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This book examines the linguistic and interactional mechanisms through which people bond or feel bonded with one another by analyzing situated discourse in Japanese contexts. The term \"bonding\" points to the sense of co-presence, belonging, and alignment with others as well as with the space of interaction. We analyze bonding as established, not only through the usage of language as a foregrounded code, but also through multi-layered contexts shared on the interactional, corporeal, and socio-cultural levels. The volume comprises twelve chapters examining the processes of bonding (and un-bonding) using situated discourse taken from rich ethnographic data including police suspect interrogations, Skype-mediated family conversations, theatrical rehearsals, storytelling, business email correspondence and advertisements. While the book focuses on processes of bonding in Japanese discourse, the concept of bonding can be applied universally in analyzing the co-creation of semiotic, pragmatic, and communal space in situated discourse.

In the current research, we tested a novel explanation for previously demonstrated findings that East Asians disclose less personal information to other people than do Westerners. We propose that both between-and within-culture differences in self-disclosure to close friends may be explained by the construct oí relational mobility, the general degree to which individuals in a society have opportunities to form new relationships and terminate old ones. In Study I, we found that cross-cultural differences (Japan vs. United States) in self-disclosure to a close friend were mediated by individuals' perceptions of relational mobility. In Study 2, two separate measures of relational mobility predicted self-disclosure within a single culture (Japan), and this relationship was mediated by the motivation to engage in self-disclosure to strengthen personal relationships. We conclude that societies and social contexts higher in relational mobility (in which relationships can be formed and dissolved relatively easily) produce stronger incentives for self-disclosure as a social-commitment device.

People from different cultures vary in the ways they approach social conflicts, with Japanese being more motivated to maintain interpersonal harmony and avoid conflicts than Americans are. Such cultural differences have developmental consequences for reasoning about social conflict. In the study reported here, we interviewed random samples of Americans from the Midwest United States and Japanese from the larger Tokyo area about their reactions to stories of intergroup and interpersonal conflicts. Responses showed that wisdom (e.g., recognition of multiple perspectives, the limits of personal knowledge, and the importance of compromise) increased with increasing age among Americans, but older age was not associated with wiser responses among Japanese. Younger and middle-aged Japanese showed greater use of wise-reasoning strategies than younger and middle-aged Americans did. This cultural difference was weaker for older participants' reactions to interpersonal conflicts and was actually reversed for intergroup conflicts. This research has important implications for the study of aging, cultural psychology, and wisdom.

Kando is a Japanese term referring to a spectrum of reactions associated with feeling moved experiences. This study developed an instrument to measure an individual’s degree of kando and its associated reactions and explored how Japanese people experience kando in their lives. As part of a large-scale survey, we analyzed data from 4,690 Japanese participants aged 20–69. In the survey, participants recalled and described their most significant kando events and rated their experiences on a provisional kando reaction scale consisting of 43 items. The results indicated that the most significant kando events could be grouped into eight clusters: family issues, interpersonal relationships, arts, sports, travel/nature, negative issues, achievements, and religion/disaster. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, we constructed a 33-item kando reaction scale with a correlated 11-factor structure. The degree of kando and its relevant reactions differed as functions of event clusters and population characteristics such as sex and age. For example, kando on family issues generated multiple, somewhat contrasting, responses such as happiness and hardship. Intense arousal when experiencing kando tended to increase depending on the individual’s age. Our kando reaction scale can be a useful instrument for describing and exploring psychological mechanisms relevant to kando .

Background To examine the relationship between social camouflage and mental health in Japanese autistic adults and make an international comparison with a sample from the UK. Methods This study analysed secondary data of participants with a self-reported diagnosis of autism from Japan (N = 210; 123 men and 87 women) and the UK (N = 305; 181 women, 104, men, and 18 nonbinary). The relationships between the quadratic term of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire and mental health scales, including depression and anxiety, were assessed. Results The UK sample showed linear relationships, whereas the Japanese sample showed significant nonlinear relationships. The quadratic terms of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire slightly explained generalised anxiety (β = .168, p  = .007), depression (β = .121, p  = .045), and well-being (β = − .127, p  = .028). However, they did not explain the association between social anxiety and the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire. Limitations Participants had self-reported diagnoses, and while the autism-spectrum quotient provides a cut-off value for screening, it does not enable confirming diagnoses. Mean scores of the Japanese version of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire were lower as compared to the original CAT-Q, which implies that the social camouflage strategy types used by autistic people in Japan and the UK could differ. The cross-sectional design limits causal inferences. Conclusion In the UK, more social camouflage was associated with poorer mental health scores, whereas too little or too much social camouflage was associated with a low mental health score in Japan. The Japanese population is seemingly less aware of and educated on autistic characteristics and considers ‘average’ behaviour a good thing. This could influence Japanese autistic people’s social camouflage use, differing from that of autistic people in the UK. The differences in the relationship between social camouflage and mental health between Japan and the UK could be associated with national-level divergence regarding the culture of autism.

