We tested the cross-cultural applicability of Greenberg's (1980) “Indebtedness model” in Japan and United States. We hypothesized that while the major antecedent of indebtedness is the recipient's benefit for American students, those of Japanese students is the donor's cost perceived by the recipient. University students from U.S.A. (n=151, male=47, female=104) and Japan (n=88, male=25, female=63) reported their recent experience of being aided by their families, friends, and strangers. They also rated on 75 items of questions concerning the intensities of indebtedness and other emotions they felt on receipt of aid, impression of the donor, and the amount of benefit and perceived donor's cost. Supporting our hypothesis, recipient's benefit was the major antecedent of indebtedness for American students and perceived donor's cost was the major antecedent for Japanese students. We also found positive correlation between the intensities of positive and negative emotions evoked by receiving aid, and a small amount of negative impression of the donor from one's own family only in the Japanese sample.

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This paper proposes an evolutionary hierarchical hypothesis that feelings in humans consist of four levels of emotion based on brain structure, brain functions, brain evolution and emotional evolution. Feelings in humans are composed of primitive emotion, basic emotion, social feeling and intellectual feeling, with respect to evolution. Primitive emotion is composed of pleasure and unpleasure, that are affected by body homeostasis in relation to environment. Basic emotion is composed of joy, anger, fear, disgust and acceptance or love, that are strongly dependent on survival of predator-prey situations, and gene competition for sexual selection. Social feeling might be induced by cooperation and competition in groups. Intellectual feeling is separated from social feeling in humans, and functions on a symbiotic and existence nature. This paper discusses each nature on four levels of human feeling based on hierarchical hypothesis of feelings.

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The present study examined the effect of envy and personality traits on the elicitation of Schadenfreude — pleasure at another's misfortune. The participants were 201 Japanese undergraduates. They responded to scenarios in which the target person was similar to them in terms of gender, and was made to appear either superior or average. The epilogue of scenarios informed participants that the target person had suffered a misfortune. Factor analysis of data indicated dual factors for the 13 items on the scale — Schadenfreude and sympathy. Analysis of variance revealed that the rating for Schadenfreude was higher for men than women, and that score was higer in the scenario in which the target person was superior than average. In addition, path analysis indicated that participants who had low self-seteem tended to feel envy, and this envy also mediated subsequent Schadenfreude. On the other hand, reported guilt of women predicted positively to sympathy, and that score predicted negatively to Schadenfreude.This finding suggested that guilt was the key variable that made gender differences of Schadenfreude and sympathy.

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In previous studies, emotions of shame and guilt were considered to be similar; however, recent empirical studies show that they are clearly different. In other words, shame is maladaptive whereas guilt is adaptive. In this paper, the author reviews recent studies on shame and guilt. The paper includes characteristics and functions of shame and guilt, measurement methods, antecedent factors such situation and cognition, and cross-cultural research. In addition, the future applications of studies on shame and guilt are discussed from the following two perspectives. The first is moral education, which is based on the assumption that anticipated shame and guilt deter deviant behavior. The second is humiliation. Recent findings employing clinical studies indicate that shame is linked to narcissism and domestic violence. Humiliation has been discussed as a theme relevant to shame and violence, and is important in interpersonal relationships and social problems. Therefore, further studies regarding humiliation are suggested.

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The purpose of this study is to explore the correlation between the behavioral patterns of children and the development of guilt and empathy. Sixth graders were asked how much guilt they would feel depending on the ways they would behave in interpersonal and rule-breaking situations. For example, seeing someone being annoyed, they were asked how they would feel if they found themselves joining the action of annoying him, taking a bystander attitude or trying to stop it. The study found gender differences in both situations. It also found that empathy positively correlates with guilt in the first two behavioral patterns in interpersonal situations as well as in the behavior of joining the action in rule-breaking situations. These results suggest the importance of the role that empathy plays in the development of guilt with the bystander attitude.

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The purpose of this study was to explore 1) the meanings included in gifts, 2) the anticipation on the part of the giver of how the gifts would be treated, and 3) the relationship between these two things. One hundred and eighty-nine undergraduates were asked to nominate an example of a gift in three different situations: a celebration gift of entrance to university, a birthday gift, and an offering at a funeral. In order to identify the meanings of the gifts, each gift was rated in terms of the quality, practical use, emotional value, and representation of both giver and recipient. Participants also rated the anticipation on the part of the giver of how the gifts would be treated. The results showed that the gifts and their meanings were different among the three situations. The study also clarified that the pattern of relationships between meanings of gifts and anticipation of the treatment of gifts were different among the situations. In addition, it was suggested that quality, practical use, emotional value, and recipients' representation promoted their attachment to the gifts in at least one of the situations. Other results were also discussed from the context of gift giving situations.

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A self-rating instrument for measuring continuous and real-time affect states was developed. In Experiment 1, using an edited film that was switched from a positive mood video to a negative mood video, the validity of this method for rating participants' subjective emotionality was examined. In Experiment 2, in one condition the participants evaluated their affects in real time, and in the other condition they did not. Differences in the participants' affects in the two conditions were estimated. Results indicated that this rating method could evaluate affects continuously and validly. Moreover, the method did not interfere with the affects that were being measured.

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