The purpose of this study was to examine whether the psychological safety of elementary school teachers toward parents would affect their creative educational practices. In this study, teachers at 22 public elementary school participated (N = 467 in Time 1, 405 in Time 2), and 351 teachers who could be used as longitudinal data and were still in charge of the classroom were analyzed. Results of factor analysis about creative educational practices revealed five factors: “promoting students’ autonomy to overcome their difficulties,” “challenges for new practices inside and outside the classroom,” “realization of education based on one’s beliefs,” “disclosure to students as a person,” and “practices to deepen exchange with students.” Based on the Latent Difference Score Model, we examined the influence of the psychological safety toward parents and creative educational practices. As a result, psychological safety toward parents promoted creative educational practices and good relationship with students, in both Level and Delta factors.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between autistic traits and depression among 172 married couples, which we hypothesized was mediated by perceived quality of marital relationship and marital satisfaction. The data was analyzed by multilevel structural equation modeling (SEM) with a particular focus on the individual and dyadic levels. The results indicated that autistic traits were negatively correlated with approval from spouse and marital satisfaction, whereas low marital satisfaction was positively correlated with depression at the individual level. Because the hypothesis was not supported at the dyadic level, we examined the effects of autistic traits on one’s own and their spouse’s marital relationship, using the Actor Partner Interdependence Model. The results showed that a husband’s autistic traits predicted his spouse’s perceived high number of conflicts with the husband.

Recently, in elementary and junior high schools with an emphasis on regional cooperation, teachers are required to demonstrate teamwork with parents and community residents. However, there is little evidence about what kind of educational effect the teacher-parent-resident teamwork would have on children. The present study aimed to examine the effects of homeroom teachers’ perceptions of teamwork on the intrinsic motivation of children, and the subjective adjustment of children to the classroom, through a classroom social goals structure. A survey was conducted on 2,225 6th grade elementary school students and 3rd year junior high school students and 235 teachers. The multilevel structural equation modeling revealed that the influence of teamwork on intrinsic motivation and subjective adjustment to the classroom was mediated by the social goals structure. The results suggest that the teacher-parent-resident teamwork is an important factor for creating a comfortable class environment.

The present research examined the process of how determining the location and time of remote work, which was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, affects workers’ work-life balance, as well as their mental health. We also examined gender differences in the mediating effect of work-life balance. 1,692 employees of an IT company participated in our research by answering questionnaires with an online training system during November 2019 (Time 1) and May 2020 (Time 2). Participants’ mental health were measured at both Time 1 and Time 2, while work-life balance and whether the location and time of their remote work was determined were measured at Time 2. Results of multi-group mediation analysis showed that setting the time of remote work led to better workl-ife balance and in turn, improved mental health. However, flexibility in the location of remote work led to better work-life balance and improved mental health. Moreover, a gender difference was found on the effect of work-life balance on mental health in that it had a stronger influence on female workers’ mental health than male workers.

This study explored the effects of the similarity of verbalized information between target and distractor voices on speaker identification. Participants listened to the target voice, and either described it using one of three catego ries (“adjective-selection,” “adjective-rating,” or “free-description”) or did not describe it (Control). They then rat ed “the degree to which the voice sounded like the target person” for three types of voice stimuli: the target voice, a high-similarity voice (verbalized information was similar to the target voice), or a low-similarity voice (verbal ized information was dissimilar to the target voice). Results showed that “the degree to which the voice sounded like the target person” in the free-description category was significantly higher than in the control group in the high-similarity voice condition. These results suggest that verbalization leads participants to misidentify the high-similarity voice as the target person. Therefore, a verbal overshadowing effect in previous studies may have occurred because verbalization caused participants to perceive the high-similarity voice as the target person as much as the target voice, leading them to choose the high-similarity voice.

This study examined the historical changes in the social desirability of 388 descriptive personality words between 1970 and 2020 in Japan. The participants, 353 university students (all men, mean age = 19.9) and 373 employees (all men, mean age = 45.3), rated the social desirability of descriptive personality words. We compared the results obtained in this survey with those of a previous study (Aoki, 1971) and tested for stochastic equality of the two samples. The results indicated that the social desirability for hard-working and diligent descriptive personality words significantly declined over fifty years. A similar tendency was observed in the university students’ sample. We discuss these results by referring to the chronological changes in employers’ preferences in Japanese companies.

In this study, the Public Assistance Caseworker’s Stressors Inventory (PAC-SI) was developed and its reliability and validity were examined. In addition, we examined how social and institutional stressors, the work environment, and individual-level stressors worsen mental health. Factor analyses were conducted on the 54 items of the original version of the PAC-SI, which was developed through a preliminary survey. The results showed a five-factor structure with 22 items. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated for reliability, and a value of .70 or higher was confirmed for each factor. Criterion-related validity showed that the PAC-SI was positively correlated with the Job Stress Scale-Revised Version (JSS-R). Therefore, the PAC-SI was confirmed to be sufficiently reliable and valid. The study also suggested that public assistance caseworkers can suffer deteriorating mental health due to individual-level stressors, which originate from social and institutional stressors and stressors caused by the work environment. This scale may be useful as a tool for labor management in public assistance departments, and subsequent studies are needed to reduce the three-layered structure of stressors.

This study examines whether the psychological tendencies during the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) pandemic differed from that in normal times based on Web-based survey data from two different samples. The target of the analysis was the tendency to avoid infection. In doing so, we considered the house effects of the different survey media and attempted to compensate for them by inverse probability weighted estimation using propensity scores calculated with several covariates. The results showed that even after adjustment, infection avoidance tendencies were higher during the pandemic than normal times. We discussed the significance of adjusting for house effects in the Web-based survey and some of the limitations of this study.

The purpose of this study was to understand the psychological support problems brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and differences in responses to these problems. The results of a web-based survey of 318 clinical psychologists showed that 90 % of participants believed that problems occurred due to infection prevention measures, while about half of the participants believed that problems occurred due to changes in the framework of support, such as the introduction of remote psychological support and the reduction of face-to-face support. The four problems that arose in psychological support were “poverty of conversation,” “difficulty in communication,” “difficulty in stable support,” and “disagreement among staff.” Psychologists responded to the problems in three ways: “devising communication,” “verbalization,” and “strengthening multidisciplinary cooperation.” From the results, it was clear that problems such as poor conversation, communication difficulties, and difficulties in stable support occurred in both face-to-face support under infection prevention measures and in the introduction of remote psychological support.

The present study investigated the replicability of a series of Nakagawa et al.’s research. The findings in the previous studies showed ingroup cooperation based on the Social Identity Theory (SIT) and the Bounded Generalized Reciprocity hypothesis (BGR). The cost of cooperation can moderate the relationship between ingroup collaboration and the expectation of reciprocity. However, none of the studies explicitly addressed outgroup members. Consequently, these studies are limited in SIT validity. Research should investigate whether people become more cooperative within an ingroup versus an outgroup. Therefore, we measured ingroup cooperation using the vignette study of Nakagawa et al. (2015). We added an outgroup member version to maintain the salience of the intergroup situation. Our results reproduce Nakagawa et al.’s research and show that cooperation within an ingroup is more significant than that with an outgroup, based on the generated psychological mechanisms of both theories.