Culture and extrinsic moral motives: comparisons of Japan residents and Japanese sojourners in individualistic and loose countries

Dominant theories assume that moral judgments reflect the individual’s personal beliefs, but cross-cultural findings on morality suggest that people in collectivistic and tight cultures may rely on social expectations to evaluate morally relevant actions. Moreover, moral attitudes are flexible, and people may adapt moral values in line with what the members of the host culture value. In the current research, self-construal, tightness-looseness, and extrinsic moral motives (perceptions that moral acceptability of a given action is something that people are expected to go along with others) were investigated. Japan residents who had never been abroad (n = 73) and Japanese sojourners in individualistic and loose cultures (the United States, Canada, France, Germany, and Italy; n = 50) participated. Results showed that compared with Japan residents, Japanese sojourners reported lower extrinsic moral motives on morally relevant actions concerning communal values. Cultural tightness, but not self-construal, mediated the relationship between culture and extrinsic moral motives ratings. Among sojourners, assimilation and cultural tightness predicted higher extrinsic moral motives ratings, whereas length of residence negatively predicted the motives. These results show that people in tight cultures may make moral judgments based on what is perceived as socially appropriate, but not on what is personally important. Also, the research highlights the importance of considering the role of extrinsic moral motives in shaping moral judgments

Empathy and group processes in Japanese preschool children: The odd one out among friends receives less empathic concern

Research on empathy in intergroup contexts among children in collectivistic cultures is limited. To address this gap, this study examined empathic responding in two group contexts (intergroup and intragroup) among Japanese children by taking into account the collectivistic cultural context. Children aged 4 to 6 years participated in an experimental session (N = 50, Mage = 65.11 months). They listened to two versions of narratives about children of their age who were saddened because of a nasty wind that had blown their sand mountains away. The group membership and in-group status of the characters were manipulated. In the task, children rated the extent to which the characters were feeling sadness (affective perspective taking) and indicated the number of stars (empathic concern) for the characters. Age-related differences were found, with older children showing more affective perspective taking than younger children. Children of all age groups tended to express less empathic concern for the odd one out among friends (a loner in the group) than for the majority. Findings suggest that empathic responding is in part shaped by socialization, and cultural variations in empathy may emerge early in life

Chapter 3 The Psychology of Culture in Japan

Today’s world is more interconnected and interdependent than ever before. Within the context of globalisation and the associated increased contact between diverse groups of people, the psychology of culture is more relevant than ever. Asia-Pacific Perspectives on Intercultural Psychology brings together leading researchers from 11 countries to showcase the innovative, evolving, and diverse approaches that epitomise the development of the psychology of culture across the Asia-Pacific region. The contributors provide a range of examples of how different psychologies of culture can inform engagements with a range of psychological issues. Central to each chapter is the relationship between local cultures and ways of being, and knowledge production practices, imported theories, and methods from the global discipline. It is the resulting tensions and opportunities for dialogue that are central to the further development of intercultural psychology as a diverse scholarly arena. This important work argues the case for a combination of etic and emic approaches to theory, research, and practice in psychology, that this is foundational to the development of intercultural perspectives and more comprehensive understandings of both the universal and local elements of human experience and psychological phenomena today

Examining the generalizability of research findings from archival data

This initiative examined systematically the extent to which a large set of archival research findings generalizes across contexts. We repeated the key analyses for 29 original strategic management effects in the same context (direct reproduction) as well as in 52 novel time periods and geographies; 45% of the reproductions returned results matching the original reports together with 55% of tests in different spans of years and 40% of tests in novel geographies. Some original findings were associated with multiple new tests. Reproducibility was the best predictor of generalizability—for the findings that proved directly reproducible, 84% emerged in other available time periods and 57% emerged in other geographies. Overall, only limited empirical evidence emerged for context sensitivity. In a forecasting survey, independent scientists were able to anticipate which effects would find support in tests in new samples

