Proximal and distal honor fit and subjective well-being in the Mediterranean region.

OBJECTIVE: People's psychological tendencies are attuned to their sociocultural context and culture-specific ways of being, feeling, and thinking are believed to assist individuals in successfully navigating their environment. Supporting this idea, a stronger "fit" with one's cultural environment has often been linked to positive psychological outcomes. The current research expands the cultural, conceptual, and methodological space of cultural fit research by exploring the link between well-being and honor, a central driver of social behavior in the Mediterranean region. METHOD: Drawing on a multi-national sample from eight countries circum-Mediterranean (N = 2257), we examined the relationship between cultural fit in honor and well-being at the distal level (fit with one's perceived society) using response surface analysis (RSA) and at the proximal level (fit with one's university gender group) using profile analysis. RESULTS: We found positive links between fit and well-being in both distal (for some, but not all, honor facets) and proximal fit analyses (across all honor facets). Furthermore, most fit effects in the RSA were complemented with positive level effects of the predictors, with higher average honor levels predicting higher well-being. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight the interplay between individual and environmental factors in honor as well as the important role honor plays in well-being in the Mediterranean region.

Do you feel happy when other members look happy? Moderating effect of community-level social capital on interconnection of happiness.

One's happiness is expected to be affected by the happiness of surrounding others. This socio-psychological nature of happiness, however, has not been fully examined in the literature of social psychology. The current study examined if this "psychological interconnection of happiness" occurs when (i) individuals have strong personal social capital and/or (ii) individuals belong to a community where other members have strong social capital. We analysed a large social survey dataset sampled from 408 communities in Japan (N = 7295). The psychological interconnection of happiness was measured by calculating the correlation between individual happiness and perceived community happiness. The multilevel analyses revealed that the psychological interconnection of happiness was moderated by community-level social capital above and beyond individual-level social capital, while individual-level social capital did not have a significant moderation effect.

Reduced orbitofrontal cortical volume is associated with interdependent self-construal.

Interdependent self-construal refers to a view of the self as embedded in relationships with others. Prior work suggests that this construal is linked to a strong value placed on social obligations and duties. Interdependent people are therefore cognitively attuned to others and various social events in their surroundings while down-regulating their personal goals. In the present work, we examined whether structural properties of the brain predict interdependent self-construal. We performed a structural magnetic resonance imaging on 135 Japanese young adults while assessing (i) independent and interdependent self-construals and (ii) the degree to which individuals form vivid images of external objects (object imagery). The cortical volume of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) (a core cortical region responsible for value-based decisionmaking and, thus, inherently involved in personal goals and desires) inversely predicted interdependent self-construal. Further analysis found that the highest level of interdependent self-construal is achieved when those who are relatively low in the OFC volume are simultaneously high in object imagery, consistent with previous evidence that interdependence, as realized via obligation and duty, requires both the reduced self-interest and vigilant cognitive attunement to environmental context.

Awe or horror: differentiating two emotional responses to schema incongruence.

Experiences that contradict one's core concepts (e.g. of the world, people, the self) elicit intense emotions. Such schema incongruence can elicit awe, wherein experiences that are too vast to understand with existing cognitive schemata cause one to feel that schemata should be updated [i.e. a "need for cognitive accommodation" (NFA); Keltner & Haidt, 2003. Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 17(3), 297-314]. However, other emotional responses to schema incongruence, such as horror, have not been investigated. The current studies compared awe and horror to investigate if they are distinct emotional responses to schema incongruence. Study 1 observed significant differences between awe and horror in cognitive appraisals (e.g. certainty, legitimacy), indicating several areas of dissimilarity. Study 2 found evidence that awe and horror are both responses to schema incongruence, as schema incongruence and NFA were salient in awe and horror, but not a contrast emotion. However, awe and horror were elicited by different types of schema incongruence: awe by spiritual vastness, horror by extremity. Awe-eliciting experiences also appeared to be easier to assimilate than horrifying experiences, as NFA and uncertainty were significantly lower in awe than in horror. Differences in the functions of horror and awe are also discussed.

The 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydratases HACD1 and HACD2 exhibit functional redundancy and are active in a wide range of fatty acid elongation pathways.

