Video Game Use and The Development of Sociocognitive Abilities in Children: Three Surveys of Elementary School Students1

The purpose of the present study was to examine the validity of the popular hypothesis that video game use will prevent children from socially adjusting. Three surveys of elementary school children were reported. The primary results were as follows: (a) The frequency of video game use had no correlation with children's popularity among classmates. (b) The frequency of video game use had slightly negative correlations with boys' sociocognitive abilities such as empathy, cognitive complexity, and cognitive abstractness. (c) However, it was likely that the negative correlations were not due to the causal relation that video game use affected boys' sociocognitive abilities, which supported the hypothesis, but rather the causal relation that video game use was affected by their abilities; and (d) In the case of computer use, such as word processing or programming, the frequency of use had few correlations with sociocognitive abilities.     

Standing out in Canada and Japan

The need for separation or individuation is held to be a prime motive in Western psychology. Varied accounts of the meaning of selfhood in Japan indicate that separation may be much less important-or as important-for understanding the construction of self-identity in that culture. We focus here on personal distinctiveness, one vehicle for separation from others. We propose that the desire for distinctiveness is not absent or negligible in Japan, but is subject to more constrained expression than in the West. The results of two studies comparing Japanese and Canadian students suggest that Japanese are less desirous of standing out for their own sake and more likely to experience this form of distinctiveness as aversive. The results also suggest that although Japanese and Canadians derive positive distinctiveness from much the same sources, Japanese are less gratified by this type of experience.     

Fos expression in CRF-containing neurons in the rat paraventricular nucleus after central administration of neuromedin U

We examined the effects of centrally administered neuromedin U (NMU) on corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF)-containing neurons in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of rats, using double immunohistochemistry for CRF and Fos. Almost all CRF-containing neurons in the parvocellular divisions of the PVN expressed Fos-like immunoreactivity 90 min after intracerebroventricular administration of NMU (3 nmol/rat). This results suggest the possibility that central NMU may be involved in stress-induced activation of CRF-containing neurons in the PVN.     

Benefits of negative thinking and negative affect: analyses of answers to an open-ended question by Japanese undergraduates

What are the benefits of negative thinking and negative affect? Although previous studies in evolutionary psychology, social psychology, and clinical psychology have clarified the question, there has been no definitive study asking people directly about the perceived benefits. In the present study, 119 Japanese undergraduates were asked how they recognized the benefits of negative thinking and negative affect. Their answers were analyzed qualitatively. The answers were arranged into 30 smaller categories and 12 superordinate ones. The benefits were divided into "benefits to the self" and "benefits to interpersonal relations". Finally, the conditions necessary for the negative thinking and negative affect being benign, and possible cultural differences, were discussed.     

The transfer of abstract principles governing complex adaptive systems

Four experiments explored participants' understanding of the abstract principles governing computer simulations of complex adaptive systems. Experiments 1, 2, and 3 showed better transfer of abstract principles across simulations that were relatively dissimilar, and that this effect was due to participants who performed relatively poorly on the initial simulation. In Experiment 4, participants showed better abstract understanding of a simulation when it was depicted with concrete rather than idealized graphical elements. However, for poor performers, the idealized version of the simulation transferred better to a new simulation governed by the same abstraction. The results are interpreted in terms of competition between abstract and concrete construals of the simulations. Individuals prone toward concrete construals tend to overlook abstractions when concrete properties or superficial similarities are salient.     

Self-focusing situations and depression

The author examined the situations in which people turn their attention to the self and investigated differences between depressed and nondepressed persons in self-focusing situations. He developed a Self-Focusing Situation List containing 58 items and administered the list to 436 Japanese undergraduates. He also administered a depression scale to part of the sample (n = 365). A factor analysis extracted 6 factors, and cluster analyses of these 6 factors scores yielded 5 clusters. The participants who preferred self-focusing when alone and avoided self-focusing after positive events (Cluster 5) scored higher on the depression scale than did the participants in Clusters 1, 2, 3, and 4.     

Is self-positive information more appealing than money? Individual differences in positivity bias according to depressive symptoms

The self-positivity bias, which is inherent to healthy people, is known to be blunted in depression. The lack of positive or excessive negative self-reference is considered to be a potential mechanism underlying depressive rumination. However, the motivational factors that drive people to approach and avoid emotional self-related materials are still unclear. Therefore, we measured intrinsic motivation that is associated with emotional self-references by using a reward-based decision-making task (pay-per-view paradigm). Forty-nine undergraduates completed two tasks in which they were asked to choose between negative vs. positive references (Task 1) and self vs. other references (Task 2) for variable monetary rewards. Participants with lower levels of depressive symptoms showed a self-positivity bias, sacrificing rewards for the opportunity to engage in positive self-reference, whereas those with higher levels of depressive symptoms had no specific preference for either negative or positive self-reference (Task 1). However, all participants sacrificed monetary rewards for the opportunity for self-reference versus other reference, regardless of the symptom level or the primed valence (Task 2). Together, these findings suggest that depressive cognition could be characterised by the lack of intrinsic motivation for positive self-reference, which is attributable to the biased valence selection, but not to self–other preferences.     

The Impact of Religiosity and Individual Prayer Activities on Advanced Cancer Patients’ Health: Is There Any Difference in Function of Whether or Not Receiving Palliative Anti-neoplastic Therapy?

Consecutive patients (n = 221) presenting for initial consultation at a palliative care outpatient clinic were prospectively interviewed and then followed until death. Individual prayer activity (IPA) and global religion scores were associated with quality of life, symptoms, inflammatory markers, and survival. Analyses were adjusted for whether patients were still receiving anti-neoplastic therapies (ANTs) or not. Higher religion scores were associated with lower levels of inflammation in advanced cancer patients still undergoing ANTs. Additionally, higher IPA was an independent good prognostic factor in patients on active ANTs. Further studies are necessary to confirm these findings and to investigate possible biological mechanisms involved.     

Socioeconomic Status,Emotional/Behavioral Difficulties,and Social Competence among Preschool Children in Japan

Socioeconomic status (SES) is an important contextual factor influencing children’s development. However, there have been limited attempts to examine either the impact of relative poverty on child development or the relationships between specific SES indicators and mental health domains. This study elucidates these relationships in Japanese preschool children who experience high levels of relative poverty. Participants were 3218 Japanese children aged 5–6 years. Their mothers completed self-report questionnaires on SES indicators and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire to measure emotional/behavioral problems. Children’s teachers evaluated children’s social competence using the Social Skills Questionnaire for Preschoolers. Each SES indicator had an inverse relationship with all emotional/behavioral problem domains in the univariate analysis. In the multivariate analysis, lower family income consistently predicted higher scores on all emotional/behavioral problem domains, whereas lower maternal and paternal education levels independently predicted higher scores in specific domains. Each SES indicator had positive relationships with all social competence dimensions in the univariate analysis. Higher family income consistently predicted higher social competence in the multivariate analysis. However, paternal education level only predicted self-control, and maternal education did not predict social competence. Family income and parental education levels were significant independent predictors of emotional/behavioral problems and social competence. Thus, this study suggests that SES does affect child outcomes in a country where there is a high level of relative poverty and underscores the importance of assessing income and education status separately in order to identify their potentially unique associations with development among preschool children.