Cultural psychological processes underlying workplace remuneration in Japanese and European American contexts

Japan's remuneration systems are moving away from seniority-based pay towards individual performance-based pay. We tested how the latter system works within the Japanese cultural context and whether the operation and functioning of the system reflects general psychological tendencies found in Japan. Japanese (Study 1 n = 197; Study 2 n = 235) and European American (Study 1 n = 201; Study 2 n = 186) participants read vignettes that described workplace success centred on a focal employee and including a team. Participants attributed contribution and rewards (financial and status) to a range of agents and factors with graded levels of focus, from the focal employee having the greatest and luck having the least. In general, we found that Japanese participants attributed greater contribution and reward to less focal agents and factors while European American participants attributed greater contribution and reward to more focal agents, in addition to some specific differences between the tasks and reward types. We discuss implications for more nuanced theorizing of the interaction between institutional systems and psychological processes.     

Visual estimation of spatial requirements for locomotion in novice wheelchair users

Locomotion using a wheelchair requires a wider space than does walking. Two experiments were conducted to test the ability of nonhandicapped adults to estimate the spatial requirements for wheelchair use. Participants judged from a distance whether doorlike apertures of various widths were passable or not passable. Experiment 1 showed that participants underestimated the spatial requirements for wheelchair use but overestimated the spatial requirements for walking. Experiment 2 showed that their underestimation improved but was not completely eliminated after 8 days of practice passing through apertures. Analyses of wheelchair performance in the practice condition showed that the underestimation may have arisen from misperception of the positions of the hands when the participants were grasping the wheelchair hand-rims. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

A variable that may affect individual differences in the child-directed speech of Japanese women

Sixty-one single Japanese-speaking women between the ages of 18 and 26 years were recorded as they read aloud picture books to a young child and as they conversed with another Japanese-speaking woman. When their utterances were acoustically compared between the two settings with regard to prosodic features, both the average pitch and pitch excursions exhibited a significant increase when interacting with the child in 17 of the 61 women. In 36 of the remaining 44 subjects, neither of these parameters showed such changes. This individual variability was not related to the subjects' liking for picture books, previous experience with reading or being read them, or with baby-sitting. The only variable that could explain the results was whether the subjects had grown up with one or more siblings or as only children. If they were only children, the prosodic modification was significantly less likely to occur     

Short-range order in Al-rich 𝛄-TiAl alloys studied by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy with image processing

The atomic arrangements of short-range order (SRO) in two Al-rich γ-TiAl alloys with 62.5 and 60.0at.%Al respectively have been investigated by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy with image processing. For both alloys, SRO structures are formed in Ti-rich (002) layers of the L1₀ ordered γ-TiAl matrix, in the course of the phase transformation from the Al₅ Ti₃ long-period superstructure phase at lower temperatures to the h-Al₂ Ti phase at higher temperatures. The SRO structures are composed of three types of ordered cluster: Ti₄ Al type (square shaped), Ti₃ Al type (fat rhombus shaped) and Ti₂ Al type (lean rhombus shaped). The ordered clusters form local microdomains of the Al₅ Ti₃ and Al₃ Ti₂ superstructures in addition to the Al₅ Ti₃ and h-Al₂ Ti superstructures, by different methods of tiling the ordered clusters. Such ordered clusters or microdomains tend to be in contact with each other through common {310) boundaries. This results in peculiar diffuse streaks in diffraction connecting intensity maxima arising from the long-period superstructures.     

Does religious priming increase the prosocial behaviour of a Japanese sample in an anonymous economic game?

We examined the effect of religious priming on a Japanese sample in an anonymous dictator game whereas previous studies on religious priming on prosociality had mainly been conducted within Western contexts. The current study attempted to examine whether religion increases prosocial behaviour in a Japanese sample through the replication of ‘God is Watching You’ (Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007) where it was found that participants primed with religion‐related words and secular justice‐related words behaved more prosocially than participants primed with neutral words in an anonymous dictator game. The current experiment was conducted with Japanese students (n = 106) to examine whether the results of the original study could be applied to Japanese people. The results showed that among the three priming conditions (control, religion, secular justice), there was no difference in the amount of money participants allocated to anonymous strangers, although in the secular justice priming condition, theists allocated more money than atheists. The results might be due to the fact that the religious priming words used in the original study did not precisely activate the propositional network of religion that Japanese participants have. More culture‐specific studies are necessary to examine how religious priming works for non‐Westerners.     

Decline of Hip Joint Movement Relates to Overestimation of Maximum Forward Reach in Elderly Persons

The authors aimed to characterize age-related changes in the performance of maximum reach and identify kinematic parameters that explain the age-related discrepancy between perceived and actual maximum reach distance. Maximum reach was evaluated in 22 younger women (21.3 years old) and 20 older women (81.2 years old). Both the perceived and actual maximum forward reach and forward excursion of the center of pressure was shorter in older women. Older women also overestimated their maximum reach distance to a greater extent. Decline of movement at the hip joint specifically correlated with both the maximum distance and the overestimation. Based on these results, decline of hip control may be a primary factor for the age-related retardation of perceived and actual maximum reach.     

Improvement of nonverbal behaviour in Japanese female perfume‐wearers

The present study addressed the issue of whether people who use perfume improve their “visual” interpersonal impression. This expectation comes from the possibility that those who wear perfume may modify their nonverbal behaviour through positive mood changes generated by the pleasant odour of perfume or through an increase of public self‐consciousness. Thirty‐one Japanese females were assigned to either a perfume or a no‐perfume group. A screening test held in advance confirmed that all the participants in the perfume group preferred the smell of the perfume used in this study. They participated in an interview and answered questions asked by a female confederate. In the middle of the interview, the interviewees in the perfume group put on the perfume. The improvement of their nonverbal behaviour in the latter half of the interview was evaluated by 18 neutral observers, who watched silent video clips of the interviews. The observers were not informed that some of the interviewees used perfume. The results of observer ratings showed that the interviewees in the perfume group showed significantly less nonsymbolic movement (touching their hair or nose, or shifting their posture such as rotating on a swivel chair) when wearing perfume. Analysis of the video clips showed that the interviewees in the perfume group decreased their nonsymbolic movement for about 6 s per minute after putting on the perfume. The female observers also rated the interviewees in the perfume group as more self‐confident. These findings suggest that wearing perfume inhibits behaviours that project negative impressions. Analysis of the subjective mood showed that the inhibition of an interviewee's nonsymbolic movement might have resulted from a wearer's positive mood change. Although several methodological issues limit the conclusions drawn from these results, the present study showed that wearing perfume has the potential to cause changes in nonverbal behaviour and to improve visual impressions.