Duality of independence and interdependence: An adaptationist perspective: Duality of independence and interdependence. Asian Journal of Social Psychology (201610) Vol.19 No.4 pp. 286-297

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We propose a new framework for understanding cultural differences in self‐construal by noting the duality of this construct. Based on the analysis of the adaptive roles of self‐construal, we predicted that a US-Japan difference in self‐construal exists in the contrast between self‐expression and rejection avoidance. We confirmed these predictions using newly constructed self‐construal scales. Compared to Japanese respondents, American respondents were higher on self‐expression and lower on rejection avoidance. Our findings regarding the contrast between distinctiveness of the self and harmony seeking, which are traditionally discussed as the core features of independence and interdependence, did not support the standard cultural psychological view. The two groups of respondents did not differ on distinctiveness of the self and the American respondents were higher on harmony seeking than were Japanese respondents.

A Study on the Impact of Branding, CEO, and Global Learning Capabilities on Export Sales Performance of Korean Fashion Firms. International Business Journal 2016 Vol.27 No.4 pp.41-68

Consuming“to have no self”: Kawaii consumption in Japanese women’s identity work. In P. Moreau & S. Puntoni (eds). Advances in Consumer Research 2016 Vol.44 pp. 348-352

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This paper explores consumption and identity using data collected in Japan. We find that consumptions are sometimes used to "eliminate" a sense of self contrary to past researches proposing "extended self." In the society where self-expression has less significance possessions don't necessarily define individuals or aid in maintaining their identity.

Value Co-creation on Open Innovation Platform: Agent-Based Modelling on Behavioral Patterns of Customer, Corporation, and Regulator Proceedings on International Conference on Service Science and Innovation 2016

The Effects of Self-Construals and Interactive Constraints on Consumer Complaint Behaviors Across Cultures. Psychological Studies, Vol. 61, No. 4, (2016): pp.267-278.

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This study predicts cross-cultural associations between task and face constraints in relation to consumer complaint behaviors. Participants comprised 1200 undergraduates from Kyoto City in Japan and 420 undergraduates from Las Vegas and Tennessee in the USA. The complaint methods studied include direct voice responses, private responses (negative word of mouth and exit action), and third-party responses. We found that complaints are usually made when service failures occur at the level of co-consumption, rather than at the level of the unaccompanied consumer. The results elucidate intrapersonal and interpersonal views regarding the role played by task constraints and face constraints in mediating the relationship between independent and interdependent self-construals and complaints expressed in various ways. Discussion of these results and their implications is provided, followed by suggestions for future research on culture and conversational constraints (task and face constraints), which leads to complaint behavior, and implications of such research.

Work, meaning, and gene regulation: Findings from a Japanese information technology firm. Psychoneuroendocrinology, v72 (201610): pp.175-181.

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The meaning in life, typically reflected in a sense of purpose, growth, or social embeddedness (called eudaimonic well-being, EWB), has been linked to favorable health outcomes. In particular, this experience is inversely associated with the conserved transcriptional response to adversity (CTRA), which involves up-regulation of genes linked to inflammation and down-regulation of genes linked to viral resistance. So far, however, little is known about how this transcriptome profile might be situated in specific socio-cultural contexts. Here, we tested 106 male workers at a large Japanese IT firm and found that the CTRA is inversely associated not only with general EWB but also with a more contextualized sense of meaning derived from the perceived significance of one's work and a sense of interdependence with others in the workplace. These results expand previous links between personal well-being and CTRA gene expression to include the socio-cultural determinants of meaning in life.

