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Objective: This study examined psychological status trajectories of mothers of infants with nonsyndromic orofacial clefts in Japan. Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: Data from the Japan Environment and Children’s Study. Participants: Infants with a nonsyndromic cleft (N = 148) including cleft lip and palate (CLP; n = 72), cleft lip (CL; n = 46), and cleft palate (CP; n = 30). The control group included unaffected infants (N = 84 454). Main Outcome Measures: At 15 weeks and 27 weeks of pregnancy and 12 months after birth, the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (clinical cutoff ≥5) was used. At 1 month and 6 months after birth, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (clinical cutoff ≥9) was used. Results: Prenatal diagnosis rates were unavailable. Mothers of infants with CLP had higher psychological distress than controls at 27 weeks of pregnancy (prevalence ratio [PR] = 1.36, 95% CI: 1.06-1.74) and postnatal depression at 1 month after birth (PR = 2.21, 95% CI: 1.53-3.19). Mothers of infants with CP showed heightened psychological distress at 27 weeks of pregnancy (PR = 1.62, 95% CI: 1.21-2.17) and postnatal depression 6 months after birth (PR = 1.86, 95% CI: 1.01-3.43). There was no significant association between CL and maternal psychological status. At 12 months after birth, no differences in distress were found between mothers of infants with a cleft and controls. Conclusions: Mothers of infants with orofacial clefts may need psychosocial support, particularly during pregnancy and the first year after birth.

Japanese and U.S. sixth, eighth, and tenth graders ( N = 2141) responded to questionnaires asking whom they depended on in six contexts of need. These contexts were: morning awakening, physical illness, emotional upset, help with homework, causing a problem, and guidance in extracurricular activities. Findings indicated that, relative to culture, contextual effects exerted an equally if not more powerful effect on students' responses. In line with traditional cross-national theorizing, U.S. youth were, overall, more self-reliant than their Japanese peers. In contrast to such theorizing, U.S. students were more interdependent with family, and Japanese students were more interdependent with peers, than their counterparts in the other country. Furthermore, both Japanese and U.S. youth showed similar age-related decreases in interdependence with family and increases in interdependence with peers. Results are discussed in terms of active dyadic help-seeking versus conceptualized notions of social identity, and recent theories of development, culture, and the self.

Attachment investigators provide evidence that security takes similar forms and has similar antecedents and consequences in diverse cultures. However, there is also evidence that security differs across culture, and the nature of the similarities and differences are not well understood. A total of 39 mothers from the United States and 32 mothers from Japan were interviewed to assess beliefs about attachment and amae (expectations of indulgence and interdependence). Cultural similarities involved the manifestation of security and insecurity, the role of maternal responsiveness, and the link between security and desirable child characteristics. Cultural differences also emerged: There is more exploration associated with security and more anger and aggression associated with insecurity in the United States, and U.S. mothers link security with a much greater range of positive attributes than do Japanese mothers, who more often link security with accommodative behaviors. In mildly stressful situations, Japanese mothers more often attribute the child's inappropriate behavior to needs for security and interdependence and less often attribute these behaviors to egotism and self-maximization.

A total of 467 mothers of firstborn 20-month-old children from 7 countries (103 Argentine, 61 Belgian, 39 Israeli, 78 Italian, 57 Japanese, 69 Korean, and 60 US American) completed the Jackson Personality Inventory (JPI), measures of parenting cognitions (self-perceptions and knowledge), and a social desirability scale. Our first analysis showed that the Five-Factor structure of personality (Openness, Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) could be extracted from the JPI scales when cross-cultural data from mothers in the 7 countries were analyzed; it was also replicable and generalizable in mothers from so-called individualist and collectivist cultures. Our second analysis showed that the five personality factors relate differently to diverse parenting cognitions in those individualist versus collectivist cultures. Maternal personality has significance in studies of normative parenting, child development, and family process across cultural contexts.

We compared the relationships among action-control beliefs, intellective skill, and actual school performance in samples of children from Tokyo ( n = 817, grades 2-6), Los Angeles ( n = 657), and West Berlin ( n = 517). Although these samples have been utilised in other comparative studies we have conducted, the role and function of intellective skill, as measured by the Raven Progressive Matrices, has not before been examined. The results of our analyses predicting school performance from the action-control beliefs and the Raven scores were quite revealing. The amount of variance in actual school performance that was shared with (1) the children's action-control beliefs and (2) their Raven scores was very high in West Berlin (86%) and Tokyo (73%), but very low in Los Angeles (37%). These outcomes strengthen arguments that the comparatively high levels of personal agency, but low correlations with performance, are distinctive characteristics of US socioeducational contexts.

