This study explores the relationship between 233 women's egalitarianism in sex role attitudes and their work experiences (current employment status and managerial positions) and the desired patterns of career and promotion. The respondents are in their 20s and the first half of the 30s. They work (currently or previously) in Tokyo, and they have completed the short-form of the Scale of Egalitarian Sex Role Attitudes (SESRA-S). Analyses of variance indicate that the above mentioned 4 employment variables are related significantly and positively to the level of egalitarianism in sex role attitudes. Stepwise multiple regression analysis suggests that the most important predicting variables of egalitarian sex role attitudes of young working women are the desired career patterns, current employment status, and age. That is, a woman from 20-35 years old who has a high career commitment, has been working in the same workplace, and is older is most likely to have a higher egalitarian sex role attitude.

View full abstract

This study investigated the relationship between the environmental factor of an urban river setting and activities that occur in the setting. Activities on the water front were defined as getting together for a special purpose and consciously or unconsciously integrating the water front into their life. This study took up the "affordance" (Gibson, 1979) of the river setting as a determinant of water front activities. The purpose of this study was to quantify the water front activities and to estimate the river setting by cluster analysis. Seven types of affordance emerged from the river setting. Zones were divided into two types: those having common behavioral characteristics throughout four seasons and those having different behavioral characteristics for each season. Two types of affordance composition seemed to be discovered from the river setting: one is determined by engineering factors while the other is determined by both engineering and weather factors.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the course of stereotype changes on cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. The blood-groups stereotype widespread in Japan was used for the study. One hundred and four female undergraduate students (average age 20.2) attended a lecture given by one of the authors concerning the denail of the blood-groups stereotype. For three times the students responded to the questionnaires about blood-groups stereotype: immediatelybefore, immediately after, and three months after the lecture. Statistically significant changes werefound in cognitive and affective components of the attitude, but not in the behavioral component. Although in the cognitive component the attitude changed in support of the 'bookkeeping model', inthe affective component some of the students changed according to 'conversion model'. The cognitive component did not change when 'subtyping' was formed.

View full abstract

This study examined (1) the factor structures of social support received and provided by respondents and (2) the relationship between social support factors and physical and mental health (physical health, depression, and loneliness). Several scales were administered to adult women who lived in a high-rise housing development. The scales measuring social support were consisted of items asking the frequencies of receiving and providing support. The Physical and Mental Health Scale was also assessed. Social support scales were subjected to seperate factor analyses. In the analysis of received support, six factors were obtained and named as follows: emotional support, positive feedback, intimacy, instrumental support, guidance, and co-behavior. The analysis of provided support identified six factors, labeled guidance/emotional support, intimacy, positive feedback, instrumental support, co-behavior, money-lending. According to the results of multiple regression analyses, loneliness was significantly related to exchanges of social support, while either depression or physical health was not significantly determined. Respondents in higer floors were susceptible to declining physical health, and indicated the deficit in exchanges of intimacy support. Furthermore, only for dwellers in middle floors, exchanges of social support were significantly related to both depression and physical health. The multifaceted nature of social support and the differential contributions of its components to physical and mental health were discussed.

View full abstract

The purposes of this study were to investigate 1) the effects of social support on the relationships between stressors and mental-health, work-motivation, and 2) the relationships between social support and job characteristics (autonomy and variety). Subjects were 493 young workers in Study 1 and 174 female office workers in Study 2. Job stressors (role conflict, role ambiguity, quantitative work overload, qualitative work overload) and social support (emotional and instrumental support from co-workers, senior colleague and supervisors) were used to predict employees' work-motivation and mental-health. The main results were as follows: 1) The form of the interaction was different from the predictions of the buffering hypothesis, and it implied that the effects of social support might have a limitation. 2) The effects of social support were dependent on the differences of the level of job characteristics. That is, social support had little effect on work-motivation at low levels of autonomy and variety. Social support was the most effective on mental-health at middle levels of autonomy and variety.

View full abstract

An experiment was conducted to test three hypotheses concerning effects of social uncertainty and general trust on commitment formation, hypotheses derived from Yamagishi & Yamagishi's (1994) theory of trust. First two hypotheses were supported, while the last one was not. First, increasing social uncertainty facilitated commitment formation. Second, low general trusters formed mutually committed relations more often than did high trusters. Finally, the prediction that the effect of general trust on commitment formation would be stronger in the high uncertainty condition than in the low uncertainty condition was not supported. Theoretical implications of these findings for the theory of trust advanced by Yamagishi and his associates are discussed.

View full abstract