'Meso'-Foundations of Dynamic Capabilities: Team-Level Synthesis and Distributed Leadership as the Source of Dynamic Creativity. Global Strategy Journal, Vol. 6, Issue 3, August 2016, pp.168-182

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Plain language summary Globalization has transformed the international business environment into an increasingly more complex, uncertain, and diverse entity. Multinational enterprises are under greater pressure to develop their dynamic capabilities to not only adapt to, but also proactively cope with, the speed and complexities of the fast‐changing environment. Some research suggests that dynamic capabilities are closely correlated with top management functions, while counterarguments stress that dynamic capabilities are embedded in organizational activities. From the perspective of organizational knowledge creation, making a distinction between the creative and adaptive aspects of dynamic capabilities, this article argues that 'creative' dynamic capabilities are rooted in the activities of teams in middle levels of the organization. The article also presents leadership practices that are favorable to fostering dynamic capabilities. Technical summary This article examines the theoretical foundations of an organization's dynamic capabilities--sensing, seizing, and transforming--from the perspective of organizational knowledge creation. Making a distinction between the creative and adaptive aspects of dynamic capabilities, this article argues that the foundation of creative aspect is 'meso:' it stems from team‐level interactions of frontline workers' capabilities facilitated by middle managers, rather than from individual‐level (or micro‐level) capabilities. In this middle‐up‐down management model, top management sets the vision of the organization, but middle managers grasp and solve the gap between the top and the frontline by facilitating team‐level dialectic interactions of employees. The leadership practices of both top and middle management that facilitate this process are illustrated with four Japanese multinational companies--Fujifilm, Eisai, Mayekawa Manufacturing, and Toyota. Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society.

Prosocial Behavior Increases with Age across Five Economic Games. Plos One, v11, n7 (20160714)

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Ontogenic studies of human prosociality generally agree on that human prosociality increases from early childhood through early adulthood; however, it has not been established if prosociality increases beyond early adulthood. We examined a sample of 408 non-student residents from Tokyo, Japan, who were evenly distributed across age (20-59) and sex. Participants played five economic games each separated by a few months. We demonstrated that prosocial behavior increased with age beyond early adulthood and this effect was shown across all five economic games. A similar, but weaker, age-related trend was found in one of three social value orientation measures of prosocial preferences. We measured participants' belief that manipulating others is a wise strategy for social success, and found that this belief declined with age. Participants' satisfaction with the unilateral exploitation outcome of the prisoner's dilemma games also declined with age. These two factors--satisfaction with the DC outcome in the prisoner's dilemma games and belief in manipulation--mediated the age effect on both attitudinal and behavioral prosociality. Participants' age-related socio-demographic traits such as marriage, having children, and owning a house weakly mediated the age effect on prosociality through their relationships with satisfaction with the DC outcome and belief in manipulation.

Moral Bargain Hunters Purchase Moral Righteousness When it is Cheap: Within-Individual Effect of Stake Size in Economic Games. Scientific Reports, v6 (20160614)

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Despite the repeatedly raised criticism that findings in economic games are specific to situations involving trivial incentives, most studies that have examined the stake-size effect have failed to find a strong effect. Using three prisoner's dilemma experiments, involving 479 non-student residents of suburban Tokyo and 162 students, we show here that stake size strongly affects a player's cooperation choices in prisoner's dilemma games when stake size is manipulated within each individual such that each player faces different stake sizes. Participants cooperated at a higher rate when stakes were lower than when they were higher, regardless of the absolute stake size. These findings suggest that participants were 'moral bargain hunters' who purchased moral righteousness at a low price when they were provided with a 'price list' of prosocial behaviours. In addition, the moral bargain hunters who cooperated at a lower stake but not at a higher stake did not cooperate in a single-stake one-shot game.

Relationship between bicultural identity and psychological well-being among American and Japanese older adults. Health Psychology Open 2016 Vol. 3 pp.1-12

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In a large national sample of American and Japanese older adults, this study investigated how bicultural identity affects perception of health and well-being in 11 individual psychological variables (i.e. positive well-being: self-esteem, optimism, subjective well-being Japanese equivalent, gratitude, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-positive adjectives, and satisfaction with life; negative well-being: depression, pessimism, social anxiety, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-negative adjectives, and perceived stress). This sample consisted of 1248 Americans from the Midlife in the United States survey, 2004-2006, and 380 Japanese from the Midlife in Japan survey in Tokyo, Japan, 2008-2010. Results showed that bicultural individuals (having both highly independent and interdependent self-construals) in both countries tend to exhibit higher scores across most perceived health and well-being measures when compared to other groups (i.e. marginal, interdependent, and independent). Cultural-specific aspects of self-construal, health, and well-being are explained to support the findings. Discussion of these findings and their implications is also provided.

