Promoting creativity is considered useful for society. Although some people believe that creative people generally have poor mental health, recent published studies have suggested that some highly creative people are mentally very healthy. Therefore, the present study focused on a phenomenon called "mind wandering," a concept that is associated with both creativity and mental health, and examined whether characteristics of mind wandering differed, depending on an individual's level of creativity and mental health. After the participants (N=62: 40 men, 22 women; average age 19.67 years) had completed questionnaires measuring their creativity, level of depression, and working memory capacity, they watched a video. While they were watching it, the thought content of their mind wandering, their level of awareness, and the number of topics included when mind wandering were measured, using the thought probe method. The results suggested that the participants who had scored high on creativity and low on depression, that is, whose scores indicated high mental health, did not think excessively about past events during episodes of mind wandering. These results suggest that mind wandering may be a fundamental way to improve creativity while maintaining mental health.

  As reports of bullying by junior high school students have seriously increased, school officials have been pressed to introduce curricula that will improve students' ability to make moral judgments. Based on a preliminary survey of 410 junior high school students, a judgment reason scale was developed, based on Turiel's (1983) social domain theory. The instrument included 4 hypothetical scenarios of aggression that described different means and motives. Respondents indicate their moral judgment of each scenario, and give their reasons for that judgment. In the present study, junior high school students (N=1,022) completed the judgment reason instrument, and personal and environmental factors that might affect their judgments were also measured. Analysis of the data suggested that aggression motivated by revenge was more likely to be tolerated because it was judged by a conventional or personal domain, and that relational aggression, which was more likely to be judged by a moral domain, was considered to be worse than verbal aggression. Sense of guilt as a personal factor was particularly strong in the girls. Confident and objective attitudes of teachers were an environmental factor that may act to improve students' desirable judgments. The discussion dealt with ways in which effective student guidance and class management may reduce bullying.

  Graph comprehension requires bottom-up processing from the graphic representation, and top-down processing guided by knowledge and attitudes. The present study examined which of the bottom-up process phases (extraction, interpretation, and decision) were affected by top-down processing derived from impressions and social attitudes. The results suggested that top-down processing driven by impressions that had been formed temporarily in specific contexts affected both the extraction of information and the subsequent decision phase, whereas top-down processing that was driven by attitudes formed over a long period of time based on social norms affected only the decision phase. In the latter, decisions were made without involving bottom-up processing.

  Many studies have been done recently on the topic of mind wandering. The importance of distinguishing between intentional mind wandering and unintentional mind wandering has been emphasized. In the present study, Japanese versions of the Mind Wandering: Deliberate (MW-D) and the Mind Wandering: Spontaneous (MW-S) scales (Carriere et al., 2013) were developed, and the reliability and validity of the scales were examined. Undergraduates (N=357) completed the questionnaire. Analysis of the scores confirmed a 2-factor structure similar to the original English version. Moreover, the reliability and validity of the scales were confirmed using both questionnaire and experimental data from 60 participants. The present study demonstrated that the Japanese versions of the Mind Wandering: Deliberate and the Mind Wandering: Spontaneous scales had acceptable reliability and validity.

  Prior studies have suggested that, in explanatory situations, the presence of a listener facilitates an explainer's understanding. However, published research has not, as yet, examined characteristics of explanatory situations that may facilitate explainers' understanding. The present study investigated influences of the purpose of the explanation and the listener's prior knowledge of the concept to be explained. University students were asked to read a passage about chi-square tests and then to explain that concept to a listener. The conditions that were compared were (a) a teaching condition, in which 16 students were asked to teach a concept to a listener who had no knowledge of the topic, and (b) a confirmation condition, in which 15 students were asked to explain the chi-square concept to a listener in order to confirm their own understanding of the concept. After the explanations, all the students completed comprehension tests. The results indicated that the comprehension test scores in the teaching condition were higher than those in the confirmation condition. Analysis of the protocols revealed that the number of interpretive explanations, i.e., explanations giving an interpretation of formulas and procedures, was correlated with the scores on the comprehension test. Furthermore, the participants in the teaching condition generated more interpretive explanations than the participants in the confirmation condition did. These results suggest that explanations that improve understanding of a concept are more likely to be generated when the purpose of the explanation is teaching than when the purpose is confirmation.