The current article reiterates the diversity of the educational significance of gratitude by iden... more The current article reiterates the diversity of the educational significance of gratitude by identifying three standpoints based on three aspects of gratitude; “gratitude itself,” “the results of gratitude,” and “causes of gratitude.” These standpoints are explained with intrinsic tasks related to them, i.e., the tasks included in each perspective.
The current article focused on gratitude as a factor improving the wellbeing of the elders. The s... more The current article focused on gratitude as a factor improving the wellbeing of the elders. The socioemotional selectivity theory suggests the elders’ tendency of limiting the target of gratitude to close and pleasure interpersonal relationships. However, it is not clearly explained how the elders could achieve their developmental task of accepting their lives in a broad historical context. Introducing specific utterances of older Japanese adults, especially their remarks based on the Japanese cultural background of ancestor worship, the authors argued a way to achieve the developmental task with the cultural belief in Japanese elders.
International Perspectives in Psychology: Research, Practice, Consultation, 2015
Sumanai is a Japanese word that refers to a feeling in response to a favor; it includes gratitude... more Sumanai is a Japanese word that refers to a feeling in response to a favor; it includes gratitude, along with sorrow and sometimes guilt for having put the benefactor to so much trouble. The purpose of the current research was to explore sumanai, gratitude, and indebtedness, and their relations to interpersonal orientation and psychological well-being. Results from Study 1 with 115 female Japanese university students confirmed the distinct meanings of gratitude, sumanai, and indebtedness in terms of their dissimilar correlations with other feelings. The results also revealed that when the benefactor’s expectation for repayment was manipulated, gratitude and sumanai, but not indebtedness, decreased with increasing benefactor expectations. In Study 2 with a sample of 179 female Japanese university students, sumanai had a significant positive correlation with interpersonal orientation but did not have a significant positive correlation with psychological well-being. Interpersonal orien...
The authors surveyed 212 university students in Japan and 284 university students in Thailand, us... more The authors surveyed 212 university students in Japan and 284 university students in Thailand, using a multiaspect questionnaire that was designed to investigate cultural similarities and differences in gratitude. The questionnaire included the items involved in hypothetical helping situations: (a) perceived gains of recipients, cost to benefactors, and obligation to help as antecedent variables of gratitude; (b) both positive feelings of gratitude and feelings of indebtedness; and (c) requital to benefactors and increased prosocial motivation of recipients as an outcome of gratitude. In both Japanese and Thai students, positive feelings cor-related with facial and verbal expressions of gratitude and increased prosocial motivation. However, the variable of feelings of indebtedness was positively related to increased prosocial motivation only in Japanese male students.
The purpose of the current study is to examine and interpret findings on gratitude in the context... more The purpose of the current study is to examine and interpret findings on gratitude in the context of different stages of human development. A hypothetical framework of life span development was created for reviewing and interpreting the results of the studies conducted between 1900 to 2018. The topics that we discussed in the developmental phases were about gratitude routines, gratitude in exploring identity, and gratitude for life integrity, which were supposed to be developmental tasks in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age respectively. These developmental tasks need to be achieved or resolved, for the promoting adaptation in their lives, and for successive development in the life cycles. We reviewed the studies that have compared gratitude between different age groups under these themes. In addition, some studies that explored age-specific phenomena of gratitude were reviewed for supplementary purposes. This review shows that there exist both qualitative and quantitat...
The current article reiterates the diversity of the educational significance of gratitude by iden... more The current article reiterates the diversity of the educational significance of gratitude by identifying three standpoints based on three aspects of gratitude; “gratitude itself,” “the results of gratitude,” and “causes of gratitude.” These standpoints are explained with intrinsic tasks related to them, i.e., the tasks included in each perspective.
The current article focused on gratitude as a factor improving the wellbeing of
the elders. The s... more The current article focused on gratitude as a factor improving the wellbeing of the elders. The socioemotional selectivity theory suggests the elders’ tendency of limiting the target of gratitude to close and pleasure interpersonal relationships. However, it is not clearly explained how the elders could achieve their developmental task of accepting their lives in a broad historical context. Introducing specific utterances of older Japanese adults, especially their remarks based on the Japanese cultural background of ancestor worship, the authors argued a way to achieve the developmental task with the cultural belief in Japanese elders.
