The present study investigated relationships between feelings and reactive behaviors of adolescents and young adults about inferiority in their appearance.  The participants, junior high school students (7^th, 8^th, and 9^th grades ; N=207 ; average age, 13.16), senior high school students (N=188 ; average age, 15.72), and university students (N=150 ; average age, 20.33), completed a questionnaire about recognition of inferiority in their appearance, related feelings, and related reactive behavior.  Factor analysis of the items on related feelings resulted in the extraction of 6 factors : dissatisfactory feelings, sad feelings, hostile feelings, self-affirmative feelings, yearning feelings, and self-reproach feelings.  Factor analysis of the items on reactive behaviors resulted in the extraction of 7 factors : evasion of others, direct efforts, aggression toward others, pastime, neglect, desire for approval from others, and vicarious compensation.  In all age groups, direct efforts were related to yearning feelings ; aggression toward others and desire for approval from others were related to hostile feelings ; pastime was related to dissatisfactory feelings ; and neglect and vicarious compensation were related to sad feelings and self-affirmative feelings.

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  The present study examined children’s perceptions of expressions of apology, focusing on effects of the wrongdoer’s words and facial expressions.  First, third, and fifth grade children (N=346) were required to read a fictitious story in which their best friend made them angry.  Next, 1 of 4 types of apology conditions was presented by means of a sentence and a picture.  The results were as follows : The perceptions of the older children (third and fifth graders) were more affected by the wrongdoer’s facial expressions when making the apology than were those of the first graders.  However, the words used in the apology had positive effects on even the older children’s anger.  These findings imply that if a friend apologizes without a guilty facial expression, children’s anger may be reduced even though they do not think that the friend really feels sorry, because children may be strongly affected by a social script : we should accept apologies that are offered to us.

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  The purposes of the present study were to develop a scale that would enable the measurement of the belief in cooperation, and to substantiate the reliability and validity of the new scale.  In Study 1, exploratory factor analysis of data from 1,020 university and technical college students revealed that the belief in cooperation was composed of 3 factors : usefulness of cooperation, individual orientation, and inequity.  Confirmatory factor analysis of the factors showed sufficient fitness.  We named this scale “The Belief in Cooperation Scale”.  In Study 2, research with 2,156 university and technical college students showed concurrent validation of the scale.  In Study 3, research with 97 university students who had attended a class that used cooperative learning revealed the interventional and predictive validity of the scale.  The practical uses of the scale and future considerations were discussed.

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  The purpose of the present study was to investigate effects of stress on factor scores of the Stress Self-regulation Inventory (SSI), including the number and relationship of significantly correlated factor pairs, in order to examine how individuals self-regulate stress.  The Stress Self-regulation Inventory measures the ability to accommodate to stress.  In Study 1, a cross-sectional survey of 265 university students was conducted ; the high-stress students (n=61) and low-stress students (n=60) were compared.  The factor scores on the Stress Self-regulation Inventory in these 2 groups were equal, but there were fewer correlations with the Stress Self-regulation Inventory factors in the high-stress group than in the low-stress group.  Also, there was an opposing pattern in the correlations between the 2 groups.  Study 2 was a longitudinal survey of 169 university students.  Within the group whose stress levels were reduced from high to low during the period of the study (n=24), the same results were found.  This suggests that the structure of the schemas of an individual’s stress moderator in changing to self-regulated stress was reflected in the Stress Self-regulation Inventory, and that the quantity of the stress moderator would be maintained efficiently, regardless of the perceived stress level.

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  The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between students’ relationships with their teachers and their trust in teachers, in order to examine factors contributing to students’ trust in teachers.  Junior high school students (N=374) completed a questionnaire.  The results were as follows : (a) “Experience of being accepted by teachers” and “experience of close relationships with teachers” were positively correlated with “sense of security” and “role expectations”.  (b) “Experience of being hurt by teachers” was positively correlated with “distrust”, and “experience of being accepted by teachers”, negatively correlated with “distrust”.  (c) The students who had had positive experiences with their teachers had much trust in teachers.  (d) Both the students who had had negative experiences with their teachers and those who had had little relationship of any kind (either positive or negative) with their teachers had less trust in teachers.  The results suggest that not only factors on the teachers’ side but also students’ individual psychological factors contribute to students’ trust in teachers.

