This study examined the effects of “finding positive meaning” coping on positive affect (PA) and health with methodological modifications to overcome limitations in Yamasaki et al. (2009). Participants in the intervention group (14 men and 15 women) reported the most stressful event during the past three days and its positive meaning, while those in the control group (16 men and 15 women) reported only the most stressful event. Both groups reported twice a week for nine successive weeks via e-mails. Four self-report questionnaires measuring the intervention effects were administered to all participants. Results showed that PA and two of the health variables (social dysfunction and depression) were improved in both men and women by this intervention. Furthermore, hierarchical regression and mediation analyses showed that the enhanced coping following intervention increased PA, which in turn improved mental health status. Study limitations and possibilities for a self-control type of primary prevention were discussed.

抄録全体を表示

Several studies have asserted that the performance of verbal fluency task is strongly influenced by the socio-culture and language aspect. In the letter fluency task, participants are asked to generate words beginning with the letters F, A, S, (so-called FAS task), which has been widely used in English language. However it might not be equally suitable to other languages. Present study evaluates different kinds of letter and semantic fluency stimuli factors as part of the preparation to develop the Indonesian verbal fluency task. Results show that the letters A and S produced many different words and are positioned in the top ten ranking, which is consistent with the results of the verbal fluency research on English and Portuguese languages. However, the letter F did not meet these results. Meanwhile, for semantic fluency, animal naming seems to be the most frequently used verbal fluency stimuli in many languages. This preliminary research is expected to be a good starting point to explore many aspects of verbal fluency for Indonesian that have not been answered yet.

抄録全体を表示

Previous studies suggest that attention shift can be automatically triggered commonly by gaze and hand gestures of other individuals and symbols, but this idea remains controversial. We investigated this issue with two experiments using a cuing paradigm. The non-predictive cue was centrally presented before target presentation in the periphery. The cues were photographic stimuli indicating averted or neutral directions, which were expressed by eyes, a hand, or an arrow. Valid cues consistently shortened the reaction time needed to localize the targets compared with invalid or neutral cues for all three types of stimuli. These results suggest a common psychological mechanism for automatic attentional shift triggered by gaze, gestures, and symbols.

抄録全体を表示

There is an argument regarding whether Japanese children may show a delay in false belief reasoning. The authors investigated whether this apparent delay is genuinely due to the children’s difficulty with false belief reasoning, or whether the verbal questioning technique underestimates the competence of the participants. The authors gave 4- and 5-year-old Japanese children a verbal and a nonverbal false belief task. The results revealed that the children performed significantly better in the nonverbal task than in the verbal task. In addition, 5-year-old children performed significantly above chance in the nonverbal task, but not in the verbal task. The results suggested that Japanese children show difficulty with false belief tasks because verbal tasks may underestimate their competence. The results are consistent with the universal view of the development of false belief reasoning.

抄録全体を表示

The Emotional Expressivity Scale (EES) is a commonly used self-report measure of emotional expressivity. The current study aimed to evaluate the factor structure of the Chinese version of EES among a group of healthy college students using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Preliminary exploratory factor analysis revealed the presence of two factors, namely the emotional suppression and emotional expression. A subsequent confirmatory factor analysis using an independent sample confirmed this 2-factor structure of the Chinese version of EES.

抄録全体を表示