The purpose of the current study is to examine and interpret findings on gratitude in the contex... more The purpose of the current study is to examine and interpret findings on gratitude in the context of different stages of human development. A hypothetical framework of life span development was created for reviewing and interpreting the results of the studies conducted between 1900 to 2018. The topics that we discussed in the developmental phases were about gratitude routines, gratitude in exploring identity, and gratitude for life integrity, which were supposed to be developmental tasks in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age respectively. These developmental tasks need to be achieved or resolved, for the promoting adaptation in their lives, and for successive development in the life cycles. We reviewed the studies that have compared gratitude between different age groups under these themes. In addition, some studies that explored age-specific phenomena of gratitude were reviewed for supplementary purposes. This review shows that there exist both qualitative and quantitative changes of gratitude in a life span, and in general, confirms the utility and the need to interpret findings on gratitude in the context of each developmental phase, which include cognitive resources, modes of social interactions, developmental tasks and so on. Furthermore, the interpretation in developmental contexts could lead to relevant educational and clinical treatments for each developmental phase. (Naito, T. and Washizu, N. (2019). Gratitude in life-span development: An overview of comparative studies between different age groups. The Journal of Behavioral Science, 14(2), 80-93). For free access to the full-paper,
Bulletin of Noma institute of Educational Research (野間教育研究所紀要), 2019
Adolescents are faced with the task to redefine the relations with families and societies in the ... more Adolescents are faced with the task to redefine the relations with families and societies in the process of exploring identities in the societies. The following hypotheses were derived from previous literature: Confusions and rebelliousness may decrease gratitude toward parents and societies; independence may bring gratitude to societies and parents. A pilot study was conducted with female university students as participants. As the result, independence was positively correlated with gratitude to parents and societies, and negatively correlated with sumanai. The word, sumanai, was tentatively defined as a feeling of gratitude for someone's help along with sorrow and, sometimes guilt for having put them to so much trouble.
The effects of gratitude and indebtedness on interpersonal orientation (IO) and psychological wel... more The effects of gratitude and indebtedness on interpersonal orientation (IO) and psychological well-being (PWB) were investigated. In Study 1, female university students (N＝204) responded to a questionnaire. Results indicated that IO mediated the relationship between the obligation to repay, which is a component of indebtedness, and PWB. Moreover, gratitude had a direct positive effect on PWB. Based on these results, in Study 2, we explored why indebtedness had a positive effect on IO. We hypothesized that consciousness of reciprocal interpersonal relationship would moderate the relationship between the obligation to repay and IO. Female university students (N＝199) responded to a questionnaire. Results indicated that consciousness of reciprocity, which is a component of consciousness of reciprocal interpersonal relationships, moderated the relationship between the obligation to repay and IO. These results suggest that indebtedness might have positive functions. Moreover, these results contribute to clarifying the mechanisms relating gratitude and indebtedness to PWB.
The Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 2013
Although moral development has been studied from a variety of psychological perspectives, includi... more Although moral development has been studied from a variety of psychological perspectives, including learning theory, psychoanalysis, and others, current studies of moral development have been strongly influenced by the cognitive developmental approach of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg identified several fundamental philosophical issues underlying studies of moral development, such as the question of a culturally fair definition of the construct. Psychologists studying morality or moral development must deal with the problem of moral relativism or value neutrality, which stems from the value-laden words "moral" and "development." Moral relativism is the position that moral values differ among cultures and peoples and are therefore not universal. Conceptually, we must distinguish ethical moral relativism from descriptive moral relativism, because the relevant reasoning and evidence differ. Ethical relativism insists that basic values held in different cultures are equally right. Descriptive relativism simply holds that, factually, moral values held by people vary with culture. Ethical relativism may have value in guiding cross-cultural research in culturally fair ways. For Western psychologists, it might have the principal effect of restraining easy applications of their own conceptions to other cultures-important because Western psychologists have had more opportunities to apply the theories of their own cultures to other non-Western cultures. For non-Western psychologists, the doctrine of cultural relativism may have the effect of raising the status of their culture-bound conceptions or values. However, the doctrine of relativism has the pitfall of leading people to the position that any psychological phenomenon in a culture should be understood and evaluated only by its own cultural standards. Considering the increased
Résumé/Abstract Etude des jugements moraux de 260 étudiants japonais et chinois d'après leurs... more Résumé/Abstract Etude des jugements moraux de 260 étudiants japonais et chinois d'après leurs réponses à des histoires contenant des informations sur les intentions du responsable et sur les conséquences de son action, selon des consignes variant en fonction de ...
