This paper reports on a study relevant to the psychology literature on pan-cultural self-enhancement; namely, what are some strategies by which people from non-western cultures raise their self-worth? I conducted an experiment to test hypotheses regarding culturally acceptable means of communicating positive feedback and its effect on changes in self-esteem. Japanese were expected to report elevated feelings of self-worth after receiving positive feedback from a friend, whereas Americans were expected to report higher feelings of self-worth after announcing their own positive feedback (given by an experimenter in front of a friend). One hundred and fifty-seven pairs of friends participated in an experiment in which one friend in each pair was the target of positive feedback from a simulated creativity test (delivered by self or friend). Analyses revealed that culture and source of feedback affected the global self-esteem of the test takers and appearance self-esteem of both the test taker and the friend. Relative to each culture, US Americans’ self-esteem increased after self-delivered feedback, whereas the self-esteem of Japanese increased after feedback announced by a friend. The results highlight appropriate feedback situations leading to positive self-evaluation for Japanese and Americans. Implications for intercultural education are discussed.

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This paper elaborates on the question of how education can contribute to happiness. Drawing on and developing further educationalist happiness research, this paper argues that pedagogical institutions follow distinct happiness views, and that they implicitly teach these views. A research approach will be proposed for analyzing pedagogical institutions and practices in regard to their happiness views. This approach will be applied in a cross-cultural qualitative analysis of Outward Bound schools in Japan and Germany. It will be shown that the happiness view of Outward Bound schools can be described in terms of peak experiences. The analysis will further demonstrate that there is no significant difference between Japanese and Germans regarding their view of happiness in Outward Bound, but between Outward Bound instructors and participants of Outward Bound courses. The findings will be related to happiness research in formal schools, arguing that the happiness view of formal schools needs to be considered in plural terms.

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It has been suggested that high concentration or flow experience alters the sensation of time. Additionally, attention is known to affect the perception of time. To investigate whether the effect of concentration on time perception is equivalent to that of attention, we investigated the correlation between subjective concentration and the judgment of temporal duration through 3 experiments employing 8 everyday tasks. The results showed that concentration rating was not significantly correlated with duration estimates in ordinary time units and was negatively correlated with categorical duration judgment. With the feedback of physical elapsed time, categorical duration judgment eliminated the correlation, suggesting that concentration was correlated with duration judgment only when the participants did not have access to information concerning duration. Unlike attention, concentration had an effect on subjective time impression but not on duration estimation, suggesting that it affects time perception differently from effort-based mechanisms.

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Happiness is a kind of subjective feeling of positive emotions. Since the psychological process of reward is closely linked to pleasure, studies to elucidate the brain mechanisms of happiness have focused on the neural circuitry that processes reward information. Brain imaging studies have revealed that the orbitofrontal cortex, cingulate cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, insula, nucleus accumbens, ventral pallidum, substantia nigra, and ventral tegmental area are the key areas related to happiness. When we consider the brain mechanisms of happiness, we need to distinguish between the neural mechanisms for liking and wanting, and between those that encode and cause pleasant feelings. Among these brain areas, subcortical structures participate in “wanting”, while cortical areas participate in “liking”. Orbitofrontal activity has been shown to encode the subjective experience of pleasure. However, it is not clear whether orbitofrontal activity actually causes pleasant feelings. Since the neuroscience of happiness is still in the primitive stage, further experiments are needed to elucidate the brain mechanisms of happiness.

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We report a brain imaging study with fMRI in which participants were scanned while watching Noh masks with face expressions rated as happy. Among seventy standard masks previously rated by the participants, we selected the six happiest masks and six neutral masks to explore the neural correlates of happiness associated with Noh masks. Results based on region of interest (ROI) analysis indicated activations of nucleus accumbens (Nacc) while viewing happy masks. We suggest that as the Nacc activation increased, happiness tended to increase possibly due to enhanced dopaminergic activity in the Nacc associated with the reward by observing smiling masks.

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Self-regulation of impulsivity via maturation of the executive resources benefits our well-being. The review of behavioral, neuroimaging, and pharmacological studies appears to provide evidence of a relationship between the self-regulation of impulsivity, activity of the prefrontal cortex, and serotonergic neurotransmission. Although a wide range of genetic, developmental, and social factors exists, much of this information, their interactive mechanisms in particular, remains to be clarified. Thus, in the present article, I first review the brain functions that underlie self-regulative processes and then provide an update on recent findings regarding serotonergic neurotransmission. Next, by integrating findings from behavioral genetics that examine the association between gene polymorphism and impulsivity, I discuss the bright sides of the risk allele of gene polymorphism. Finally, I argue the future direction of genetic and environmental bidirectional studies.

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Humans are sensitive to others’ possessions, such as talents, appearance, achievements, etc. By comparing ourselves to others, we assess self-evaluation and personal satisfaction. Here, reviewing recent neuroscientific findings, we will illustrate the neural mechanisms of emotional reactions to the perceived inequity of social comparison by both the level of contextual appraisal and the automatic level of perceiving the emotions of others. Envy, schadenfreude, empathy and counter-empathy are predominant emotions associated with social comparison, and the brain is predisposed to generating them according to others’ conditions. It is argued that happiness is not just a pure hedonic state but is a matter of others, whose happiness cannot exceed ones own.

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