The present study investigated how ability to experience, anticipate, and use regret developmentally change through life. Although two lines of research, child developmental research and aging research, have investigated how regret develops, there are few studies that can bridge their findings. The present study examines the development of regret, focusing on (i) emotional and cognitive components and (ii) experience and anticipation processes, and (iii) behavioral consequences of regret. After reading a vignette in which people would feel regret, participants, aged 15 to 86 years, answered questions about their anticipated feelings, experienced emotional and cognitive regret, and behavioral responses. Results showed that whereas older people were less likely than younger people to produce counterfactuals (cognitive element), there was no age difference in the emotional element of experienced regret, anticipated regret, and behavioral improvement following regret. Additionally, older people were more likely than younger people to avoid feedback, which could lead to regret. The influence of age on regret and its functions are discussed.

This study examined people’s impressions of individuals who are emotionally moved and crying. Participants were required to read behavioral descriptions of a person and indicate their impression rating and intention to approach him. The descriptions outlined the person’s activities on a given day and were largely neutral, but with two patterns of sentence endings. Participants read only one description with either of the two endings. In the given behavioral description, a person had seen a movie about love and was either moved to tears or merely thought that it was a good story. The results revealed that the experimental manipulation and the value orientation of love did not affect impression ratings. However, participants with a higher value orientation had a higher intention to have a close relationship with the person who was moved and cried than those with a lower value orientation. These results suggest that people with similar orientations toward a value tend to want close relationships with those who are moved and cry regarding the same value.

The Multidimensional School Anger Scale is a multidimensional evaluation scale for school anger, and its shortened Japanese version (JS-MSAI) has been developed in Japan. The target population is the 5th grade elementary school students to 2nd grade high school students. Considering that the number of violent acts in elementary schools is increasing year by year, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of feelings of anger in younger children as well. The purpose of this study is to examine the reliability and validity of a shortened version of the multidimensional scale of school anger in middle grades (3 and 4), and to examine the characteristics of their anger by comparing it with those in upper grades (5 and 6). A questionnaire survey was administered to 582 3rd and 4th graders and 525 5th and 6th graders in seven public elementary schools in Japan, and the reliability and validity of the JS-MSAI were examined. The analysis showed that the JS-MSAI has a certain degree of reliability and validity, although the alpha coefficient for “positive coping” is lower than the other subscales.

Music performance anxiety (MPA) is a form of social anxiety elicited during public music performances. MPA is a severe and frequent problem for both amateur and professional musicians. Here, we overview previous literature that investigated the mental, physiological, and behavioral symptoms of MPA. So far, surveys using questionnaires to measure the three levels of MPA symptoms have clarified situational and psychological factors affecting MPA, and its relationship with performance quality. Physiological measurements during music performances have shown that MPA is associated with physiological stress responses mediated by the autonomic nervous system and the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis. Furthermore, measurements of electromyographic activity have demonstrated that MPA is associated with increased levels of muscle activity and co-contraction of antagonistic muscles in the upper extremity. These changes in muscle activity disrupt musicians’ fine motor control, which can ultimately impair performance quality. We conclude that MPA research can contribute to better understanding of the interactions between emotion and various psychological processes including memory and motor control.