A large body of research has demonstrated cross-cultural differences in visual attention, especially between members of North American societies (e.g., Canada, United States) and East Asian societies (e.g., China, Japan, Korea). Despite an increasing number of studies suggesting an emergence of cross-cultural differences in early childhood, relatively little is known about how these culturally divergent patterns of attention are acquired and maintained. It has been largely assumed that socialization practices, especially parent-child interactions, contribute to the acquisition of cross-cultural differences in attention. By focusing on maternal narratives during the shared reading activity, this study examined the socialization contexts in which mothers direct their infants' attention in the United States (n = 50 dyads) and Japan (n = 53 dyads). Mothers in the United States and Japan read a picture book to their 6- to 18-month-old infants in the lab, and maternal narratives were coded to identify attention to focal objects and social interactions. Infants' sustained attention was also measured during shared reading. The findings demonstrated that during the shared reading activity, U.S. mothers were relatively more likely to focus on the focal objects than the background, whereas Japanese mothers were more likely to refer to the social interactions between focal objects and the background. Infants' age and gender were not related to maternal narratives, and infants' sustained attention was similar across cultures. Findings suggest significant cross-cultural differences in mother-infant interactions, which may act as scaffolds for infants to internalize their parents' cognitive styles.

Languages differ in the ways speakers express the number of objects in a set. The English language, but not Japanese, requires grammatical differentiation of nouns for singular and plural forms (e.g., cat versus cats). The present study investigated whether this grammatical difference constrains the development of preschool children's attention to sets of 'one' versus 'more than one' using the card matching task in the U.S. and Japan. The task required the use of singular-plural information to match. Overall, 3- to 5-year-old children completed the task better than chance; however, language-specific patterns of development emerged. While English-speaking children did not show age-related differences in their attention to singular vs. plural sets, Japanese-speaking 4- and 5-year-olds performed significantly better than 3-year-olds. The results extend previous findings and provide insights for a multifaceted relation among age-related and linguistic specific factors on developmental pathways of children's attention to singular and plural sets of objects.

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>We describe additional research that expands upon many of Doris's points, focusing on collaboration (Ch. 5), selves, and identity (Ch. 8). We also suggest some elaboration of his treatment of dual process theories (Ch. 3). Finally, we ask whether collaborationist accounts confer logical consistency.</jats:p>

People make trait inferences immediately when observing others' behaviours. Previous studies reported that this spontaneous trait inference (STI) occurs more strongly from negative behaviours than from positive behaviours. However, what is responsible for this negativity bias in STI is unclear. In this study, two experiments investigated the effects of valence (an event's affective positivity or negativity) and frequency (how frequently the behaviour is observed in everyday life) on the occurrence of STI using an adapted version of a savings-in-relearning paradigm. Experiment 1 revealed that only valence affected the frequent occurrence of STI. In addition, the instructions to suppress impression formation or to focus attention on an actor's face made no difference to the results. In Experiment 2, the negativity bias in STIs was shown a week after exposure to the behavioural stimuli. These results suggest that the negativity bias in STIs occurs robustly, and the negative valence of observed behaviour is mostly responsible for the negativity bias in STI. The importance of immediate categorization of negative stimuli is discussed in terms of ecological priority.

Previous findings indicated that when people observe someone's behavior, they spontaneously infer the traits and situations that cause the target person's behavior. These inference processes are called spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) and spontaneous situation inferences (SSIs). While both patterns of inferences have been observed, no research has examined the extent to which people from different cultural backgrounds produce these inferences when information affords both trait and situation inferences. Based on the theoretical frameworks of social orientations and thinking styles, we hypothesized that European Canadians would be more likely to produce STIs than SSIs because of the individualistic/independent social orientation and the analytic thinking style dominant in North America, whereas Japanese would produce both STIs and SSIs equally because of the collectivistic/interdependent social orientation and the holistic thinking style dominant in East Asia. Employing the savings-in-relearning paradigm, we presented information that affords both STIs and SSIs and examined cultural differences in the extent of both inferences. The results supported our hypotheses. The relationships between culturally dominant styles of thought and the inference processes in impression formation are discussed.