This paper explores Japanese patterns of school bullying and Ijime (insidious acts of social mani... more This paper explores Japanese patterns of school bullying and Ijime (insidious acts of social manipulation and group bullying of weaker peers) in the context of cross-national comparison. Following a brief overview of Japan's public debate on Ijime, we discuss the nature of Japanese classrooms, review efforts to define school bullying from both an international and an indigenous perspective, assess estimates of the frequency and nature of Ijime in Japanese schools, and point to some of its psychological and sociological determinants. It is concluded that Ijime is interwoven with the collectivistic nature of Japanese society, its educational institutions, and its child-rearing methods.
This article discusses educational aspects of cross-cultural psychology in relationship to Japane... more This article discusses educational aspects of cross-cultural psychology in relationship to Japanese society. After exploring the present status of cross-cultural psychology in Japan, the paper delineates the factual, theoretical, and methodological implications of cross-...
The current article reiterates the diversity of the educational significance of gratitude by iden... more The current article reiterates the diversity of the educational significance of gratitude by identifying three standpoints based on three aspects of gratitude; “gratitude itself,” “the results of gratitude,” and “causes of gratitude.” These standpoints are explained with intrinsic tasks related to them, i.e., the tasks included in each perspective.
The current article focused on gratitude as a factor improving the wellbeing of the elders. The s... more The current article focused on gratitude as a factor improving the wellbeing of the elders. The socioemotional selectivity theory suggests the elders’ tendency of limiting the target of gratitude to close and pleasure interpersonal relationships. However, it is not clearly explained how the elders could achieve their developmental task of accepting their lives in a broad historical context. Introducing specific utterances of older Japanese adults, especially their remarks based on the Japanese cultural background of ancestor worship, the authors argued a way to achieve the developmental task with the cultural belief in Japanese elders.
International Perspectives in Psychology: Research, Practice, Consultation, 2015
Sumanai is a Japanese word that refers to a feeling in response to a favor; it includes gratitude... more Sumanai is a Japanese word that refers to a feeling in response to a favor; it includes gratitude, along with sorrow and sometimes guilt for having put the benefactor to so much trouble. The purpose of the current research was to explore sumanai, gratitude, and indebtedness, and their relations to interpersonal orientation and psychological well-being. Results from Study 1 with 115 female Japanese university students confirmed the distinct meanings of gratitude, sumanai, and indebtedness in terms of their dissimilar correlations with other feelings. The results also revealed that when the benefactor’s expectation for repayment was manipulated, gratitude and sumanai, but not indebtedness, decreased with increasing benefactor expectations. In Study 2 with a sample of 179 female Japanese university students, sumanai had a significant positive correlation with interpersonal orientation but did not have a significant positive correlation with psychological well-being. Interpersonal orien...
The authors surveyed 212 university students in Japan and 284 university students in Thailand, us... more The authors surveyed 212 university students in Japan and 284 university students in Thailand, using a multiaspect questionnaire that was designed to investigate cultural similarities and differences in gratitude. The questionnaire included the items involved in hypothetical helping situations: (a) perceived gains of recipients, cost to benefactors, and obligation to help as antecedent variables of gratitude; (b) both positive feelings of gratitude and feelings of indebtedness; and (c) requital to benefactors and increased prosocial motivation of recipients as an outcome of gratitude. In both Japanese and Thai students, positive feelings cor-related with facial and verbal expressions of gratitude and increased prosocial motivation. However, the variable of feelings of indebtedness was positively related to increased prosocial motivation only in Japanese male students.
The purpose of the current study is to examine and interpret findings on gratitude in the context... more The purpose of the current study is to examine and interpret findings on gratitude in the context of different stages of human development. A hypothetical framework of life span development was created for reviewing and interpreting the results of the studies conducted between 1900 to 2018. The topics that we discussed in the developmental phases were about gratitude routines, gratitude in exploring identity, and gratitude for life integrity, which were supposed to be developmental tasks in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age respectively. These developmental tasks need to be achieved or resolved, for the promoting adaptation in their lives, and for successive development in the life cycles. We reviewed the studies that have compared gratitude between different age groups under these themes. In addition, some studies that explored age-specific phenomena of gratitude were reviewed for supplementary purposes. This review shows that there exist both qualitative and quantitat...