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  To explore whether children are able to retrieve relational similar base domains, the present study tested how the explicitness of base domains affects children’s analogical reasoning performance.  Children (N=184 ; 5 to 7 1/2 years of age) were randomly assigned to one of the following 2 conditions: (a) an explicit condition, in which analogies were presented that consisted of familiar bases and new targets, and (b) a non-explicit condition, in which only the new targets were presented.  All participants were then presented with choice tasks that required recognizing the relational structural similarity between the base and the target.  In the explicit conditions, the 6- to 7 1/2-year-old children could recognize the relational structural similarities.  In the non-explicit condition, the kindergarteners had great difficulty, whereas the 7- to 7 1/2-year-olds could recognize the relational structural similarities.  The findings were discussed in relation to the acquisition of re-representational relational knowledge.

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  The purpose of the present study was to investigate effects of strategies for learning English vocabulary on grammatical and usage errors in English.  In Study 1, items relating to English vocabulary learning strategies that had been collected from 15 undergraduate students through a semi-structured interview method were given to 182 high school students and 184 undergraduate students ; 4 factors relating to English vocabulary learning strategies were extracted.  High school students (N=157) participated in Study 2, the purpose of which was to create an English grammatical and usage error scale.  Factor analysis resulted in the extraction of 1 factor, from which 12 items were used to form the English grammatical and usage error scale.  In Study 3, the relation between the English vocabulary learning strategies from Study 1 and the English grammatical and usage errors from Study 2 was analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM).  The participants were 123 high school students and 301 university students.  The results revealed that, among the 4 strategies examined, the use of the strategy of paired association vocabulary learning was related to the occurrence of English grammatical and usage errors.

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  The present study explores possible reasons why giving an explanation improves tutors’ understanding.  University students were asked to read a text on measures of statistical dispersion after which 3 conditions were compared (n=14 in each group) : (a) explaining the material to a peer in the presence of the peer ; (b) with no peer present, producing a videotaped lesson that would later be used by a peer to study the material ; (c) studying the material alone (control condition).  The results revealed that the best posttest scores were obtained in the condition in which a peer was given an explanation.  Protocol analysis of the explanations revealed that the number of interpretive utterances and iteration of previously given interpretive utterances were correlated with the posttest scores.  The participants who explained the material to a peer generated more such utterances than did those who produced a videotape.  Analysis of the explanations also revealed that a significant number of such utterances was triggered by feedback from the peer indicating difficulty in understanding the material.  The results of the present study suggest that the reason why explanation to a peer improves tutors’ understanding lies in the interpretations and review of the materials that is triggered by the peer.

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  School counseling and guidance, which is one of the most helpful strategies for supporting students in school, has been studied in terms of its practical activities, concepts, and school system.  In considering schools as places where students’ psychological/social, learning, and career development are supported, individual aspects of those topics have been examined separately, but to the present authors’ knowledge, they have not yet been studied comprehensively.  The present study focuses on the embeddedness of school counseling and guidance, matters that influence it, and the interconnection of those factors.  Influencing factors found include the school counseling and guidance ability of the person in charge at a school, the school counseling and guidance system itself, the collaborative and syntonic climate at the school, and the principal’s leadership.  Embeddedness of school counseling and guidance is directly influenced by the school counseling and guidance system and the school climate, whereas the principals’ innovative and caring leadership indirectly influences embeddedness.

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  The present study evaluated the efficacy for depressive symptoms in children of a school-based universal program based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).  Key components of the program used in the present study were psychoeducation, social skills training, and cognitive restructuring.  The participating children (aged 10-12 years) were assigned either to a cognitive behavior therapy group (n=150) or to a no-treatment control condition (n=160).  The intervention involved nine 45-minute sessions during school classes.  In a pretreatment-posttreatment comparison, the self-reports of the children in the cognitive behavior therapy group of depressive symptoms, cognitive errors, social skills, and school functioning were superior to those of the children in the no-treatment condition.  These results provide support for the efficacy of the intervention.

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