The validity of the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality for diagnosing personality disorder (PD) was examined in two equivalent PD groups, one with dimensional criteria (N = 246) and the other with categorical criteria (N = 165), selected from 1,088 university students. Both equivalent PD groups did not exhibit specific profiles for each PD on FFM scales of the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R), and multiple regression analyses showed that FFM scores only partly predicted PD, although it was improved by the prototype-matching method. The comorbidity was not different in dimensional and categorical measures of PD. The results suggest that the FFM of personality is useful for providing information about the personality in each individual, but is not very helpful for diagnosing PDs, because each PD does not necessarily exhibit a specific homogeneous trait constellation on FFM based on the NEO-PI-R. Personality trait description and diagnosis of PD are not the same issues. It is necessary to integrate dimensional and categorical approaches to PDs for a more precise classification and diagnosis.

Anxiety is associated with low visual spatial working memory capacity (VSWMC) in the presence of task-irrelevant distractors. Because anxious individuals have difficulty suppressing processing of distractors, VSWMC is depleted. However, results of association between anxiety and VSWMC in the absence of distractors are inconsistent among previous studies. In the present study, distinct roles of trait and state anxiety were focused. The present study investigated the interactive effects of trait and state anxiety on VSWMC without distractors using a change detection task. In the task, a memory array of oriented bars to be encoded was presented followed by a test array, and participants were required to answer whether the test array was identical to or different from the memory array. Orientation of one bar changed largely (i.e., low-precision condition) in Experiment 1 and slightly (high-precision condition) in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, the interactive effects of trait and state anxiety on VSWMC were observed. VSWMC was positively associated with state anxiety when trait anxiety was low, whereas VSWMC was negatively associated with state anxiety when trait anxiety was high. These interactive effects were not observed under high-precision condition in Experiment 2, in which VSWMC was negatively correlated with state anxiety irrespective of trait anxiety. These results indicated that under low-precision condition, high state anxiety widely allocate working-memory resources and VSWMC becomes high. However, because high trait anxious individuals have difficulty controlling allocation of working-memory resources, high trait anxiety decreases VSWMC under high state anxiety. Under high-precision condition, it is necessary to allocate working-memory resources narrowly to detect slight change. Because of wide allocation of working-memory resources in high state anxious individuals, state anxiety is negatively correlated with VSWMC under high-precision condition.

Awe is theorized as an emotion appraised by perceived vastness and need for accommodation. This theoretical framework was developed with a review of spatially and temporally distributed literature mostly in the American and European cultural context, and is assumed to be culturally universal. However, awe as described by Japanese literature, was not explicitly included in the original theorization. We tested whether this framework generalized to the Japanese context by analyzing how Japanese awe-related words (e.g., “畏敬/ikei”) are used in Japanese text. A topic model was used to extract topics in contexts as an index of meaning. Results show that (1) the meaning of awe was statistically dissociable from similar but distinct meanings of fear and respect, and (2) the dissociating topics included transcendent entities such as god, spirits/ghosts, and powerful beings. Japanese meaning of awe includes vastness (i.e., transcendence) that goes beyond typical respect (i.e., power distance) requiring an accommodation of one’s mental framework.

The aim of the present study was to examine the affect regulation strategies of college athletes using the novel diagrammatic ‘distance affect regulation mapping’ (DARM) tool. In a mixed-methods approach, 96 college athletes completed and reflected on the DARM and completed questionnaires measuring attachment orientation. The correlation analyses demonstrated that athletes who had secure attachment orientations were more likely to seek proximity to someone they relied on to help soothe stress. Qualitative analysis suggested that college athletes found the DARM helpful in highlighting the effective strategies they used to cope with stress. The DARM is a promising tool for researchers to visually capture a range of strategies, and for college athletes to reflect on, improve, and further develop their affect regulation strategies.

This study examined whether religiosity moderates the genetic and environmental etiology of the Big Five personality traits (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness). Data from a nationwide sample of 549 twin pairs collected through the MacArthur Foundation National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States were analyzed. Analyses of a gene–environment interaction model revealed that religiosity moderated the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on Agreeableness and Conscientiousness; for those who were religious, environmental influences on Agreeableness and genetic influences on Conscientiousness were greater. Religiosity exhibited weak main effects on both traits, with higher religiosity contributing to higher levels of both traits. These results suggested that religiosity serves as a psychological immune system that restricts individuals’ levels of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness within a religiously appropriate range, insulating them from internal and external forces. Implications for personality theory and molecular genetic research on personality and psychopathology are discussed.