The purpose of the present study was to examine children's emotion and behavior that arose after social comparison, and to find personality correlates of such emotion and behavior. Participants were elementary school children, grades 4 and 6, and junior high school students in their second year. Multiple regression analyses were conducted in order to predict children's emotion and behavior after social comparison with personality variables as predictors. The variables used for prediction were specific competence, competitiveness, and emotional instability. It was found that children's emotion and behavior after social comparison were different, depending on their developmental stage and personality. For elementary school children, social comparison-based emotion and behavior had a strong association with specific competence. In contrast, for junior high school students, it was competitiveness that was associated with the emotion and behavior.

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The purpose of this study was to examine how avoidance of negative emotions affected friendship orientation among Japanese young adults today. We hypothesized a causal model that avoidance of negative emotions resulted in superficial friendship, mediated by anticipation of hurt feeling after self-disclosure. In this study, 190 college students, 61 men and 129 women, completed a questionnaire. Results of structural equation model analysis indicated that avoidance of negative emotions directly influenced two aspects of friendship orientation: group formation and caring for friends. It also demonstrated that the avoidance had a significant effect on avoidance of intimate relationship with friends, which was mediated by the anticipation of hurt feeling. The results suggested that avoidance of negative emotions by young Japanese directly and indirectly resulted in superficial friendship.

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Reminiscence therapy for the elderly has drawn considerable attention. However, it is suggested that adolescent also frequently reminisce. This study examines the relationship between daily reminiscence and identity status (Marcia, 1966) in adolescence. A reciprocal causal relationship between reminiscence and well-being is tested. Ninety-three university students, 45 nursing school students, 52 vocational school students (62 male and 128 female, mean age 21.5 years) answered a set of questionnaires which include the Identity Status Scale (Kato, 1983), Reminiscence Scale (Osada & Osada, 1994), Positive and Negative Reminiscence Scale, Revaluation Tendency Scale (Nomura & Hashimoto, 2001), the Japanese version of GHQ28 (Nakagawa & Daibo, 1985) and Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). Results indicate that frequency of reminiscence and negative reminiscence has a positive correlation with the identity crisis. However, results of Cross-lagged path analyses show that the crisis did not predict how much the person reminisces about his or her past. As assessed by GHQ, results also indicate that frequent reminiscing predicted higher levels of psychological disorders, while lower levels of self-esteem encourage frequent and negative reminiscence.

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The hypothesis that blood type is related to personality, which we may call blood-typing, is a pseudo-personality theory that has been popular among Japanese lay people for some time. It all started with a paper by Takeji Furukawa in the 1920's. Today, there are many exponents of different versions of this hypothesis, which resulted in a diversity of explanatory styles. In this study we classified explanatory styles of the hypothesis, disseminated through television programs during the latest boom of blood-typing. We found four types: traditional, biological, framework, and traits-addition. Traditional varieties were put forth by successors of Furukawa's ideas. Biological-mediation versions tried to explain the relation between blood type and personality using such new academic knowledge as theory of evolution and brain science. Exponents of framework utilization merely used blood-typing in the context of fortune telling, whereas the last group simply added traits of their choice found in their own specialties, to the original hypothesis. We concluded that none of the varieties discussed here has been successful in providing sufficient logical basis for their claims.

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The purpose of the present research was to investigate the relationship among social responsibility goals, feelings of school adjustment, and academic motivation. We looked at two different subordinate social responsibility goals: compliance and prosocial goals. One hundred and fifty-seven elementary school children and seventy junior high school students completed a questionnaire. In order to examine the relationships among variables, covariance structure analysis was conducted. Results showed that compliance goal was positively associated with teacher adjustment. Prosocial goal was positively associated with friend and teacher adjustment. And teacher adjustment was positively associated with academic motivation and academic adjustment.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among autonomous friendship motivation, self-disclosure to friends, and adjustment. Junior high school students, 430 in all, participated in the study. Results showed that intrinsic motivation was associated with superficial disclosure, and identification and external motivation with internal disclosure. In addition, intrinsic motivation and internal disclosure predicted better adjustment. It was suggested that internal disclosure mediated the relationship between identification motivation and adjustment, and that intrinsic motivation was associated with adjustment directly.

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This study examined the relationship of assertive behavior and taijin-kyofu, which is a social phobic tendency. Three hundred sixty six (366) undergraduates answered a questionnaire that included Rathus assertiveness schedule and scales of taijin-kyofu and praise seeking and rejection avoidance needs. Results of path analysis were consistent with the model that taijin-kyofu was strongly associated with less frequent assertive behavior, and that rejection avoidance was weakly associated with it. On the other hand, praise seeking was associated with more assertive behavior. Clinical implications of the results were discussed.

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Greater self-complexity has been suggested as a protective factor for people under stress (Linville, 1985). Two different measures have been proposed to assess individual self-complexity: Attneave's H statistic (1959) and a composite index of two components of self-complexity (SC; Rafaeli-Mor et al., 1999). Using mood-incongruent recall, i.e., recalling positive events while in negative mood, the present study compared validity of the two measures through reanalysis of Sakaki's (2004) data. Results indicated that H statistic did not predict performance of mood-incongruent recall. In contrast, greater SC was associated with better mood-incongruent recall even when the effect of H statistic was controlled.

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The purpose of the present study was to investigate age differences in narcissistic tendency during adolescence. Narcissistic tendency of 489 participants, junior and senior high school students and college undergraduates, was measured with Narcissistic Personality Inventory, Short Version (NPI-S). Results showed an increase in the tendency along with the age, but no significant difference was found between boys and girls. However, detailed examination revealed different patterns of developmental changes over time in subscales of NPI-S, and therefore further examination of age differences in them appeared to be necessary.