Differences among fatty acids (FAs) in chain length and number of double bonds create lipid diversity. FA elongation proceeds via a four-step reaction cycle, in which the 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydratases (HACDs) HACD1-4 catalyze the third step. However, the contribution of each HACD to 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydratase activity in certain tissues or in different FA elongation pathways remains unclear. HACD1 is specifically expressed in muscles and is a myopathy-causative gene. Here, we generated Hacd1 KO mice and observed that these mice had reduced body and skeletal muscle weights. In skeletal muscle, HACD1 mRNA expression was by far the highest among the HACDs However, we observed only an ∼40% reduction in HACD activity and no changes in membrane lipid composition in Hacd1-KO skeletal muscle, suggesting that some HACD activities are redundant. Moreover, when expressed in yeast, both HACD1 and HACD2 participated in saturated and monounsaturated FA elongation pathways. Disruption of HACD2 in the haploid human cell line HAP1 significantly reduced FA elongation activities toward both saturated and unsaturated FAs, and HACD1 HACD2 double disruption resulted in a further reduction. Overexpressed HACD3 exhibited weak activity in saturated and monounsaturated FA elongation pathways, and no activity was detected for HACD4. We therefore conclude that HACD1 and HACD2 exhibit redundant activities in a wide range of FA elongation pathways, including those for saturated to polyunsaturated FAs, with HACD2 being the major 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydratase. Our findings are important for furthering the understanding of the molecular mechanisms in FA elongation and diversity.

Humiliated fury is not universal: the co-occurrence of anger and shame in the United States and Japan.

It has been widely believed that individuals transform high-intensity shame into anger because shame is unbearably painful. This phenomenon was first coined "humiliated fury," and it has since received empirical support. The current research tests the novel hypothesis that shame-related anger is not universal, yet hinges on the cultural meanings of anger and shame. Two studies compared the occurrence of shame-related anger in North American cultural contexts (where shame is devalued and anger is valued) to its occurrence in Japanese contexts (where shame is valued and anger is devalued). In a daily-diary study, participants rated anger and shame feelings during shame situations that occurred over one week. In a vignette study, participants rated anger and shame in response to standardised shame vignettes that were generated in previous research by either U.S. or Japanese respondents. Across the two studies, and in line with previous research on humiliated fury, shame predicted anger for U.S. PARTICIPANTS: Yet, neither in the daily diary study nor for the Japanese-origin vignettes, did we find shame-related anger in Japanese participants. Only when presented with U.S.-origin vignettes, did Japanese respondents in the vignette study report shame-related anger. The findings suggest that shame-related anger is a culture-specific phenomenon.

Cultural variation in implicit independence: An extension of Kitayama et al. ().

Previous research shows that European Americans are consistently more independent (or less interdependent) than Japanese when implicit indices are used to assess independence (vs. interdependence). The present work extended this evidence by including a novel implicit association test (IAT), as an index of implicit attitude towards independence and interdependence. Consistent with the previous findings, as compared to Japanese, Americans were significantly higher in multiple indices of implicit independence (vs. interdependence) including personal (vs. social) self-definition, experience of disengaging (vs. engaging) emotions and personal (vs. social) form of happiness. Furthermore, as compared to Japanese, Americans had a significantly more positive implicit attitude towards independence assessed with the IAT. As also observed in the previous research, explicit measures showed inconsistent cross-cultural patterns. Lastly, we observed little statistical within-culture coherence among the implicit measures of independence (vs. interdependence), consistent with a view that the implicit indices capture alternative ways for individuals to achieve the cultural mandate of independence or interdependence.

Interdependent culture and older adults' well-being: Health and psychological happiness in Japanese communities.

This review article examined perspectives on the well-being and health of older adults in Japan, a nation renowned for its longevity. We emphasized the impact of social capital and social relationships in local communities, considering both individual and societal factors. The prevailing values in Japanese culture tend to foster a sustained and stable form of interdependent happiness among older adults, suggesting that communal support systems play an important role. This article highlights the value of multi-level datasets, such as the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES) dataset, for understanding the influence of social participation on the health and well-being of older adults. A growing body of evidence underscores the central role of social relationships in the health and well-being of older adults.

The impact of culture on emotion suppression: Insights from an electrophysiological study of emotion regulation in Japan.

Prior theory and evidence suggest that native East Asians tend to down-regulate their emotional arousal to negatively valenced experiences through expressive suppression, an emotion regulation technique focused on suppressing one's emotional experience. One proposed explanation for this choice of regulation strategy and its efficacy is rooted in their commitment to the cultural value of interdependence with others. However, prior work has not yet thoroughly supported this hypothesis using in vivo neural correlates of emotion regulation. Here, we utilized an established electroencephalogram (EEG) correlate of emotional arousal, the late positive potential (LPP), to examine whether down-regulation of the LPP in native East Asians might be particularly pronounced for those relatively high in interdependent self-construal. In this study, native Japanese participants attempted to suppress their emotional reaction to unpleasant images during EEG recording. In support of the hypothesis that emotion suppression among native East Asians is influenced by the cultural value of interdependence, there was a significant effect of interdependent self-construal on the LPP. Specifically, those relatively high in interdependent (versus independent) self-construal exhibited a smaller LPP in response to unpleasant pictures when instructed to suppress their emotions versus a passive viewing condition. However, this effect was negligible for those relatively low in interdependent self-construal, suggesting that cultural values impact the in vivo efficacy of different emotion regulation techniques. These results demonstrate the importance of identifying correspondence between self-report measures and in vivo correlates of emotion regulation in cross-cultural research.