Recent studies have revealed significant cultural modulations on face scanning strategies, thereby challenging the notion of universality in face perception. Current findings are based on screen-based paradigms, which offer high degrees of experimental control, but lack critical characteristics common to social interactions (e.g., social presence, dynamic visual saliency), and complementary approaches are required. The current study used head-mounted eye tracking techniques to investigate the visual strategies for face scanning in British/Irish (in the UK) and Japanese adults (in Japan) who were engaged in dyadic social interactions with a local research assistant. We developed novel computational data pre-processing tools and data-driven analysis techniques based on Monte Carlo permutation testing. The results revealed significant cultural differences in face scanning during social interactions for the first time, with British/Irish participants showing increased mouth scanning and the Japanese group engaging in greater eye and central face looking. Both cultural groups further showed more face orienting during periods of listening relative to speaking, and during the introduction task compared to a storytelling game, thereby replicating previous studies testing Western populations. Altogether, these findings point to the significant role of postnatal social experience in specialised face perception and highlight the adaptive nature of the face processing system.

Background: (1) Cultural differences at the interpersonal level among young adults are evident; however, how the application of the interpersonal theory of suicide (ITS) varies between different populations remains to be evaluated. This exploratory study investigated the cross-cultural relevance of the ITS constructs in young adults from Spain n = 260 and Japan n = 177. (2) Methods: All participants completed self-report questionnaires assessing thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and acquired capability for suicide. We explored whether each construct was associated with suicide risk severity in both samples and whether the strength of the effects of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness differed between groups. (3) Results: Stepwise multiple regression analyses suggested that ‘perceived burdensomeness’ may be a key predictor of suicide risk in both samples, while the joint effect of ITS variables showed no significant contribution. (4) Conclusions: These preliminary findings offer insights into the possible cultural adaptation of suicide prevention strategies for young adults from Spain and Japan, highlighting areas for future confirmatory research.

The psychosocial correlates and consequences of peer victimization are well documented. However, there is limited knowledge about whether different forms of peer victimization (relational and physical) are predictive of school-based social and motivational factors among adolescents from non-Western cultures. The present study examined the relationship between individual and school-level forms of peer victimization and school adjustment among Japanese adolescents, and the mediating role that these factors may play. The Japanese sample (N = 6109 from 185 schools, Mage = 15.78, SD = 0.29, 51% girls and 49% boys) was drawn from a large international dataset, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018. Results showed that school-level relational victimization was associated with individual-level relational victimization, and school-level physical victimization was associated with individual-level physical victimization, after controlling for age, gender, and socioeconomic status. Individual-level relational victimization was also uniquely associated with indices of school adjustment (negative affect, positive affect, and fear of failure) over and above physical victimization. While controlling for relational victimization, individual-level physical victimization was associated with indices of school adjustment (positive affect and meaning in life). In further findings, school-level relational and physical victimization were indirectly, but not directly, related to some of students’ school adjustment through individual-level relational and physical victimization. These parallel and differential associations suggest the importance of considering the role of relational and physical victimization in school adjustment among Japanese adolescents.

Interpersonal influence and interpersonal adjustment play crucial roles in structuring social interactions. However, not much is known about whether their consequences are culturally contingent. We hypothesized that in order to effectively influence others, people need to employ a perceptual style that serves their cultural imperative. Specifically, we predicted that in the United States, interpersonal influence fosters an analytic, context-independent perceptual style that helps people focus on their goal; however, in Japan, where the cultural imperative is to attend to other people and fit into social contexts, this pattern may be absent or reversed. In two studies, we tested this hypothesis by measuring interpersonal interactions (Study I) and then by manipulating interpersonal interactions (Study 2). Overall, the findings support a culturally contingent situated-cognition approach, which highlights not only interpersonal underpinnings of perceptual styles but also the role that culture plays in ascribing meaning to interpersonal interactions.