Self-Construals, Anger Regulation, and Life Satisfaction in the United States and Japan. Frontiers in Psychology, v7(20160531)

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Previous studies have reported evidence that indicates differences between Western and East Asian cultures in anger regulation and its psychological consequences. However, many of these studies have focused on a specific anger regulation strategy and its relation with a psychological consequence. Here, we developed an integrated model that can comprehensively examine three different anger regulation strategies (anger suppression, expression, and control), independent and interdependent self-construals as the psychological antecedent, and life satisfaction as the psychological consequence. We estimated the model using large samples of American and Japanese adults to examine the associations between the two self-construals, three anger regulation strategies, and life satisfaction. We compared the difference in the patterns of relationships among the key constructs between the American and Japanese samples. The results confirmed previously suggested cultural differences while also discovering new culturally different paths. The results generally suggest that individual-level self-construals matter more when anger is a culturally condoned emotion (vs. condemned). The implications and limitations of the integrated model are discussed.

Culture and group-based emotions: could group-based emotions be dialectical?. Cognition and Emotion 2017 Vol.31 No. 5 pp.937-949.

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Group-based emotions are experienced when individuals are engaged in emotion-provoking events that implicate the in-group. This research examines the complexity of group-based emotions, specifically a concurrence of positive and negative emotions, focusing on the role of dialecticism, or a set of folk beliefs prevalent in Asian cultures that views nature and objects as constantly changing, inherently contradictory, and fundamentally interconnected. Study 1 found that dialecticism is positively associated with the complexity of Chinese participants' group-based emotions after reading a scenario depicting a positive intergroup experience. Study 2 found that Chinese participants experienced more complex group-based emotions compared with Dutch participants in an intergroup situation and that this cultural difference was mediated by dialecticism. Study 3 manipulated dialecticism and confirmed its causal effect on complex group-based emotions. These studies also suggested the role of a balanced appraisal of an intergroup situation as a mediating factor.

Cortical thickness of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex predicts strategic choices in economic games. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, v113, n20 (20160517), pp.5582-5587.

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Human prosociality has been traditionally explained in the social sciences in terms of internalized social norms. Recent neuroscientific studies extended this traditional view of human prosociality by providing evidence that prosocial choices in economic games require cognitive control of the impulsive pursuit of self-interest. However, this view is challenged by an intuitive prosociality view emphasizing the spontaneous and heuristic basis of prosocial choices in economic games. We assessed the brain structure of 411 players of an ultimatum game (UG) and a dictator game (DG) and measured the strategic reasoning ability of 386. According to the reflective norm-enforcement view of prosociality, only those capable of strategically controlling their selfish impulses give a fair share in the UG, but cognitive control capability should not affect behavior in the DG. Conversely, we support the intuitive prosociality view by showing for the first time, to our knowledge, that strategic reasoning and cortical thickness of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex were not related to giving in the UG but were negatively related to giving in the DG. This implies that the uncontrolled choice in the DG is prosocial rather than selfish, and those who have a thicker dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and are capable of strategic reasoning (goal-directed use of the theory of mind) control this intuitive drive for prosociality as a means to maximize reward when there are no future implications of choices.

