The present study tried to clarify developmental characteristics of self-evaluation, consisting of five domains, in middle and late adulthood, with 2,026 participants of 30-year through 75-year old. Self-esteem as the criterion, self-evaluation of internal self was a significant predictor in middle and late adulthood, and those of social and economic self were also significant predictors during early and post middlescence. The five domains were more or less independent of each other in middle and late adulthood. In examination of age-group differences in correlations among the five, men showed significant differences in those of economic self with other domains, while women showed differences in those of both economic and health domains with others. The correlations were relatively high during early middlescence, but the domains grew more independent of each other during late and post middlescence. Especially, the correlations of economic self with other domains gradually but significantly decreased during early, late, and post middlescence. It was suggested that self-esteem and structure of self-evaluation explained developmental characteristics, such as the “paradox of well-being” and “crisis” in middle and late adulthood.

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The purpose of the present study was to develop Narcissistic “Amae” Scale from the viewpoint of Doi's Amae theory. Three components of Narcissistic Amae were hypothesized: distorted Amae, need for concerned attention, and unreasonable expectation to be tolerated. Narcissistic Amae Scale, with 32 items, was completed by 515 university and technical college students. Factor analysis found three factors, corresponding to the three hypothesized components. Measures of internal consistency showed sufficient reliability. In addition, validity of Narcissistic Amae was examined in terms of the correlations with Narcissism (NPI-5), Ego Identity (MEIS), social phobic tendency, alienation, and persecution of paranoid ideation.

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Employing subliminal affective priming paradigm, this study examined the hypothesis that experiencing mildly stressful but repeated events, such as bullying, could induce traumatic schemata. It would be likely that such schemata could cause biases in processing event-related information even in non-clinical people. Undergraduates with and without bullying experiences, 23 and 48 women, respectively, were asked to engage in 40 experimental trials. In each trial, randomly one of the following prime words was subliminally presented: positive, blank, neutral, negative, and bullying-related, then a neutral target, one of 40 Nepalese words, followed, and participants rated liking of the target. Results indicated that in bullying-related prime condition, participants with bullying experiences rated target words significantly lower in liking, i.e., more negatively, than in neutral prime condition. It was argued that experiencing bullying could have induced traumatic schemata even in non-clinical people, and that bullying-related information activated them, which subsequently biased processing of neutral information. Finally, implications and limitations of the findings were discussed.

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The purpose of this study was to develop state self-esteem scale, based on the self-esteem scale by Rosenberg (1965). Study 1 showed that the new state scale had high internal consistency. Results also indicated that state self-esteem had a positive correlation with senses of being included by others, and a negative one with the sense of being excluded. In Study 2, an experiment was conducted that used an evaluation feedback. Results showed that state self-esteem increased after positive evaluation, and decreased after negative evaluation by others. In Study 3, the correlation between state self-esteem and state anxiety was examined for discriminant validity. Results indicated the correlation was negative. Thus, the new scale was shown to have good reliability and validity.

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This study examined the relationship between three types of aggressiveness: reactive-expressive, reactive-inexpressive, and proactive-relational, and positive and negative affect in elementary school children. The Japanese versions of Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children (PANAS-C) and Proactive-Reactive Aggression Questionnaire for Children (PRAQ-C) were administered to 718 children of fourth through sixth grades. Results revealed that, compared with non-aggressive children, inexpressively aggressive children showed higher Negative Affect. No such relationship was found for those of the other aggressiveness types. This finding was consistent with previous ones, underscoring the problematic characteristics of inexpressive aggressiveness. The possibility that Negative Affect could be used for screening children with future depression symptoms is also discussed.

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The purpose of the present study was to examine the mechanism that produced sense of self-agency, and investigate the role of learning in it. Sense of self-agency is the sense that “I am the one who is causing or generating an action.” According to the forward model, sense of self-agency arises when predicted sensory feedback is coherent with actual sensory feedback. In the present study, participants pressed a key and a tone was generated. Consistent with the forward model, results showed that sense of self-agency was not the same as perception of delay. As learning progressed, sense of self-agency became stronger, but perception of delay showed no change. This indicated that the learning affected not actual but predicted sensory feedback, and consequently sense of self-agency changed. The results of the present study supported the forward model, and showed that learning could affect sense of self-agency.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the causal relations among antisocial experience in school, personality, and sense of trust in family, based on a two-year longitudinal data. Two hundred and three (203) elementary school children completed a questionnaire twice that assessed antisocial behavior toward peer and teachers in their school, self-directedness, and sense of trust in family in 2001 and 2003. Structural equation approach with cross-lagged models revealed two main results. First, children's antisocial experience in their school interfered with the development of self-directedness two years later. Second, although sense of trust in family in 2001 had a negative correlation with children's antisocial experience in their school and a positive one with self-directedness in the same year, it had no causal effect on either antisocial experience or self-directedness two years later.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate whether we could find nine temperament factors for infants, corresponding to the nine categories suggested by New York Longitudinal Study. And the other purpose was to construct a new toddler temperament questionnaire, to be used during infant care consultation. In Study 1, 88 items were selected out of 960 from six previously existing questionnaires of toddler temperament. After an examination of the items for content validity, 970 parents completed the questionnaire at their child's 18-month health examination. Statistical analyses of the data yielded six factors: negative affect reactions (9 items), sensitivity (10), adaptability (6), extroversion (8), rhythmicity (7) and distractibility (7). In Study 2, a shorter form consisting of the same six factors with three items each was constructed. The new questionnaire had almost half the number of items used in previous toddler temperament questionnaires, but would reliably screen infant temperament, appropriate to Japanese culture.

