Age,Emotion Regulation,and Affect in Adulthood: The Mediating Role of Cognitive Reappraisal

Evidence indicates that older adults experience high levels of emotional well‐being. However, little is known empirically about the underlying mechanism of this state. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether emotion regulation mediates the link between age and affect in adulthood. The sample consisted of 516 Japanese participants aged 30 (±1), 50 (±1), and 70 (±1) years, who were registered with an Internet survey company. Cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression were measured as emotion regulation strategies. Positive and negative affect were assessed. Older participants reported lower negative affect than younger participants, while positive affect was not correlated with age. Cognitive reappraisal partially mediated the relationship between age and affect, whereas expressive suppression did not. The results suggested that age‐related increase in cognitive reappraisal could contribute to improvements in affect, but that another adaptive form of emotion regulation may mediate the relationship between age and affect. Our study thus indicates that developments in emotion regulation could explain the mechanism of stable everyday affect throughout adulthood, and that researchers should further explore another form of adaptive emotion regulation.     

Emotional dynamics of soccer fans at winning and losing games

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the emotional reactions of fans of winning and losing teams at two professional soccer games. The participants were 187 male and 146 female Japanese soccer fans who provided biographical information and responded to a slightly modified state version of the Tension and Effort Stress Inventory (TESI; Svebak, Ursin, Endresen, Hjelmen, & Apter, 1991) pre-, mid- and post-game. Data from winning and losing fans were analysed using 3 × 2 independent groups ANOVAs for each of the pleasant emotions, unpleasant emotions, and tension stress/effort stress ratings with Bonferroni adjustment to control Type 1 error rates. When winning and losing fans’ responses were compared, most differences were found post-game, where losing fans scored significantly higher than winning fans on boredom, anger, sullenness, humiliation and resentment, and lower on relaxation. Also, levels of pleasant and unpleasant emotions changed significantly for losing fans, but (except for boredom) not for winning fans.     

Effects of attention and external stimuli on duration estimation under aprospective paradigm

The study examined whether there are two independent cognitive factors affecting duration estimation. In two experiments, we manipulated simultaneously and independently two variables, namely, the level of attention to the lapse of time and the quantity of perceived changes, and examined their effects on duration estimation under a prospective paradigm. The duration was estimated to be longer when subjects attended to the lapse of time than when they attended to tasks during the target interval (Experiments 1 and 2). The characteristics of external stimuli irrelevant to the tasks, namely, the rate of presentation of sounds (Experiment 1) and the velocity of moving dots (Experiment 2), affected duration estimation, even though the attention level was little changed by these stimuli. These findings suggest that there are at least two independent cognitive factors that affect duration estimation.     

PACAP centrally mediates emotional stress-induced corticosterone responses in mice

Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) is a pleiotropic neuropeptide widely distributed in the nervous system. Recently, PACAP was shown to be involved in restraint stress-induced corticosterone release and concomitant expression of the genes involved in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation. Therefore, in this study, we have addressed the types of stressors and the levels of the HPA axis in which PACAP signaling is involved using mice lacking PACAP (PACAP?/?). Among four different types of stressors, open-field exposure, cold exposure, ether inhalation, and restraint, the corticosterone response to open-field exposure and restraint, which are categorized as emotional stressors, but not the other two, was markedly attenuated in PACAP?/? mice. Peripheral administration of corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) or adrenocorticotropic hormone induced corticosterone increase similarly in PACAP?/? and wild-type mice. In addition, the restraint stress-induced c-Fos expression was significantly decreased in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) and medial amygdala (MeA), but not the medial prefrontal cortex, in PACAP?/? mice. In the PVN of PACAP?/? mice, the stress-induced c-Fos expression was blunted in the CRF neurons. These results suggest that PACAP is critically involved in activation of the MeA and PVN CRF neurons to centrally regulate the HPA axis response to emotional stressors.     

Research Ethics in Japanese Higher Education: Faculty Attitudes and Cultural Mediation

Principles of research ethics, derived largely from Western philosophical thought, are spreading across the world of higher education. Since 2006 the Japanese Ministry of Education has required universities in Japan to establish codes of ethical conduct and ensure that procedures are in place to punish research misconduct. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 13 academics in a research-intensive university in Japan, this paper considers how research ethics is interpreted in relation to their own practice. Interviewees articulated a range of ethical issues connected with data gathering and interpretation, applying for and using research funds, relationships with peers and research subjects, and the dissemination of results. The paper also explores the effect of personal values and cultural norms on the Japanese interpretation of research ethics identifying the impact in terms of the treatment of graduate research students and decision-making processes.     

The role of the prefrontal cortex in the go/no-go task in humans: a positron emission tomography study

To study the localization of response inhibition in the human brain, especially the role of the prefrontal cortex and laterality of its activation, we used positron emission tomography (PET) to measure regional cerebral blood flow in 11 right-handed participants while they performed a go/no-go and a simple control reaction-time task. In the control task, the participants responded to a target stimulus following a cue stimulus. In the go/no-go task they were instructed to inhibit the required response if the target stimulus did not appear. These tasks were performed using each hand. The right prefrontal cortex was found to be significantly activated when the go/no-go task was compared with the control task, regardless of the responding hand. The results indicated that response inhibition per se may be controlled by the right prefrontal cortex regardless of response hand for right-handed participants.     

六朝灵宝经中的葛仙公(上)

本文参考了大渊忍尔、小林正美、柏夷(Stephen R. Bokenkamp)和王承文等人的研究成果,以现存灵宝经(《道藏》本、敦煌抄本)所见葛玄的材料为中心,考察了灵宝经与佛教教理、上清派道经及天师道的思想关系。因篇幅关系,译文分两次刊出。     

六朝灵宝经中的葛仙公(下)

本文参考了大渊忍尔、小林正美、柏夷(Stephen R. Bokenkamp)和王承文等人的研究成果,以现存灵宝经(《道藏》本、敦煌抄本)所见葛玄的材料为中心,考察了灵宝经与佛教教理、上清派道经及天师道的思想关系。因篇幅关系,译文分两次刊出。