This study examined the difference of information seeking behaviour depending on situations when people judge acceptance of a public project. It was confirmed by a questionnaire experiment. Waste dump construction was used as a theme, and local referendum and opinion survey by interview at street corner as the situations were used in the experiment. It was expected that internal information seeking preceded external information seeking, and people sought external information more in local referendum situation than in opinion survey situation. The results supported our expectation. It showed that people tended to behave differently in seeking information depending on their situation. Almost all participants answered that they sought internal information in both of the situations, however, they sought external information more in the local referendum situation than opinion survey situation. Furthermore, methods to provide a project's information from authorities based on the results are discussed.

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[in Japanese]

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A social dilemma has been defined as a situation in which (a) each group member receives a higher payoff for defecting than for cooperative behaviors, and (b) all group members receive a lower payoff if they all defect than if they all cooperate (Dawes, 1980). The free-rider problem is associated with this social dilemma. The public goods game (PGG) is a decision-making task simulating the above social dilemma, and a number of previous studies have indicated that introducing punishment increases cooperation in the PGG. Although many studies have indicated that physiological responses affected by participants' behaviors when performing punishment-related tasks, this association has not been investigated to date in relation to PGG. Therefore, we investigated physiological responses in the PGG to elucidate the association between physiological responses and choices in the PGG. Participants performed both an ordinary PGG and a PGG that included probabilistic punishment. Heart rate (HR) responses were compared when participants contributed and did not contribute in the two types of PGGs. Results indicated that when others' choices were presented in the ordinary PGG, peak HR acceleration was higher after participants choose a non-cooperative behavior than a cooperative behavior, whereas when others' choices were presented in PGG with punishment, HR decelerated after participants choose a non-cooperative behavior than a cooperative behavior. These results suggest that cooperative behaviors in PGG with punishment are associated with punishment given to others, whereas cooperative behaviors in the PGG without punishment are associated with larger rewards without costs. These findings extend our understanding of the relationship between cooperative behaviors and physiological responses associated with social dilemmas.

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A retrospective attention is known that it can enhance an accuracy of only one item within visual working memory, however, it is not clear whether this attention can enhance that of multiple items or not. The previous study showed a null effect of retrospective attention to multiple items (i.e., a limitation of retrospective attention). It assumed that the null effect caused an extra effort to maintain multiple split foci or the retrospective attention cannot enhance multiple items. Present study investigated whether the effort to separate the retrospective attention to multiple items decline the effect of the retrospective attention with a probed-recall paradigm which is assumed more sensitive than that of previous study. Experiment 1 showed that there was a large effect size of single cueing, but there was no difference between a control condition and a double-cue condition where participants needed to distribute attention. However, it detected a weak effect size of attention between the both conditions. It suggested that distributing attention generated the extra effort and load. Then in order to lighten this load, we eliminated ISI between memorized items and attentional cues to use the iconic memory in Experiment 2. As compared with the accuracies in Experiment 1, those in Experiment 2 improved except that in double-cue condition. It was not enhanced by reduction of ISI as well as by the distribution of the attention. This suggested that the attentional effect in double-cue condition decreased due to the load to separate the attention. Thus, to distribute retrospective attention imposes the load and effort. Moreover, it limits the retrospective attention.

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For school nurse teachers as key persons, this study examined several factors to elucidate the relation between psycho-educational services necessary for team support and dynamic assessment of those services. A questionnaire survey was administered to 1,350 randomly selected public elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools. Based on Feuerstein (1979), items related to support attitudes (mediated learning experience; MLE) and dynamic assessment were collected and selected for questionnaire items such as belief for psychological support, burnout, coordination behavior assessment, workplace culture perception, and team cooperation. As a result, the collection rate was 35.9 % (484), yielding 382 valid responses. The results were subjected to factor analysis, correlation analysis, and then path analysis. Psycho-educational services for school nurse teachers showed positive correlation between dynamic assessment as the subscale of children's cognitive development and that of mediating support attitude ("transcendence" (r = .505, p ‹ .01) and "intentionality" (r = .429, p ‹ .01)). Every subscale of coordination activity showed significantly positive correlation (r = .318 to .43, p ‹ .01). Also, in the structure equation, "cooperation" of the workplace atmosphere had a positive path to "team cooperation," and "intentionality" as the subscale of school nurse teachers's support attitude to dynamic assessment. In turn, "dynamic assessment" had a positive path to "cooperation with professions outside school" as the subscale of coordination activity. The results presented above elucidated the relation between school nurse teachers' psycho-educational services and dynamic assessment. Furthermore, results suggest that, in the structure, the intentionality of mediating support attitudes as a factor for team cooperation supports the viewpoint of dynamic assessment and affects cooperation with professions outside the school.

