社会心理学研究 Vol. 32(2016) No. 3

Although mind-wandering and awareness are contrary concepts, both are positively correlated with creative problem solving. To understand this contradiction, we examined how mind-wandering and awareness are related to the three aspects of creativity: fluency, flexibility, and originality. We used psychological scales to measure mind-wandering and awareness, and the Unusual Uses Test to measure the three aspects of creativity. Data from 532 participants (300 male, 228 female, and 4 unknown; M_age＝19.67, SD＝1.44 years) were analyzed. The results of a multiple regression analysis showed an inverted U-shaped relationship between mind-wandering and uniqueness scores of originality. An ANOVA analysis showed that participants in the medium mind-wandering group scored higher than those in the low mind-wandering group. In contrast, mind-wandering and evaluative scores of originality showed a U-shaped relationship, and participants in the medium mind-wandering group scored lower than those in the low mind-wandering group.

Recent studies have given attention to and have investigated factors that moderate the effect of emotion regulation strategies. This study examined whether cognitive appraisal of a situation moderates the relationship between cognitive emotion regulation strategies and psychological health via a one-week longitudinal study. At Time 1, participants were asked about the most stressful situation at that time and how they appraised it. At Time 2, they were asked what kind of cognitive emotion regulation strategies they used during the previous week to cope with the stress. The result indicated that when centrality, which is a factor of cognitive appraisal, was high, rumination and catastrophizing predicted higher anxiety, whereas when centrality was low, blaming others predicted lower anxiety. Moreover, when commitment, which is also a factor of cognitive appraisal, was high, blaming others predicted lower well-being, whereas when commitment was low, positive refocusing predicted higher well-being. This study revealed that how people appraise a situation moderates the relationship between cognitive emotion regulation strategies and psychological health.

This research applies spatial statistics to examine proximal factors affecting the political behavior of voters in a regional election in Japan, particularly, voter proximity to the election campaigns of the candidates. During the mayoral election in Akō City, Hyōgo Prefecture, voters’ political behavior, attitudes, and awareness of politics were measured using a social survey, the spatial location information relating to candidates’ election campaigns being measured using GPS. Voters’ favorable perception of a certain candidate was positively correlated to the degree of contact with his election campaign of voters themselves or that of their neighborhood, but not to spatial proximity with his campaign. On the other hand, both the degree of contact and spatial proximity with his election campaign of voters themselves led them to cast their votes for the candidate, even controlling for favorability. It was revealed that there is a possibility for proximal factors to be treated more precisely by applying spatial statistics.

It has been argued that people selectively use two strategies, projection and stereotyping, to infer the mental state of others. Through a series of studies, Ames (2004) confirmed the hypothesis that people project their own mental state to the other when the target person is perceived to be similar to oneself, while the stereotype of a group or category to which the target person belongs is used for mental state inferences when the target is perceived to be dissimilar. Four replication studies of Ames (2004), however, consistently provided counterevidence against this hypothesis. Participants employed projection consistently, regardless of the perceived similarity to the target person. This result suggests that further examination of conditions that trigger different mental state inference strategies is needed.