Couple conflict observed: Emotions in Belgium and Japan.

In the present study, we examined cultural variation in couples' emotions during disagreement. We coded the emotions of 58 Belgian and 80 Japanese couples using the Specific Affect Coding System. We observed more anger and domineering, but less fear/tension and other-validation in Belgian than in Japanese couples. Moreover, in Japanese couples, culturally typical emotions were associated with higher conflict resolution and relationship satisfaction. The findings suggest meaningful cultural differences in couples' observed emotions during disagreement, as they can be understood from the prevailing relationship ideals in each culture. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Gender differences in perceived legitimacy and status perception in leadership role.

The present study examined the difference between women and men in perceiving leadership roles. Two experiments, one conducted online and the other in a lab, investigated the subjective experiences of Japanese men and women when they are assigned with different roles (e.g., leader vs. subordinate). Both studies revealed that women perceived their role as less legitimate when they were assigned leader role (vs. subordinate role). In contrast, men did not differ in their perceived legitimacy according to the assigned roles. This discrepancy in legitimacy perception in response to different roles between men and women accounted for a significant variance in women's lower sense of status when they were a leader (vs. subordinate), but not among men. Our study results illustrate the psychological barrier operating for women in organizations that are embedded in a cultural context in which women leaders are highly underrepresented.

Neither Eastern nor Western: Patterns of independence and interdependence in Mediterranean societies.

Social science research has highlighted "honor" as a central value driving social behavior in Mediterranean societies, which requires individuals to develop and protect a sense of their personal self-worth and their social reputation, through assertiveness, competitiveness, and retaliation in the face of threats. We predicted that members of Mediterranean societies may exhibit a distinctive combination of independent and interdependent social orientation, self-construal, and cognitive style, compared to more commonly studied East Asian and Anglo-Western cultural groups. We compared participants from eight Mediterranean societies (Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus [Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities], Lebanon, Egypt) to participants from East Asian (Korea, Japan) and Anglo-Western (the United Kingdom, the United States) societies, using six implicit social orientation indicators, an eight-dimensional self-construal scale, and four cognitive style indicators. Compared with both East Asian and Anglo-Western samples, samples from Mediterranean societies distinctively emphasized several forms of independence (relative intensity of disengaging [vs. engaging] emotions, happiness based on disengaging [vs. engaging] emotions, dispositional [vs. situational] attribution style, self-construal as different from others, self-directed, self-reliant, self-expressive, and consistent) and interdependence (closeness to in-group [vs. out-group] members, self-construal as connected and committed to close others). Our findings extend previous insights into patterns of cultural orientation beyond commonly examined East-West comparisons to an understudied world region. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotion regulation strategies and psychological health across cultures.

Emotion regulation is important for psychological health and can be achieved by implementing various strategies. How one regulates emotions is critical for maximizing psychological health. Few studies, however, tested the psychological correlates of different emotion regulation strategies across multiple cultures. In a preregistered cross-cultural study (N = 3,960, 19 countries), conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, we assessed associations between the use of seven emotion regulation strategies (situation selection, distraction, rumination, cognitive reappraisal, acceptance, expressive suppression, and emotional support seeking) and four indices of psychological health (life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and loneliness). Model comparisons based on Bayesian information criteria provided support for cultural differences in 36% of associations, with very strong support for differences in 18% of associations. Strategies that were linked to worse psychological health in individualist countries (e.g., rumination, expressive suppression) were unrelated or linked to better psychological health in collectivist countries. Cultural differences in associations with psychological health were most prominent for expressive suppression and rumination and also found for distraction and acceptance. In addition, we found evidence for cultural similarities in 46% of associations between strategies and psychological health, but none of this evidence was very strong. Cultural similarities were most prominent in associations of psychological health with emotional support seeking. These findings highlight the importance of considering the cultural context to understand how individuals from diverse backgrounds manage unpleasant emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Horror, fear, and moral disgust are differentially elicited by different types of harm.

