The present study aimed to develop empirical definitions for the self-conscious emotions “zaiakukan,” “haji,” “shitto,” and “netami” in Japanese, and compare them with the definitions of the English equivalents of these terms, that is, “guilt,” “shame,” “embarrassment,” and “jealousy,” respectively. In the present study, 60 participants completed 556 statements that described emotional experiences. Based on their responses, the empirical definitions of each emotion were determined. The results indicated the following. (a) The experiences of “haji” were more physical than were those of the other emotions. Further, these experiences were considered more similar to “embarrassment” than “shame.” (b) The experiences of “zaiakukan” were considered more serious than “haji” and overlapped more with its English equivalent, “guilt.” (c) The experiences of “shitto” were more similar those of “netami” and “jealousy” than were other emotions, distinct because they shared feelings of resistance towards emotions and ruminative thoughts. These findings suggest that the terms used to indicate these self-conscious emotions need to be carefully translated because of the differences between these languages.

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Based on the theory of cultural task analysis, and viewing self-construal as an instrumental psychological function to adapt to one's cultural context, two studies tested the hypothesis that those individuals having higher consistency between the cultural context and the self would show greater positive emotion. In study 1, I measured cultural self-construal and positive emotion using 198 American students, and showed that those with higher independent self have higher score on positive emotional experience. Further, this was especially the case for European American students. In study 2, I measured Human Relations Questionnaire that divided interdependent self into subdomains of “others focus” and “helping others” using 226 Japanese students, to show their correlations with positive emotional experience. Additionally, “others focus” was found to correlate especially with relationally engaged negative emotions, and the subdomain of “self-focus” was found to correlate with high arousal positive emotion. Cultural nature in emotion was discussed in relation to within culture, ethnic and individual differences.

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Although most researchers state that emotion is a very difficult concept to define, what is now being called a functionalist approach to emotion proposes that emotion is very easy to define. Emotion occurs whenever an event is encountered which is significant to the person. There is no exception to this rule. What makes an event significant is the RELATION between an event and one of four fundamental axioms: 1) how the event relates to a person's goals, 2) how an event links up with the hedonic state of the person, 3) how an event relates to the social reactions of another person, and 4) how an event relates to the prior experiences of an individual, such as in the attachment relationship. In this article, we intend to propose cogently some the basic principles of a functionalist approach, how it differs from the orthodox approach to emotion, how it is relevant to the contemporary interest in emotion regulation, and how it can be illustrated in experiments in infancy.

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Psychologists, who are working in the broad area of research on emotion, need clearer definitions of the emotion-related words that are used as technical terms. This article reports the frequency of occurrence of six conceptual words that have appeared in historically important writings. The words that were analyzed were: affection, emotion, feeling, passion, sensibility, and sentiment. The study surveyed the following seven books: Descartes' “The passions of the soul,” Spinoza's “Ethica,” Hume's “A treatise of human nature (Book 2), ” Adam Smith's “The theory of moral sentiments,” Haven's “Mental philosophy (Division 2), ” and James' “The principles of psychology (Chapter 25), ” and “Psychology, briefer course (Chapter 24).” In the 17th and 18th centuries the word “passion (s)” was preferred in the articles. In the 19th century, however, American psychologists mostly used emotion (s) rather than passion (s).

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The prescriptive definition of “emotion” has still kept absent even though the number of research into emotion increases steadily. To think whether the established definition of emotion was needed or not, we discussed possible problems caused by the lack of definition of emotion. First discussion focused problems about definition of emotion that emphasizes specific components of emotion. Then, complicated relationship between emotion and cognition was reviewed. This review showed the problems caused by inconsistent conceptualization and blurred boundary, and tried to illustrate ambiguity of the term emotion. Conceptual ambiguity might lead to vacuity of theoretical debate and research. In addition, we focused on the context-dependency of the emotion, and suggested that the context-dependent usage could impede conceptual development for proper description of behavior. Finally, we concluded that the lack of definition of emotion should limit the progress of the research in this domain at least potentially. To establish the prescriptive definition of emotion in the near future, paying more attention to the context information where the emotion exists, the cautious use of the term emotion was suggested.

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The study of using strengths seems hampered by the lack of a validated measure in Japan. This study aimed to develop and validate Japanese version of Strength Use Scale (SUS: Govindji & Linley, 2007). Participants were 429 Japanese university students. The exploratory factor analysis showed one factor structure. SUS had adequate internal consistency and high test-retest reliability. The measure is associated with subjective well-being, self-esteem, characteristic self-efficacy, and feeling of depression. Japanese version of SUS showed an adequate reliability and validity, and may be considered as a promising tool for future research and practice of strengths in Japan.

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