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It has become increasingly necessary to look into safety-measure supporting systems that take characteristic traits of individual medical staff into consideration, in addition to organizational improvement, in recent years in the study to prevent medical accidents. This study attempted to link incident reports and psychological tests in order to explore such individual traits that may be related to incidents. High and low risk groups were extracted from incident reports, and Egogram and POMS scores were analyzed for 790 registered nurses at two facilities. Scores were significantly higher for high than low risk group in AC of Egogram, as well as T–A, D, A–H and C of POMS. The result suggested that smooth self-expression would be effective in preventing medical accidents for those who felt greater tension and anxiety, and for those with high AC propensity as well.

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The purpose of this study was to develop Emotional Coping Questionnaire (ECQ) to measure habitual ways of expressing anger and depressive emotions. In Study 1, 717 university students completed the original ECQ with a 5-point Likert format. Results showed that the scale consisted of two subscales, with 7 items each for women and 5 items each for men, for each emotion. They were emotional expression to others, and emotional expression to oneself, both of which had moderate to high internal consistency. In Study 2, ECQ was administered twice to 74 university students at an interval of about five weeks. Each subscale showed moderate to high test-retest reliability. Finally, peer ratings were used for additional 50 students to examine measurement validity, but the scale failed to demonstrate its validity. Limitations and problems of the study were discussed.

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The purpose of this study was to compare a high-interaction (HI) friend and a low-interaction (LI) friend. Undergraduates, 166 men and 140 women, 306 in total, were asked to imagine a HI or LI friend, and complete a 98-item questionnaire concerning functions of the friendship. Results indicated that most undergraduates had both HI and LI friends. And “support” and “shared activity” characterized HI friendship, whereas “ease of mind,” “mutual understanding,” and “expectation of long-term tie” did LI friendship.

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The purpose of this study was to develop Japanese version of Paranoia Checklist (JPC), in order to assess persecutory ideation in a non-clinical population. One hundred and twenty undergraduates completed JPC, the Paranoia Scale, and Peters et al. Delusions Inventory (PDI). Results revealed that JPC had one-factor structure and high internal consistency. JPC scores had positive correlations with scores of the Paranoia Scale and PDI. The results of the present study suggested that JPC had high reliability and validity as a measure of persecutory ideation.

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The purpose of the present study was to investigate reliability and validity of Japanese version of the Primary and Secondary Psychopathy Scales. First, similar to the original scales, exploratory factor analysis of the data from a sample of 475 revealed two factors for the scale items. In addition, a sample of 77 provided good indication of internal consistency as well as test-retest temporal stability. Correlations with BIS/BAS scales and PANAS also gave support for the scales' validity. These and other results suggested that, with some reservations, the Japanese version had usefulness of the original scales to measure psychopathic tendencies.

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This study examined the relationship between the Big Five personality and two dimensions of attachment, namely, anxiety and avoidance, in Japanese young adults. Junior college and vocational school students, 242 in all, participated in the study. Multiple regression analyses showed that Neuroticism and Agreeableness were predictors for anxiety, and Extraversion and Openness were predictors for avoidance. In addition, the coefficients of determination were relatively small. These results were almost the same as previous overseas studies. This suggested that although attachment dimensions had correlations with the Big Five personality to some extent, they measured different characteristics.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between entering employment and mental health. A questionnaire was administered to 70 young women, before and after graduating junior college or university. Mental health and job satisfaction was measured. As a personality measurement, Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory was used. Results showed that low job satisfaction significantly worsened mental health after beginning to work. However, even when job satisfaction was low, mental health did not deteriorate if the person's reward dependence was high. The result indicated that reward dependent personality might have a buffering effect on mental health.

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