In Japanese judicial reform, the Diet approved bills concerning the new mixed jury system, "Saiban'in-seido," in May 2004. In this system, citizens will be selected from voter's lists for participating in judicial panels. And those lay persons and professional judges will deliberate serious criminal cases. They are to deliberate, together with professional judges, to make decisions on a serious criminal case. In running this system, lay persons and professional judges are expected to cooperate effectively in their deliberations. To achieve effective cooperation, judges' perceptions of citizens will be important because their perception is anticipated to affect judges' behavior.

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In this study, 153 undergraduates saw simulated TV news report of a corporate crime. In the news story, a manager of the company had been forced to use false labeling of origins and grades of meat by his superior. The news reporter explained the circumstance of the criminal act in the words of the accused man, the superior, or his own. In addition, they were told that the manager had been coerced, either by threat of demotion if the act was not complied with or promise of no demotion if complied with. A third group of participants were given no information concerning the context of the superior's order, except that it had been coercive, making a 3×3 factorial design. Results showed that the manager was judged less criminally responsible in the threat condition, replicating asymmetrical judgments of past studies. Also, in an interaction effect, the promise story was most damaging to the accused if it was told in the words of the news reporter.

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This research used the natural observation method, observed a group of 23 Chinese toddlers aged 1.6 to 2.2 years. The toddlers' interactions over object were recorded. The data was analyzed to find out whether these interactions were organaized under rank order such as dominance hierarchy or not. The findings were ; 1) both rigidity and linearity of the dominance matrix were very low. 2) there were no significant correlations between their rank on the matrix and the values of their strength and leadership which were rated by teachers. 3) dominant-subordinate relationships among toddlers were not linear but complicated. Overall findings demonstrated that, as to possession, these toddler groups were not organized by dominance hierarchy.

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