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Psychopathy is constructed with two factors, interpersonal/affective features including callousness, manipulation and lack of remorse or empathy (Primary Psychopathy), and behavioral problems including impulsivity and lack of long-term goal (Secondary Psychopathy). While it is hypothesized that psychopathic traits are related to both dysfunction of frontal lobe and risky decision-making, there are few empirical studies. To test this hypothesis, we conducted two studies employing questionnaires and laboratory experiment. In the first study, we used Primary and Secondary Psychopathy Scale and Frontal Behavioral Inventory to examine the relationship between psychopathic traits and the function of the frontal lobe. In the second study, we used a gambling task to clarify the relationship between psychopathic traits and risky decision-making. In this task, participants decided whether or not to bet their own money or another participant's money in order to increase their own gain or the partner's gain. Results of these studies showed that psychopathic traits were associated with frontal lobe function, and high psychopathic individuals chose risky options more frequently than low psychopathic individuals. In particular, primary psychopathy prompted risky choices when participants could use partner's money, but not use their own money. Taken together, psychopathic individuals seem to be inclined to make selfish decisions, and this tendency might be caused by the dysfunction of frontal lobe.

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[in Japanese]

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For the success of community-based natural resource management, it is important that self-governing management organizations approve the legitimacy of rights for the management of a resource. In some resource management cases, it was observed that an organization that did not have authorized institutional legitimacy was in reality still able to manage a natural resource in that region. This study focused on the grassland management of Baga'eren Gacha village in Inner Mongolia, China; moreover, an interview survey was conducted to examine the substance of legitimacy that was approved for the management of the self-governing management organization, "the Village (Gacha) Committee," and the effect of the committee's procedural fairness. These aspects show that villagers regard the common land management's economic value as most important and accept the committee as the legitimate manager based on performance evaluation. Additionally, it is suggested that the effect of procedural fairness is less than that of distributive fairness. Furthermore, we discussed the function of the committee to modulate mismatch values between the administration and the villagers.

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The purpose of this study was to collect data on the situations under which university students feel distressed, and to arrange these situations based on three characteristics. First, as a pilot study, 20 undergraduate university students (average age of 19.45 years, SD = 1.36) responded to the questions "In what kinds of situations do you feel you experience difficulties?" and "What are your troubles in daily life?" by filling out an open questionnaire. As a result, we collected data on 172 situations and they were classified into five categories: human relationship, losing thing, study, private affairs and environment. Second, as the main study, 208 university students (average age of 19.14 years, SD = 3.12) replied to a questionnaire. For each of 42 items selected from the results of the pilot study, the students answered questions about three items: frequency of experiencing troubles, the degree of feeling distressed, and the degree of desire for assistance. Based on factor analysis, we found four factors: interpersonal relations, communication skills, studies and daily routines. The factors also display different characteristics. The students answered under "daily routines" that such occurrences as "I forget my umbrella on rainy days" often occur, but situations such as "I cannot say what I want to say to people" under "communication skills" do not happen too much. The findings suggest that there are various situations in which university students feel distressed in daily life. Undergraduate students have various difficulties, and in addition, the kinds of prosocial behaviours (assistance, helping and so on) that arise are numerous. Previous studies in Japan have conducted research on secondary and tertiary students suffering from mental disorders, but this study focuses on the healthy university students and their school life.

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This is a preliminary discussion on the development and characteristics of anti-whaling activism in Japan with reference to the activism in Norway. Although Japan and Norway are often considered among the greenest countries in the world, both are also known as major whaling nations without strong anti-whaling movements. While there are several important studies on Norway, little attention has been paid to the case of Japan. Drawing on the framing perspective of social movement theory, this article considers how local political conditions have constrained the growth of Japanese anti-whaling activism and shaped its repertoire of activities, which are significantly less radical compared to its international counterparts. The article concludes by showing an agenda for future research about the nature conservation and animal protection movements in Japan, as well as anti-whaling activism itself, by highlighting the importance of a political-cultural perspective in understanding them.

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