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The present study examined the relationship between schizotypy and integration of audio-visual information. Schizotypy may be characterized as predisposition to schizophrenia. The disconnection hypothesis explains schizophrenia as a disorder resulting from the failure of proper functional integration in the brain. People with schizotypal traits may also have deficits on information integration of different functions. A study of dynamic-ventriloquism, which requires integration of information from different modalities, indicated that high schizotypal participants were less affected by visual information. Results of the present study therefore suggested that people with schizotypal traits had difficulties in information integration.

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The purpose of this study was to construct a short form for young adults that measured their social phobic tendency and narcissistic personality in the two dimensional model. The scale consisted of ten items each for the two dimensions, which made it easy to classify them into personality subtypes. Analyses of the data from 305 students showed that the factor structure of the scale was sound, and that the two subscales had sufficiently high internal consistency. We would need next to study correlational data with other psychological scales.

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This study investigated the time course of selective attention to socially threatening and positive words with a modified dot-probe task. Twenty-one college students responded to targets following a pair of either socially threatening and neutral words or socially positive and neutral words, shown for the duration of 250, 500, 750 or 1000 ms. Results showed that the students attended more away from socially threatening words at 250 ms, but at 750 ms they attended more to socially threatening words. Also, at 250 ms, the lower their trait social anxiety, the more they attended away from socially threatening words.

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In this paper, problems in developmental research in terms of both methodological and practical aspects were discussed, and new analytical methods for longitudinal data were introduced. First, the paper looked at the methodological issues concerning research design, measurement, and generalizability of findings that we need to consider in order to grasp accurately changes of human properties over time. Second, cross-lagged effects model and synchronous effects model were described as models to analyze causal relationship in data that are collected over two points in time. Basic concepts of latent growth curve analysis were also explained as a model to analyze data that are collected over three or more points in time. Finally, to overcome many practical problems in conducting and managing expensive and time-consuming but invaluable long-term longitudinal surveys, the idea was proposed that not only each and every researcher should reaffirm the importance of developmental research that makes use of appropriate methodology for empirical science, but also the psychological associations in Japan as a whole should try to build research systems that are more public and collaborative.

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In this article, we reviewed how a longitudinal study could be used to estimate causal effects in the field of personality psychology. First, characteristics and limitations of experiment, cross-sectional survey, and longitudinal survey were illustrated. Then, focusing on panel study, which is a form of longitudinal study that is able to examine reciprocal causal relationships, we described the method for analyzing causal relationships using cross-lagged effect model. As an example of panel study that was conducted to estimate causal effects, a study by the current authors was discussed, which investigated the relationship between Internet use and aggression. In the study, reciprocal causal effects were examined: the effect of Internet use on aggression, and that of aggression on Internet use. At the conclusion of the article, advices for researchers who would attempt to estimate causal effects with high accuracy were summarized.

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This article introduced methodology of human behavior genetics and twin study, especially multivariate genetic analysis, which was then applied to examine association between temperament and problem behaviors among children aged four to six years old. A questionnaire was mailed to 142 mothers of twins to obtain mother ratings of children's Effortful Control (EC), externalizing problems (EP), and internalizing problems (IP). Analysis of phenotypic correlations revealed that EP and IP had a positive correlation that was moderate (r=.55), and EC had a negative correlation with both EP (r=−.42) and IP (r=−.18). Multivariate genetic analysis revealed that the genetic influence that decreased EC also worked to increase both EP and IP, suggesting low EC may be a common genetic diathesis of EP and IP. Phenotypic correlation between EP and IP was explained by genetic (22.8%), shared environmental (53.4%), and non-shared environmental influence (23.8%). However, relatively low genetic contribution to the phenotypic correlation may be explained in terms of two counteracting influences: genetic influence on EC, which makes the correlation positive, and genetic influence unrelated to EC, which makes the correlation negative.

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Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) has changed psychological investigation drastically in two ways. First, SEM serves not only as a statistical technique for estimating descriptive statistics and testing causal model hypotheses, but also as a powerful tool to check validity of a theory or even to construct a new theory. Second, thanks to SEM, researchers have begun to think of constructing large-scale and systematic research projects in order to benefit from the advantages of SEM. SEM is, however, not a theory itself, but a tool for theory construction. It is researchers' critical thinking that tests and evaluates a theory. Close collaboration of researchers and statisticians in a research project is desirable, or even necessary.

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The essential purpose of life-span developmental psychology is to describe and explicate the intra-individual continuity or change in human development. Yet, truly empirical studies are only emerging. In that sense, planning of this special issue was especially timely, and the three papers of high value, not only as an introduction of methodology to analyze developmental process and mechanism, but also as a guide to indicate possible future research designs and styles in developmental psychology. Although SEM is a very useful tool, without adequate review of theoretical issues, it could possibly churn out meaningless results. We need detailed theoretical investigation and hypothetical thinking before data collection and analysis, and have to check results against the reality and evaluate effect sizes in order to interpret findings correctly.

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General growth mixture modeling (GGMM) was briefly reviewed and its merits for the researchers who aim to conduct a longitudinal study discussed. The GGMM refers to modeling with categorical latent variables that represent subpopulations where population membership is not known but is inferred from the data (Muthén & Muthén, 2004). Latent class growth analysis (LCGA) and growth mixture modeling (GMM), which are submodels of GGMM, were applied to a single data set in this paper to examine development of antisocial behavior in children. Finally, the data analytical package sem developed by Fox (2006) was introduced, and an example for latent growth curve modeling with time invariant predictors described.

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