This study aims to examine the effects of a speaker's use of dialect on the impression given by that person. The experimental conditions were as follows : (1) the speaker used a common language and a dialect with appropriate code-switching according to the situation; (2) the speaker used the same, but with inappropriate code-switching; (3) the speaker consistently used a common language; and (4) the speaker consistently used dialect. The subjects consisted of two hundred and eighty undergraduate students, some of whom were native speakers of the dialect while others were not. The experiment revealed that the impression given by and the interpersonal attractiveness of a speaker who used a common language and a dialect with appropriate code-switching according to the situation were more favorable. On the other hand, the impression given by and the interpersonal attractiveness of a speaker with inappropriate code-switching were less favorable. These results were discussed from the viewpoint of the evaluation of the dialects in Japan.

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This study examines the thoughts that arise when people are deciding whether to speak or not during conversation, and proposes decision-making processes underlying conversational inhibition. Study 1 identified typical situations in which people tend to refrain from speaking. In Study 2,382 participants were asked what they thought about while deciding whether or not to speak in these situations. The results of factor analysis indicated that the thoughts arising during decision-making are composed of four factors, i.e., 'consideration of appropriateness', 'anticipation of negative results', 'escape from relationships', and 'lack of communication skills'. Moreover, Partial Ordered Scalogram Analysis (POSA) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were conducted to examine the structure in the combination patterns of these four thoughts and the relationships between these and individual characteristics, respectively. The results suggested that behavior following decision-making differs qualitatively across the various patterns of thoughts during decision-making. Based on these results, the conversational decision-making processes underlying conversational inhibition are discussed.

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Subordinates sometimes feel dissatisfaction regarding work-related instruction from their superiors. In such situations, what condition facilitates the subordinates' choice of constructive behavior, such as integrative coping? Analysis 1 suggested that the superior-subordinate relationship and the perceived organization system were important factors that affected the subordinates' choice of integrating behavior toward their superiors. The results of analysis 2 supported hypotheses that the degree of incongruence between the subordinates and their superiors on the orientation influenced the subordinates' attribution tendencies to the superior- or relationship-factor, which affected their choice of integrating behavior. These results suggest that it is important to foster interpersonal relationships that can have superiors and subordinates establish communication to share reciprocal orientation and to maintain the organizational environment to support the interaction.

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This research investigated how reassurance-seeking related to coping behaviors for negative life events, rejection by significant others, and depression. In study 1,107 students filled out a questionnaire to examine the relationships between reassurance-seeking and different coping behaviors. The results showed that reassurance-seeking related to significant-other-aided coping behaviors and non-interpersonal coping behaviors. In study 2, the author examined whether coping behaviors based on reassurance-seeking related to depression through rejection by significant other by 2 wave data. One hundred and sixty students answered questionnaires twice after 3 months. The results indicated that reassurance-seeking behavior and non-interpersonal relief behavior related to Time 2 depression through rejection by significant others. The implications for roles of reassurance-seeking on the occurrence and maintenance of depression are discussed.

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Shafir (1993) found that people select an alternative which is positive on some dimensions and negative on others more often than one with average dimensions. We applied his methodology to the choice of a person. It is argued that Japanese people prefer a person with an average disposition. But is it that they really prefer this or that they believe that others do? We presented a scenario where two persons wanted to join a party with your group. One was positive on some dimensions and negative on others, whereas the other had an average disposition. One hundred and seven female students were asked to choose one of the two persons, and 113 female students were asked to reject one of the two. They were also asked to infer which person the other members of their group would choose or reject. The results were that our participants chose and rejected the person with positive and negative dimensions in the self-decision condition, whereas they inferred that other members would choose the average person. These imply that self-critical bias may reflect an adaptive strategy as to the selection of persons.

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Tamura & Kameda (2004) showed that, when people evaluated the desirability of various resource allocations, their preference for an "allocation that was unfair but provided a Pareto-improvement" over other "fair" allocations was enhanced via group discussion. In their study, participants served as arbitrators who were asked to solve disputes over resource-allocation. This study was a conceptual replication of Tamura & Kameda (2004) to determine whether the prevalence of the Pareto-principle can be observed in a group situation, where interested parties discussed resource-allocation. In each experimental session, two college students worked on an anagram task individually, and then discussed how to allocate a "pair-reward" between them (n=40). The pairs were presented with three reward allocation schemes : plans based on equality, equity, or a plan that was unfair (i.e., paying more to the less productive member) but provided a Pareto-improvement over the other two plans. In line with Tamura & Kameda (2004), the results confirmed that participants' preference for the unfair but Pareto-improving allocation was enhanced substantively via group discussion.

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Assuming that sophistication in clothing/makeup has two aspects, we conducted this research for the following two purposes. The first purpose was to develop a scale about two aspects of sophistication in clothing/makeup. A questionnaire was given to 107 female college and university students and their 107 mothers in order to gather data on both younger and older females'. The results of the factor analysis on the data indicated that sophistication in clothing/makeup has two factor structures, "external sophistication" and "internal sophistication". We verified the construct validity between the scale and the lifestyle and habit of clothing/makeup behaviors. For the second purpose, we studied the association between external/internal sophistication and gender personality by generation. As a result of a covariance structure analysis, we found that gender identity promotes external sophistication only in younger females while androgyny promotes internal sophistication in both generations. We also found that internal sophistication promotes external sophistication only in older females.

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