According to a cultural psychological perspective on self, many psychological tendencies are importantly constituted by multifaceted aspects of culture (such as ideas, dicourses, practices, and institutions), which in turn are rooted in the historically transmitted, and socially shared views of self as independent (predominant in North American and West European middleclass cultures) or as interdependent (predominant in Eastern cultures including Japan). Drawing on this theoretical framework, we first reviewed a vast body of studies on Japanese self, available in and out of Japan, across several social science disciplines, and identified several defining characteristics of the interdependence as it is instantiated in the contemporary Japanese society. Next, in order to illuminate some specific ways in which psychological tendencies are shaped by culture, we summarized our own Japan-US comparative research program on culturally divergent forms of self-realization and their consequences on mental and physical health. Directions for future research were discussed.

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‘Conflict analysis’followed by‘sensitivity analysis’, a kind of meta-game theory, was applied to a conflict over restoration planning of the Megane-bashi bridge damaged in the 1982 Flood in Nagasaki. First, through a review of relevant newspaper articles and intensive interviews with the players involved (i. e. Nagasaki city office, a citizen movement group advocating reconstruction of the bridge, and a collection of ordinary citizens), the options available to each player and their preferences for possible outcomes were determined. Second, through conflict analysis, the most likely solution to the conflict was predicted in terms of equilibrium solution. Finally, sensitivity analysis clarified the stability conditions of the equilibrium against fluctuations in each player's preferences. The results showed that sensitivity analysis was a valuable method for evaluating macro-level structure of a conflict from the perspective of micro (player's preferences) and macro (equilibrium solution) dynamics. Some practical significance of the method was discussed.

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Our research is done over a variety of people on the difference of structure of risk perception between engineers of nuclear power and ordinary people. Based on factor analysis we have clarified that 2-factor model explains the structure on“dread”and“unknown risk”. We have found engineers tend to regard knowledge as the whole things recognized in the science society, whereas ordinary people feels knowledge is things they have learned personally. And we have found the amount of knowledge on nuclear power makes dread on it differ.

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Social psychological researches on interpersonal conflicts have been trying to discover the available problem-solving strategies. However these have not been enough discussed on the psychological stress, which accompany with interpersonal conflicts, and stress reduction of them. On the other hand, in the area of health psychology, though interpersonal conflicts have been studied as stressors, these specificity have not been considered sufficiently. The purpose of this paper is to review the findings on interpersonal conflicts and coping strategies in these areas and to propose the study which integrates them. Relations between interpersonal conflicts and social support, which comes from the same social network, were also discussed. The following factors were suggested for further study; (1) The effect of interpersonal conflicts as stressors. (2) The possibility of stress reduction by interpersonal conflict coping strategies. (3) The relation between social support and interpersonal conflict. The necessity to distinguish between life events which occur accidentally and social cognition which is relatively stable was claimed

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The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster which occurred in the dawn of January 17, 1995 resulted in the severest damages in terms of moralities and physical losses ever since Kanto earthquake in 1923. It affected more than three million people who have lived in the impacted area. This disaster management in addition to physical issues. Unfortunately disaster researches with social scientific orientation have been underrepresented in the disaster studies. This paper reviews some of the major possible research issues for the disaster researchers who are interested in human and societal reactions to disasters. In this paper, three independent operations with different goals has been identified: emergency responses, rehabilitation, and rebuilding. Emergency responses are the opration with the goal to save the endangered life as much as possible. Based on the search and rescue data in Kobe city, it was noted that emergency responses should be prioritizes for the first 72 hours after the disaster onset. Rehabilitation is the processes to restore everyday life for the disaster survivors. Based on the shelter operations data in Kobe city, it was found that lifetime functional failure has a great impact on shelter operations which have been the prime focus in this phase. In fact, this phase has lasted for the first hundred days after the earthquake, it is ended when the Self Defense Force has withdrawn completely from the impacted area. Rebuilding has two aspects; recovery of the victims, and reconstruction of the impacted area. The restoration plans made by both Hyogo prefecture and Kobe city were mainly the plans for rebuilding the impacted area. The rebuilding of the future of each victim was left for themselves without clear guidelines. In all processes of emergency responses, rehabilitation, and rebuilding, there are some many research questions to be studied not only by natural scientists but also by social scientists in collaboration with them.

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A huge earthquake devastated the Hanshin area of Japan killing more than 6, 000 people and leaving more than 300, 000 people homeless. Intensive participant observation was carried out in three emergency shelters (a university gymnasium and two elementary schools) for three months beginning just after the earthquake. Three collectives-refugees, volunteers, and the people who ordinarily work at each site-emergently organized into unified collectivities at each shelter. The organizing process was characterized by exclusive initiative of refugees in the first shelter, by close collaboration between refugees and workers in the second, and by strong initiative of volunteers along with some volunteers' efforts to communicate with both refugees and workers in the third shelter. The research highlights the importance of including the refugees' perspectives in the organizing process.

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We conducted participant observations in two volunteer organizations-the Nishinomiya Volunteer Network and the Local NGOs Co-ordinating Team for Great Hanshin Earthquake Relief-emerging after the Great Hanshin Earthquake occurred at 5: 46a. m. on January 17, 1995. First, we introduced the processes of establishment and provided an overview of activities by each organization. Second, we conducted a conceptual analysis of volunteers in general and examined each organization in terms of the regional triangle model for disaster relief. Finally, we compared organizational characteristics with the model. They were similar in that they both coordinated affiliated and spontaneous volunteers; however, they had clear differences in the relationship with local governments and in theirfuture views.

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The impact of the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 was examined. In Study 1, mental and physical stress disorders among 748 disaster victims (4-88 years) in the first month after the earthquake were investigated, and analyzed according to shelter location, sex, and age. In Study 2, mental responses of 1005 children (3-5 years) and their mother's stress levels in the first three months after the earthquake were investigated, and the correlation between the children's responses and their mother's stress levels were examined. In Study 1, the results showed that: 1) people sheltering in public or refuges felt more severe stress than people sheltering in other places, 2) analyzing their mental and physical stress levels according to sex and age, women in their sixties felt more severe stress than other people. In Study 2, the results showed that: 1) children and mothers who suffered considerable material damage felt strong mental and physical stress, 2) according to characteristics of children's disorders, mother's stress levels were different.

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