Guided by research on German, Russian, and American children, we tested whether the tripartite action-theory model of children’s psychological control generalises to Japanese children (grades 2-6, N 817). Specifically, we used the Control, Agency, and Means-ends Interview (CAMI) to assess whether Japanese children’s self-related agency beliefs, general control expectancies, and causality-relate d means-ends beliefs about their school performance are similar to those of children from other sociocultural contexts. The CAMI has shown strong cross-cultural validity, but it has not been tested in Japanese children. Because the CAMI measurement structure generally validated in this sample and the resulting action-control constructs showed many inter-cultural similarities, we concluded that the action-control beliefs generalise to Japanese children. The similarities likely reflect inter-cultural commonalities in teaching formats and everyday conceptions of performance in formal schooling contexts. In addition to these important similarities, however, we found inter-cultural differences in the self-related agency beliefs (i.e. patterns that were specific to this Japanese sample). For example, the role of luck and the relations between effort and ability showed unique patterns in these children (e.g. lower correlations than in other sociocultural settings).

This study compares and contrasts activities and interactions related to maternal organisation of infant attention toward mother and toward the environment in Japanese and U.S. American mother-infant dyads. Observational data derived from 48 Tokyo and New York City mothers and their 5month-old infants seen at home were submitted to microanalysis. Relations among selected mother and infant activities, notably maternal control of and responsiveness to attentional focus in infants, are evaluated using cooccurrence and lag-sequential analyses. American and Japanese mothers and babies engaged in most activities at similar rates. However, American mothers appear to respond to environmental involvement in their infants by further encouraging infants to attend to properties, objects, or events in the environment, whereas it is during periods of decreased environmental interest and increased social interest that Japanese mothers deploy didactic encouragement. The results reveal activity and interaction patterns which are similar between these two cultures, as well as patterns which are culturespecific.

It is widely held that Japanese and U.S. Americans differ in prominent aspects of their psychological make-ups, and that experiences of early life may be responsible for certain social and intellectual distinctions between members of these two cultures. To compare and contrast activities and interactions of Japanese and American mothers and their 5-month-old infants, 48 mother-infant dyads, half in Tokyo and half in New York City, were observed in the natural setting of their homes. This report examines mothers visual and verbal stimulation of infants and infants visual and tactual exploration and vocalisation from a macroanalytic viewpoint. First, similarities and differences among Japanese and American infants and mothers on these activities are assessed. Next, covariation among infants activities and among mothers activities within each culture is evaluated, and resultant patterns of covariation between the two cultures are compared. Finally, correspondence between mothers and infants activities in each culture is analysed, and patterns of interactions between the two cultures are compared. Two issues are discussed. First considered are the identification and description of activities, interactions, and developmental processes that are similar and different in these two cultures, and second considered are cross-cultural tests of developmental issues related to covariation and correspondence of activity in mother-infant dyads.

The pharmacological mechanisms of platelet aggregation induced by highly toxic proteins (CrTX-I, CrTX-II, and CrTX-III) obtained from tentacles of a jellyfish, Carybdea rastonii, were investigated. When the partially purified toxin (pCrTX) and CrTXs were added to the citrated platelet-rich plasma (PRP), aggregation was produced in a concentration-dependent manner. The activity of CrTXs was approximately 100 times more potent than pCrTX. The CrTXs-induced aggregation was little affected by indomethacin and quinacrine at concentrations sufficient to inhibit arachidonic acid- and collagen-induced aggregation. The CrTXs-induced aggregation in washed platelets was significantly augmented in the presence of Ca2+. The pretreatment with verapamil failed to modify this augmentation of aggregation. The concentration of cytoplasmic-free calcium ([Ca2+]i) of platelets was increased by CrTXs at the same concentrations that produced aggregation. This effect of CrTXs was again little affected by verapamil. CrTXs at the same concentrations as those that produced aggregation and increased [Ca2+]i caused depolarization of platelets, which was unchanged after pretreatment with sodium or potassium transport inhibitors. CrTX-I significantly increased the 22Na flux into platelets and this effect of CrTX-I was unaffected by tetrodotoxin. The CrTX-I-induced aggregation, depolarization, and increase in [Ca2+]i were all significantly attenuated in the low Na+ medium. These results suggest that CrTXs cause a massive depolarization by increasing cation permeability and this generalized depolarization permits an inward movement of Ca2+ down its electrochemical gradient which, in turn, triggers platelet aggregation.

The results of 5 "lens model" interpersonal conflict (IPC) experiments, carried out in 5 countries: Czechoslovakia, Greece, Japan, Sweden and the U. S. were compared. Replicating earlier intranational findings, conflict reduction was found to be very slow. Although the subjects reduced the differences between their policies to a considerable extent, the consistency of their policies was also reduced, preventing the subjects from deriving the full benefits of the reduction of the policy differences, and leaving conflict at a high level. No reliable cross-national differences were found. In addition, it was shown that the differences found between American and European subjects in an earlier study were due to procedural differences between the American and European experiments in that study. It was concluded that the phenomena studied in the 'lens model" IPC experiments are independent of cultural factors, and reflect limitations in the human information processing system.