Background: Stress of relationships at school affects diverse outcomes of students. Social-self preservation theory demonstrated that conditions which threaten the social-self (one’s social esteem, status, and acceptance) trigger specific psychological and cortisol changes. Similar to cortisol, the salivary enzyme of alpha-amylase (sAA) activity has recently been proposed as a non-invasive index of stress-induced bodily changes. The purpose of this study is to examine, through experiments conducted in learning environments, the physical and psychological effects of social evaluation threat on students’ performance on mental arithmetic tasks. This is done using both salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) activity and psychological assessment. Method: Seventy-seven participants, all Japanese university students, were challenged to obtain a perfect score on the arithmetic calculation displayed on the computer under the following two conditions; (a) participants conducted the calculation task with the other observers monitoring the participants’ calculation performances successively presented on the screen (social evaluation threat context, SET), (b) observers watched the animation movies on the screen instead of monitoring the participants’ performance, i.e. no social evaluation threat (non-SET) context. Psychological tests were also administered to the participants. Results: Consistent with the social-self preservation hypotheses, our study found that: [1] Participants’ stress levels --both in sAA and psychological assessment-- increased immediately after the task in the SET condition. In contrast, those in the non-SET did not show increases in either sAA or subjective stress levels. [2] High arithmetic task score group showed the greater effect of social evaluation threat both in sAA and subjective stress levels. Low score group, however, demonstrated a significant increase of sAA and subjective stress levels in both the SET and non-SET conditions. Conclusion: The results of these experiments in learning environments supported social-self preservation theory and suggested that stress levels are more remarkable when participants are attempting excellent performance.

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Although approxiamately 40% of residential burglaries in Japan are caused by leaving doors and windows unlocked, there are few researches on such risky behavior. Two internet surveys were conducted to investigate the factors associated with leaving home without locking doors and windows among young women living alone in apartment buildings. Survey 1 (n=4612) revealed that 6.7% and 13.8% of the respondents had experienced leaving home without locking doors or windows when they were in a hurry or when they were out of their home for the brief period, respectively. Logistic regression analysis suggested that age, employment status and lifestyle had influences on going out without locking their houses. In Survey 2 (n=620), mixed regression models were applied to the frequency of using and leaving more than one doors and/or windows unlocked. The number of rooms and temperature were found to be associated with the use of windows, after controlling for respondents’ lifestyle and personality. Leaving windows unlocked were mainly associated with individual factors such as lifestyle, perceived risk, personality, after controlling for the use of windows. Meanwhile, leaving doors unlocked were influenced by the structure of apartment buildings and the floor level of their residences. Policy implications on anti-crime countermeasures in dwellings and liminations are discussed.

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