Witnessing or experiencing extreme and incomprehensible harm elicits an intense emotional response that is often called "horror." Although traditional emotion taxonomies have categorized horror as a subtype of fear and/or disgust, recent empirical work has indicated that horror is a distinct emotion category (Cowen & Keltner, 2017). However, exactly how horror is different from fear and disgust has remained unclear. The current studies represent the first empirical attempt to clarify how horror is distinct from fear and moral disgust. Results indicated that these emotions are elicited by different aspects of harm: horror is a response to the severity or abnormality of harm, fear to the self-relevance of harm, and moral disgust to the harm's causal agent. In a survey of personal experiences of emotions (Study 1), participants reported having felt horror in response to the actual occurrence of extreme or abnormal harm, but felt fear and moral disgust in response to events involving no harm or only mild harm. Participants also reported greater cognitive disruption (e.g., disbelief, schema-incongruence) during horror than during fear or moral disgust. Experiments testing the effects of different aspects of harm on emotion ratings indicated that horror was differentially increased by harm that was abnormal (vs. common) and had already occurred (vs. potential threat), whereas fear was differentially increased by harm that had high (vs. low) self-relevance (Study 2). Further, extreme (vs. mild) harm differentially increased horror, but the presence (vs. absence) of a blameworthy agent differentially increased moral disgust (Study 3). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Outside the "Cultural Binary": Understanding Why Latin American Collectivist Societies Foster Independent Selves.

Cultural psychologists often treat binary contrasts of West versus East, individualism versus collectivism, and independent versus interdependent self-construal as interchangeable, thus assuming that collectivist societies promote interdependent rather than independent models of selfhood. At odds with this assumption, existing data indicate that Latin American societies emphasize collectivist values at least as strongly as Confucian East Asian societies, but they emphasize most forms of independent self-construal at least as strongly as Western societies. We argue that these seemingly "anomalous" findings can be explained by societal differences in modes of subsistence (herding vs. rice farming), colonial histories (frontier settlement), cultural heterogeneity, religious heritage, and societal organization (relational mobility, loose norms, honor logic) and that they cohere with other indices of contemporary psychological culture. We conclude that the common view linking collectivist values with interdependent self-construal needs revision. Global cultures are diverse, and researchers should pay more attention to societies beyond "the West" and East Asia. Our contribution concurrently illustrates the value of learning from unexpected results and the crucial importance of exploratory research in psychological science.

Different bumps in the road: The emotional dynamics of couple disagreements in Belgium and Japan.

In the present study, we propose that the emotional "bumps" that couples experience during relationship disagreements differ systematically among cultures. We predicted that self-assertive emotions such as anger or strength play a central role in Belgium, where they are instrumental for relational independence. In comparison, other-focused emotions such as shame or empathy for the partner should play a central role in Japan, where they support relational interdependence. Romantic couples from Belgium (n = 58) and Japan (n = 80) discussed relationship disagreements in the lab, which were video-recorded. After the interaction, participants separately rated their emotional experience during video-mediated recall. We identified the emotions that played a central role during the interactions in terms of attractors; these are the emotions around which couples stabilize and that likely play a central role in realizing different relationship ideals. In line with our predictions, attractors reflected states of the interpersonal emotional system that support independence in Belgium (e.g., angry or strong feelings) and interdependence (e.g., empathy) in Japan. Moreover, we found that-at least in Belgium-having more culturally typical interactions was associated with a stronger endorsement of culturally valued relationship ideals and, in turn, better relational functioning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Extracting multiple layers of social networks through a 7-month survey using a wearable device: a case study from a farming community in Japan.

As individuals are susceptible to social influences from those to whom they are connected, structures of social networks have been an important research subject in social sciences. However, quantifying these structures in real life has been comparatively more difficult. One reason is data collection methods-how to assess elusive social contacts (e.g., unintended brief contacts in a coffee room); however, recent studies have overcome this difficulty using wearable devices. Another reason relates to the multi-layered nature of social relations-individuals are often embedded in multiple networks that are overlapping and complicatedly interwoven. A novel method to disentangle such complexity is needed. Here, we propose a new method to detect multiple latent subnetworks behind interpersonal contacts. We collected data of proximities among residents in a Japanese farming community for 7 months using wearable devices which detect other devices nearby via Bluetooth communication. We performed non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) on the proximity log sequences and extracted five latent subnetworks. One of the subnetworks represented social relations regarding farming activities, and another subnetwork captured the patterns of social contacts taking place in a community hall, which played the role of a "hub" of diverse residents within the community. We also found that the eigenvector centrality score in the farming-related network was positively associated with self-reported pro-community attitude, while the centrality score regarding the community hall was associated with increased self-reported health. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42001-022-00162-y.

Self-construal and behavioral motivation systems among patients with depression in Indonesia: A hospital-based study.