Examining the generalizability of research findings from archival data

This initiative examined systematically the extent to which a large set of archival research findings generalizes across contexts. We repeated the key analyses for 29 original strategic management effects in the same context (direct reproduction) as well as in 52 novel time periods and geographies; 45% of the reproductions returned results matching the original reports together with 55% of tests in different spans of years and 40% of tests in novel geographies. Some original findings were associated with multiple new tests. Reproducibility was the best predictor of generalizability-for the findings that proved directly reproducible, 84% emerged in other available time periods and 57% emerged in other geographies. Overall, only limited empirical evidence emerged for context sensitivity. In a forecasting survey, independent scientists were able to anticipate which effects would find support in tests in new samples

The psychology of culture in Japan

This chapter describes the development of the psychology of culture in Japan, from a chronological perspective. From its culture and personality roots, through scrutiny of Western hegemony in methodology and its lack of fit in studying the Japanese of recent years, we have outlined the evolution of this area of psychology. Theoretical developments are traced, including fudoron, amae, tateshakai, kanjinshugi. Those indigenous theories are referenced with regard to the high context character of the Japanese culture, which renders traditional reductionist research methods inadequate in accurately tapping Japanese-ness in cross-cultural research

Child autistic traits and maternal attachment

The aim of this project is to examine a mediation model predicting maternal attachment to her child with child autistic traits as a predictor. The proposed mediator is negative parental self-concept

Turning off the empathy switch: Lower empathic concern for the victim leads to utilitarian choices of action.

Empathy enables people to vicariously experience the other's pain. At the same time, the focus of empathy can be narrow and reserved for a limited number of people. In sacrificial dilemmas, non-empathic people are more likely to sacrifice one person for greater good. However, no study has investigated the role of diminished empathic concern for the victim in utilitarian choices of action. In two studies, we investigated how empathy actually experienced in sacrificial dilemmas affects a decision to perform a harmful action onto the victim. In Study 1 (N = 275), participants were asked to rate the extent to which they were feeling two divergent tropes of affective empathy: other-oriented empathy (empathic concern) and self-oriented empathy (personal distress). Results showed that lower levels of other-focused empathy for the victim predicted utilitarian choices of action. In Study 2 (N = 170), participants were asked to rate the extent to which they empathized with the victim and the saved. We also assessed dispositional empathy and psychopathy to test a hypothesis that psychopathy mediates the relationship between lower empathy for the victim and utilitarian choices of action. Results supported this hypothesis, whereas dispositional empathy was not significantly correlated with utilitarian choices of action. Overall, lower empathy experienced in the dilemma situation was associated with utilitarian choices of action, and this was specific to reduced empathic concern for the victim. People choose to pursue the utilitarian end that accompanies harm onto the other as a mean when the victim is out of their empathic focus

Empathy and Group Process

Abstract submitted to ISRE2022: Young children show more empathy for familiar people than for strangers and enemies. Notably, there is a dearth of research on empathy in intergroup contexts among children in non-Western collectivistic cultures. This research examined empathic responding in intergroup and intragroup contexts among four- to six-year-old Japanese children. Fifty children participated in an experimental session (Mage = 65.11 months) and reported their empathic reactions to in-groups, out-groups, and odd one out among friends. They listened to two versions of narratives (intergroup, intragroup) about children their age who were saddened because of a nasty wind that had blown away their sand mountains. To manipulate their group status, all of the children were assigned to the orange team (vs. the green team). In the task, the children rated the intensity of sadness the characters were feeling (affective perspective taking) and gave the number of stars to the characters to cheer them up (empathic concern). Overall, older children showed more affective perspective taking than younger children. Moreover, children of all age groups showed less empathic concern for the odd one out among friends than for the majority and out-group member (a peer in a different affiliation). These findings are consistent with the cross-cultural model of intergroup and intragroup relations, indicating that fitting in the in-group is more important than winning an inter-group competition in the East Asian collectivistic context. This research provides preliminary evidence that cultural variations in empathy may emerge early in life, and cultural norms of relational harmony influence empathic responding

Personality and Cuteness

The aim of this research project is to investigate the effects of personality traits on cuteness, warmth, and competence ratings, and parenting motivation (protection, nurturance) for young children