Culture shapes how we interpret behavior, symbols, customs, and more. Its operation is largely implicit, unnoticed until we encounter other cultures. Therefore deep cultural differences should be most evident in automatic processes for interpreting events, including behavior. In two studies, we compared American and Japanese undergraduates' spontaneous (unintended and unconscious) trait inferences (STIs) from behavior descriptions. Both groups made STIs but Japanese made fewer. More important, estimates of the controlled (C) and automatic (A) components of their recall performance showed no differences on C, but A was greater for Americans. Thus westerners' greater reliance on traits, in intentional and spontaneous impressions, may reflect cultural differences in automatic processes for making and recalling meaning. The advantages of locating cultural differences in automatic processes are discussed. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Prior research has indicated that spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) occur more easily among fifth graders than among adults, although STIs generally develop only among Westerners. However, no prior studies on STI include Asian children. This study explored the development of STIs among Japanese fifth graders, seventh graders, and undergraduates. Experiments 1 and 2 used a relearning paradigm, and participants' recollections of photo-trait pairs after being presented with congruent behaviours were compared with those after being presented with incongruent behaviours. If participants showed better recollection after being presented with congruent behaviour descriptions (saving effects), this indicated that they had made STIs from the behaviour. The results showed that STIs occur among Japanese children and adults, although their occurrence was associated with a trait valence factor. STIs occurred to a small extent from positive-trait-implying descriptions only among fifth and seventh graders, not undergraduates. In contrast, STIs occurred clearly from negative-trait-implying descriptions in all age groups. The results of Experiment 3, which used a trait-rating task that required less storage capacity of long-term memory, confirmed that fifth and seventh graders, as well as adults, made spontaneous inferences of specific traits implied from behavioural descriptions and not a wide positivenegative framework. The developmental model of STIs depending on trait valence and culture is discussed.

The present paper surveyed domestic researches on the development in childhood and adolescence published in the Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology, the Japanese Journal of Psychology, the Japanese Journal of Developmental Psychology, and the Japanese Journal of Personality between July 2010 and June 2011, and The proceedings of the 53th Annual meeting of the Japanese Association of Educational Psychology.  Studies were reviewed in five categories ; self, person perception, interpersonal relationship, adjustment and mental health, and reaction to the emergency.  General trends of current studies and implications for future studies were discussed.

People tend to spontaneously make trait inferences from exposure to others' behaviors without the intention to do so. In the present study, two experiments investigated the occurrence of spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) among Japanese 5th graders, 7th graders, and undergraduates using a relearning paradigm. Participants' recollections of portrait-trait pairs after being presented with congruent behaviors were compared with their recollections after incongruent behaviors. If participants showed better recollections after being presented with congruent behavior descriptions, this indicated that they spontaneously inferred the actor's trait from the behavior. The results suggested that 5th and 7th graders as well as undergraduates showed STIs from behavior descriptions that implied negative traits, although they showed few STIs from descriptions that implied positive traits. It was assumed that STIs are developed by 10-11 years of age at the latest, and that the processes of STIs from negative and positive descriptions might differ.

This study examined the development of strategies which children use between five and eight years of age, when faced with a dilemma of exhibiting prosocial behavior or avoiding a dangerous stranger. Participants were 85 children who were individually shown stories depicting a situation in which they were asked for help by a stranger. Results showed that children of both age groups (five- and seven-year olds) gave priority to danger avoidance. However, they were vulnerable to approaches made by strangers when the stranger's request was consistent with the child's desire. In addition, a positivity bias among young children formed the basis for their compliance with the stranger's request. These results have implications for the safety education of children in the transitional period between preschool and elementary school.

The purpose of the present study was to explore how first-grade children abjust to classroom discourse. Interactions observed in one first-grade homeroom in April (the first month of the school year in Japan) and in the subsequent July were compared by coding and interpretive analysis. The class had 40 children, half boys and half-girls; the teacher was a 40-year-old man with more than 20 years' teaching experience. The results showed that soon after the start of the school year, the first-grade teacher used different types of expressions, depending on what he was asking the children to do. Instructions regarding what the children should say in the classroom were give with polite explanations and directions, and the children repeated exactly what he told them to say. On the other hand, when he wanted the children to explain their own thoughts to their classmates, he modeled the form of reply, and the children imitated what he had said. In early July, after nearly 3 months in elementary school, children became able to initiate child-led activities that were rich in content and active. Additional data, including peer relations research, a questionnaire survey of parents, and interviews with the teacher indicated that the children's abjustment process was supported by formation of a relationship with their teacher and their peers, an increase in the children's interest in homeroom activities, and the teacher's appropriate recognition of the children.

The present study examined whether 3- to 6-year-old children understand trait-motive-behavior causality, and whether they know that traits cause behaviors over situations. Children listened to stories each of which included a motive, behavior, and an outcome. They then labeled the main character's chief trait, and predicted the character's behavior in a different context. The results showed that 3- and 4-year-olds understood trait-motive-behavior causality, but their understanding was not as complete as that of 5-and 6-year-olds. Children over the age of 5 understood that traits cause behaviors over situations, but only the fi-year-olds in the present study understood this completely. It was also suggested that a recency effect was observed in these young children's trait inference.