When a smile does no good: Creativity reduction among avoidance- versus approach-oriented individuals in dyadic interactions. International Journal of Innovation Management, 2016 Vol. 20 No.4

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This study examined the influence of others' smiles on individuals' creativity. According to popular belief, individuals get motivated to be more creative when others smile at them. In contrast, we hypothesised that smiles would make avoidance-oriented (versus approach-oriented) individuals less creative, as they may lose the motivation to pursue further novelty once they gain social approval, as implied by a smile. Forty-two participants were paired with a same-sex stranger and randomly assigned to the role of either an "illustrator" or a "commentator." The illustrators performed the Alien Drawing Task and the commentators gave feedbacks regarding the drawing, which were repeated six times and video-recorded. As expected, the results showed significant interaction effects between others' smiles and avoidance orientation on creativity: participants high in avoidance orientation showed less creativity when others smiled at them. In addition, nodding had the same effect as a smile did, confirming that social approval decreases the creativity of avoidance-oriented individuals.

The Response of Tail Risk Perceptions to Unconventional Monetary Policy. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 2016 Vol.8 No.2 pp.111-136

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We examine the impact of unconventional monetary policy (UMP) on stock market tail risk and risks of extreme interest rate movements. We find that UMP announcements substantially reduced option-implied equity market tail risks and interest rate risks. Most of the impact derives from forward guidance rather than asset purchase announcements. Communication about the future path of policy rates reduced volatility expectations of long-term rates and the associated risk premia. The reaction of equity market tail risk, in turn, points to the risk-taking channel of monetary policy, as the commitment to low funding rates may have relaxed financial intermediaries' risk-bearing constraints.

Social niche construction. Current Opinion in Psychology, v8 (April 2016):pp.119-124

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Humans are niche constructors who create physical and social environments to which they adapt. The social niche construction approach to human behavior analyzes behavior as a strategy to further long-term self-interest given a specific institution--that is, a set of stable and predictable responses from others to one's own behavior. We illustrate the logic of social niche construction analysis using examples of individualist and collectivist institutions, and explain how independent and interdependent self-construal can be viewed as strategies adapting to and collectively sustaining individualist or collectivist institutions. We discuss how the social niche construction approach is related to similar approaches used in cultural psychology, namely the socio-ecological approach, intersubjective approach, equilibrium approach, and gene-culture co-evolution approach.

Contextual effect of wealth on independence: An examination through regional differences in China. Frontiers in Psychology, 2016 7:384,

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The current study disentangled two different effects of wealth on psychological tendency toward independence: one is an effect exerted at the individual level (i.e., being rich) and the other one is a contextual effect (i.e., being surrounded by rich individuals). Past research has found a stronger tendency toward independence among people in economically developed societies. This association has often been explained as a result of a greater amount of choices, and thus more opportunities to express individuality that wealth affords individuals. In addition to this individual-level process, theories in cultural psychology imply that the wealth-independence link also reflects social processes-living in a rich society, regardless of one's own wealth, promotes independence (contextual effect of wealth on independence). Through a large-scale survey in China, using multilevel analyses, we found that wealth had both the individual-level effect and contextual effect on independence as well as related psychological tendencies (influence orientation and generalized trust), suggesting that individuals are more likely to be independent with greater personal wealth and when surrounded by wealthy others. Possible processes through which independence is promoted by liing in a wealthy area are discussed.

Revisiting Individual Creativity Assessment: Triangulation in Subjective and Objective Assessment Methods. Creativity Research Journal　2016 Vol.28 No.1 pp.1-10.

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Compared to the significant development of creativity studies, individual creativity research has not reached a meaningful consensus regarding the most valid and reliable method for assessing individual creativity. This study revisited 2 of the most popular methods for assessing individual creativity: subjective and objective methods. This study analyzed 1,500 individuals to investigate whether the methods for assessing individual creativity affect the measurement outcomes of individual creativity. Findings indicated that subjective assessments have a smaller variance a higher mean and a moderate but significant correlation with objective assessment methods. Such differences can be motivated by social desirability, consistency motif, illusory superiority, and leniency biases. Based on these findings, this study highlighted the need to acknowledge how subjective and objective assessment methods may affect individual creativity assessment outcomes.