The current article reiterates the diversity of the educational significance of gratitude by iden... more The current article reiterates the diversity of the educational significance of gratitude by identifying three standpoints based on three aspects of gratitude; “gratitude itself,” “the results of gratitude,” and “causes of gratitude.” These standpoints are explained with intrinsic tasks related to them, i.e., the tasks included in each perspective.
The current article focused on gratitude as a factor improving the wellbeing of
the elders. The s... more The current article focused on gratitude as a factor improving the wellbeing of the elders. The socioemotional selectivity theory suggests the elders’ tendency of limiting the target of gratitude to close and pleasure interpersonal relationships. However, it is not clearly explained how the elders could achieve their developmental task of accepting their lives in a broad historical context. Introducing specific utterances of older Japanese adults, especially their remarks based on the Japanese cultural background of ancestor worship, the authors argued a way to achieve the developmental task with the cultural belief in Japanese elders.
The purpose of the current study is to examine and interpret findings on gratitude in the contex... more The purpose of the current study is to examine and interpret findings on gratitude in the context of different stages of human development. A hypothetical framework of life span development was created for reviewing and interpreting the results of the studies conducted between 1900 to 2018. The topics that we discussed in the developmental phases were about gratitude routines, gratitude in exploring identity, and gratitude for life integrity, which were supposed to be developmental tasks in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age respectively. These developmental tasks need to be achieved or resolved, for the promoting adaptation in their lives, and for successive development in the life cycles. We reviewed the studies that have compared gratitude between different age groups under these themes. In addition, some studies that explored age-specific phenomena of gratitude were reviewed for supplementary purposes. This review shows that there exist both qualitative and quantitative changes of gratitude in a life span, and in general, confirms the utility and the need to interpret findings on gratitude in the context of each developmental phase, which include cognitive resources, modes of social interactions, developmental tasks and so on. Furthermore, the interpretation in developmental contexts could lead to relevant educational and clinical treatments for each developmental phase. (Naito, T. and Washizu, N. (2019). Gratitude in life-span development: An overview of comparative studies between different age groups. The Journal of Behavioral Science, 14(2), 80-93). For free access to the full-paper,
Bulletin of Noma institute of Educational Research (野間教育研究所紀要), 2019
Adolescents are faced with the task to redefine the relations with families and societies in the ... more Adolescents are faced with the task to redefine the relations with families and societies in the process of exploring identities in the societies. The following hypotheses were derived from previous literature: Confusions and rebelliousness may decrease gratitude toward parents and societies; independence may bring gratitude to societies and parents. A pilot study was conducted with female university students as participants. As the result, independence was positively correlated with gratitude to parents and societies, and negatively correlated with sumanai. The word, sumanai, was tentatively defined as a feeling of gratitude for someone's help along with sorrow and, sometimes guilt for having put them to so much trouble.
The effects of gratitude and indebtedness on interpersonal orientation (IO) and psychological wel... more The effects of gratitude and indebtedness on interpersonal orientation (IO) and psychological well-being (PWB) were investigated. In Study 1, female university students (N＝204) responded to a questionnaire. Results indicated that IO mediated the relationship between the obligation to repay, which is a component of indebtedness, and PWB. Moreover, gratitude had a direct positive effect on PWB. Based on these results, in Study 2, we explored why indebtedness had a positive effect on IO. We hypothesized that consciousness of reciprocal interpersonal relationship would moderate the relationship between the obligation to repay and IO. Female university students (N＝199) responded to a questionnaire. Results indicated that consciousness of reciprocity, which is a component of consciousness of reciprocal interpersonal relationships, moderated the relationship between the obligation to repay and IO. These results suggest that indebtedness might have positive functions. Moreover, these results contribute to clarifying the mechanisms relating gratitude and indebtedness to PWB.
The Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 2013
Although moral development has been studied from a variety of psychological perspectives, includi... more Although moral development has been studied from a variety of psychological perspectives, including learning theory, psychoanalysis, and others, current studies of moral development have been strongly influenced by the cognitive developmental approach of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg identified several fundamental philosophical issues underlying studies of moral development, such as the question of a culturally fair definition of the construct. Psychologists studying morality or moral development must deal with the problem of moral relativism or value neutrality, which stems from the value-laden words "moral" and "development." Moral relativism is the position that moral values differ among cultures and peoples and are therefore not universal. Conceptually, we must distinguish ethical moral relativism from descriptive moral relativism, because the relevant reasoning and evidence differ. Ethical relativism insists that basic values held in different cultures are equally right. Descriptive relativism simply holds that, factually, moral values held by people vary with culture. Ethical relativism may have value in guiding cross-cultural research in culturally fair ways. For Western psychologists, it might have the principal effect of restraining easy applications of their own conceptions to other cultures-important because Western psychologists have had more opportunities to apply the theories of their own cultures to other non-Western cultures. For non-Western psychologists, the doctrine of cultural relativism may have the effect of raising the status of their culture-bound conceptions or values. However, the doctrine of relativism has the pitfall of leading people to the position that any psychological phenomenon in a culture should be understood and evaluated only by its own cultural standards. Considering the increased
Résumé/Abstract Etude des jugements moraux de 260 étudiants japonais et chinois d'après leurs... more Résumé/Abstract Etude des jugements moraux de 260 étudiants japonais et chinois d'après leurs réponses à des histoires contenant des informations sur les intentions du responsable et sur les conséquences de son action, selon des consignes variant en fonction de ...
This paper explores Japanese patterns of school bullying and Ijime (insidious acts of social mani... more This paper explores Japanese patterns of school bullying and Ijime (insidious acts of social manipulation and group bullying of weaker peers) in the context of cross-national comparison. Following a brief overview of Japan's public debate on Ijime, we discuss the nature of Japanese classrooms, review efforts to define school bullying from both an international and an indigenous perspective, assess estimates of the frequency and nature of Ijime in Japanese schools, and point to some of its psychological and sociological determinants. It is concluded that Ijime is interwoven with the collectivistic nature of Japanese society, its educational institutions, and its child-rearing methods.
This article discusses educational aspects of cross-cultural psychology in relationship to Japane... more This article discusses educational aspects of cross-cultural psychology in relationship to Japanese society. After exploring the present status of cross-cultural psychology in Japan, the paper delineates the factual, theoretical, and methodological implications of cross-...
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Papers by Takashi Naito
the elders. The socioemotional selectivity theory suggests the elders’ tendency of limiting the target of gratitude to close and pleasure interpersonal relationships. However, it is not clearly explained how the elders could achieve their developmental task of accepting their lives in a broad historical context. Introducing specific utterances of older Japanese adults, especially their remarks based on the Japanese cultural background of ancestor worship, the authors argued a way to achieve the developmental task with the cultural belief in Japanese elders.
(Naito, T. and Washizu, N. (2019). Gratitude in life-span development: An overview of
comparative studies between different age groups. The Journal of Behavioral Science,
14(2), 80-93). For free access to the full-paper,
https://www.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/IJBS/article/view/174664
The following hypotheses were derived from previous literature: Confusions and rebelliousness may decrease gratitude toward parents and societies; independence may bring gratitude to societies and parents. A pilot study was conducted with female university students as participants. As the result, independence was positively correlated with gratitude to parents and societies, and negatively correlated with sumanai. The word, sumanai, was tentatively defined as a feeling of gratitude for someone's help along with sorrow and, sometimes guilt for having put them to so much trouble.
the elders. The socioemotional selectivity theory suggests the elders’ tendency of limiting the target of gratitude to close and pleasure interpersonal relationships. However, it is not clearly explained how the elders could achieve their developmental task of accepting their lives in a broad historical context. Introducing specific utterances of older Japanese adults, especially their remarks based on the Japanese cultural background of ancestor worship, the authors argued a way to achieve the developmental task with the cultural belief in Japanese elders.
(Naito, T. and Washizu, N. (2019). Gratitude in life-span development: An overview of
comparative studies between different age groups. The Journal of Behavioral Science,
14(2), 80-93). For free access to the full-paper,
https://www.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/IJBS/article/view/174664
The following hypotheses were derived from previous literature: Confusions and rebelliousness may decrease gratitude toward parents and societies; independence may bring gratitude to societies and parents. A pilot study was conducted with female university students as participants. As the result, independence was positively correlated with gratitude to parents and societies, and negatively correlated with sumanai. The word, sumanai, was tentatively defined as a feeling of gratitude for someone's help along with sorrow and, sometimes guilt for having put them to so much trouble.