In this study, university students were given yes/no and writing vocabulary tests and an impression evaluation task of phonographic katakana loan words and ideographic kanji words. The results of the vocabulary tests showed that for words with high familiarity, the katakana words scored higher on the yes/no test than on the writing test, and vice versa for the kanji words. The results were similar for words with low familiarity, in addition, kanji words with kun (native Japanese) readings outperformed kanji words without kun readings in both tests. The results indicate that katakana words are not well understood even if they are known, and it is difficult to guess the meaning of unknown words, while kanji words are easy to guess the meaning, especially when they have kun readings. In the impression evaluation task, the katakana words gave the participants newer and softer impressions than the kanji words. The advantages of kanji and the disadvantages of katakana in written communication were discussed.

In this study, we created a Japanese version of the State Hope Scale which assesses the level of hope at the current time, and examined its reliability and validity. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the Japanese version of the State Hope Scale had a two-factor structure similar to the original version and good internal consistency. State hope was directly associated with trait hope, state self-esteem, and positive affect; it was inversely correlated with negative affect. These findings support the construct validity of the scale. Furthermore, state hope had unique explanatory power in state anxiety beyond the influence of trait hope, indicating the incremental validity of the scale. In addition, construct validity was demonstrated with a 30-day daily report, which was prepared with college students (N = 154), and showed that state hope was associated with everyday events. Cross-delayed effects modeling also showed associations between state hope, trait hope, and mental health. The results of this study indicate that the State Hope Scale has adequate reliability and validity.

Scenario-based emotional stimuli can deal with environmental restrictions, psychological shocks, and difficulties in evoking complex emotions. This study aimed to translate the emotion vignettes by Wingenbach et al. (2019) into Japanese and validate them. In the translation process based on the ISPOR guidelines, two forward translators translated the vignettes into Japanese, and then one back-translator translated them into English. After receiving confirmation and correction from the original author, 40 vignettes to elicit emotions (anger, disgust, fear, sadness, happiness, gratitude, guilt, and neutral) were developed. Next, a survey was conducted on 70 Japanese college students. As a result of the analysis without the vignettes with the lowest hit rate in each emotional category, the vignettes in each emotional category were separated by hierarchical cluster analysis, and the vignettes had acceptable hit rates and intensity rates. These results confirmed the validity of the emotion vignettes, and 32 vignettes are included in the final stimulus set. These stimuli can be used for emotion research (e.g., emotion elicitation or emotion recognition).

This study aimed to clarify the characteristics of body image of Japanese high school girls and the relationship between body dissatisfaction and the desire to lose weight using objective silhouette figures developed based on real and objective data from Japanese girls. Additionally, the girls’ body image was also examined by male high school students. A total of 169 female and 148 male high school students were asked to respond to several body images using an objective silhouette figure. The female high school students also responded to items measuring body dissatisfaction and the desire to lose weight. The results confirmed that the girls had not overestimated their body image and that they idealized a body shape considerably slimmer than their current body shape. The results also suggest that cognition rather than substance of body shape is related to body dissatisfaction and the desire to lose weight. Furthermore, the results also indicated that estimation gaze by same-sex rather than opposite-sex is essential in determining the ideal image.

The present research examined the relationship between interpersonal sensitivity (IS), privileged self (PS), and internet addiction, focusing on the direct effects among these variables and the indirect effects of problem-solving coping tendency and expression of emotional coping tendency. A total of 114 university students participated in the questionnaire survey, of which the 92 who completely answered the questionnaire were included in the analysis. Our data showed a significant positive direct effect of IS and PS on internet addiction tendency. Although the indirect effect of IS on internet addiction mediated by problem-solving coping tendency was not significant, the indirect effect of PS on internet addiction mediated by expression of emotional coping tendency was significant. We discussed the direct and indirect effects in terms of IS and PS characteristics and motivations.

Sato (2014) reported through three experiments (n = 10 for each) that the concept of time is distributed on our bodies and that associations are found between the right hand and the future and the left hand and the past. The present study replicated Sato’s experiment, and also added a condition in which only one hand was used, to examine whether associations with temporal concepts could also be found for the right and left fingers. The results showed that in Experiment 1 (n = 10), no associations with temporal concepts were found in either the two-handed or right-handed conditions, while in Experiment 2 (n = 20), which used twice the sample size, some associations with temporal concepts were found only in the two-handed condition. Furthermore, in Experiment 3 (n = 20), no associations with temporal concepts were found in either the two-hand or left-hand conditions. These results suggest that temporal concepts are not associated with fingers and that the association between the left and right hand may not be as robust as reported by Sato (2014).

It is known that the ease of processing induces positive judgments in a wide variety of tasks (the fluency effect). The authors reviewed eight theoretical models of the fluency effect and discussed the consistency between each model and current evidence. The discussion was based on the three perspectives that fluency models should explain: (a) Why the effect’s influence on judgments is positive; (b) Whether basic information on the effect is single or multiple; and (c) How basic information can consistently influence a wide variety of judgments (Unkelbach & Greifeneder, 2013). Evidence from previous studies supported models assuming that positive information automatically affects affective judgments and that neutral information influences cognitive judgments through the interpretation process. The authors discuss how previous models can be integrated.