Objective: To validate Indonesian versions of two social/cultural psychological scales: the Self-Construal Scale (SCS) that measures independent and interdependent cultural values, and the Behavioral Inhibition (Avoidance) System and Behavioral Approach System (BIS/BAS) that measures motivation focus. We also explored the cultural background for the rising prevalence of depression in Indonesia. Design: Case (hospital)-control (population) study. Setting: Hasanuddin University Hospital (cases) and Makassar city region (controls), Indonesia. Participants: Participants (N = 369) were 165 patients with depression recruited from a university hospital, and 204 healthy controls without a history of mental disorders recruited from locations within a 30-minute walk from the hospital. Outcome measures: Depression was diagnosed by psychiatrists with reference to Indonesian mental disorder guidelines (Pedoman Penggolongan dan Diagnosa Gangguan Jiwa edisi 3). Participants' independent and interdependent cultural values, and neural motivational systems were measured with the SCS and BIS/BAS. Results: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that our revised 12-item SCS and the 13-item, three-factor BIS/BAS had a good model fit for the Indonesian population. MANCOVA showed that the SCS Independent subscale and the BAS subscales were significantly associated with depression after adjustment for age, sex, religion, education, and occupation. Conclusion: These findings may guide provision of appropriate treatment for patients based on their social and cultural environment. In addition, this study contributes to understanding underlying reasons for the increasing prevalence of depression in Indonesia, where society is changing from traditional collectivism to global individualism.

Who Can Buffer Marginalization Risk? Affect Experience, Affect Valuation, and Social Marginalization in Japan and Brazil.

Previous research has associated social marginalization with the rejection of mainstream cultural values. Since cultural values reflect affect valuation, the present research investigates the relationships between social marginalization and ideal/actual affect in two different non-WEIRD cultures, Brazil and Japan. As a social marginalization index, we used the NEET-Hikikomori Risk Scale (NHR). We predicted that cultural differences would emerge in the valuation of affective states. Affect valuation theory suggests that in East Asia, individuals are encouraged to pursue and value low arousal positive emotions (LAP: e.g., calmness, serenity) over high arousal positive emotions (HAP: e.g., excitement, elation, etc.) as they can harm social relationships in these societies. In contrast, Latin American cultures value HAP over LAP, because social relationships are promoted through vibrant positive emotional expression in these cultures. Hence, we hypothesized that individuals' ideal affect, actual affect, and the discrepancy between ideal and actual affect would be associated with higher risk of social marginalization. Participants from Japan (N = 54) and Brazil (N = 54) reported their ideal affect and actual affect and completed the NEET-Hikikomori Risk Scale (NHR). Regression analyses showed that actual HAP and the discrepancy between ideal and actual HAP were negatively associated with NHR in Brazil, but no association was found in the Japanese data. The other variables, including ideal affect, were only minorly or not significantly associated with NHR. Though the study has limitations regarding its small sample size, we can explore future perspectives and discuss the relationships between emotion and cultural marginalization. Socioecological factors that promote actual HAP in Brazilians may encourage other mainstream cultural ideals, which buffers against cultural marginalization.

Cultural differences in music features across Taiwanese, Japanese and American markets.

BACKGROUND: Preferences for music can be represented through music features. The widespread prevalence of music streaming has allowed for music feature information to be consolidated by service providers like Spotify. In this paper, we demonstrate that machine learning classification on cultural market membership (Taiwanese, Japanese, American) by music features reveals variations in popular music across these markets. METHODS: We present an exploratory analysis of 1.08 million songs centred on Taiwanese, Japanese and American markets. We use both multiclass classification models (Gradient Boosted Decision Trees (GBDT) and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP)), and binary classification models, and interpret their results using variable importance measures and Partial Dependence Plots. To ensure the reliability of our interpretations, we conducted a follow-up study comparing Top-50 playlists from Taiwan, Japan, and the US on identified variables of importance. RESULTS: The multiclass models achieved moderate classification accuracy (GBDT = 0.69, MLP = 0.66). Accuracy scores for binary classification models ranged between 0.71 to 0.81. Model interpretation revealed music features of greatest importance: Overall, popular music in Taiwan was characterised by high acousticness, American music was characterised by high speechiness, and Japanese music was characterised by high energy features. A follow-up study using Top-50 charts found similarly significant differences between cultures for these three features. CONCLUSION: We demonstrate that machine learning can reveal both the magnitude of differences in music preference across Taiwanese, Japanese, and American markets, and where these preferences are different. While this paper is limited to Spotify data, it underscores the potential contribution of machine learning in exploratory approaches to research on cultural differences.