Representation of economic preferences in the structure and function of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex. Scientific Reports, v6 (20160215)

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Social value orientations (SVOs) are economic preferences for the distribution of resources - prosocial individuals are more cooperative and egalitarian than are proselfs. Despite the social and economic implications of SVOs, no systematic studies have examined their neural correlates. We investigated the amygdala and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) structures and functions in prosocials and proselfs by functional magnetic resonance imaging and evaluated cooperative behavior in the Prisoner's Dilemma game. We found for the first time that amygdala volume was larger in prosocials and positively correlated with cooperation, while DLPFC volume was larger in proselfs and negatively correlated with cooperation. Proselfs' decisions were marked by strong DLPFC and weak amygdala activity and prosocials' decisions were marked by strong amygdala activity, with the DLPFC signal increasing only in defection. Our findings suggest that proselfs' decisions are controlled by DLPFC-mediated deliberative processes, while prosocials' decisions are initially guided by automatic amygdala processes.

Religious harassment in the workplace: An examination of observer intervention: Religious Harassment in the Workplace. Journal of Organizational Behavior 2016 Vol.37 No.2 pp.279-306

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Religious harassment claims in the United States have risen sharply over the past decade. However, victims of religious harassment may not always report harassment, and true rates may be higher. Hence, actions taken by third parties present (observers) are important in combating harassment in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to extend a previous model of observer intervention and related research by testing it empirically in the context of religious harassment and identify factors that influence observers' decision to intervene (intervention), when they intervene (level of immediacy), and how much they intervene (level of involvement). Across two studies, we find evidence that verbal harassment, ambiguity of intent, relationship to target/harasser, recurrence belief, religious commitment, pro‐social orientation, and the interactive effect of shared religion and religious commitment predict intervention. Furthermore, individuals show higher levels of involvement and immediacy in intervention when costs are low and emotional reactions are high. Implications of these findings for engaging observers in combatting harassment are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Parochial altruism: does it explain modern human group psychology?. Current Opinion in Psychology, v7, (20160201): pp.39-43.

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Parochial altruism -- the human inclination toward costly intra-group cooperation and inter-group aggression without expectations of future returns -- requires group selection logic to explain its evolution. We examined experimental evidence for three implications of the group selection account: the unconditional nature of intra-group cooperation; the non-instrumental, non-retaliatory, and costly nature of inter-group aggression; and the positive relationship between intra-group cooperation and inter-group aggression. Laboratory experiments revealed no support for the unconditional nature of intra-group cooperation, mostly negative evidence for the non-instrumental, non-retaliatory, and costly nature of inter-group aggression, and mixed evidence for the positive relationship between intra-group cooperation and inter-group aggression. Caution against premature conclusions about the role of group selection in the evolution of parochial altruism is advised.

Relationship between bicultural identity and psychological well-being among American and Japanese older adults. Health Psychology Open, v3, n1(20160101)

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In a large national sample of American and Japanese older adults, this study investigated how bicultural identity affects perception of health and well-being in 11 individual psychological variables (i.e. positive well-being: self-esteem, optimism, subjective well-being Japanese equivalent, gratitude, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-positive adjectives, and satisfaction with life; negative well-being: depression, pessimism, social anxiety, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-negative adjectives, and perceived stress). This sample consisted of 1248 Americans from the Midlife in the United States survey, 2004-2006, and 380 Japanese from the Midlife in Japan survey in Tokyo, Japan, 2008-2010. Results showed that bicultural individuals (having both highly independent and interdependent self-construals) in both countries tend to exhibit higher scores across most perceived health and well-being measures when compared to other groups (i.e. marginal, interdependent, and independent). Cultural-specific aspects of self-construal, health, and well-being are explained to support the findings. Discussion of these findings and their implications is also provided.

Revisiting Individual Creativity Assessment: Triangulation in Subjective and Objective Assessment Methods. Creativity Research Journal 2016 Vol.28 No.1 pp.1-10