded to the following questionnaire: (1) scale on the performance of school counselor's 5 roles and school counselor guidelines (Murayama et al., 1997); (2) scale on the evaluation of school counselor's activities (for these scales, school counselors replied based on their own activities); (3) scale of satisfaction with their activities as school counselors: (4) questions on the method of information interchange with teachers; (5) questions on some characteristics of their schools. The main results were as follows: (1) school counselors' evaluation of their role performance in cooperation with teachers was affirmative, and they evaluated their performance on the school counselors' guidelines.(2) School counselors who evaluated the characteristics of their schools (e. g., the school's system for accepting students, teacher's independence) tended to report high satisfaction with their activities, especially with consultation and providing seminars.

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Counseling services are now considered to be professional activities in Japan, yet little attention has been paid to studies of help-seeking preferences and help-seeking behaviors. Research on these topics has been conducted over the last 20 years in the United States. In the present article, studies of help-seeking preferences and help-seeking behaviors in the United States are classified into 4 categories: 1) demographic variables, 2) network variables, 3) personality variables, and 4) one's own symptoms or the seriousness of the problems. The focus of further research should be 1) on consistency in the definition of help-seeking preferences and help-seeking behaviors, and 2) on intervention methods for increasing help-seeking preferences and on helping systems for those people who prefer not to get help from counseling services. It is expected that professional psychology services will develop in Japan through such research on help-seeking preferences and help-seeking behaviors.

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