Shinobu Kitayama

Social anxiety—a fear of social interaction and negative evaluation—may be accompanied by heightened vigilance toward others' mental states, particularly those conveyed through gaze, as they provide cues about how one is being evaluated. We thus investigated whether individual differences in social anxiety predict neural sensitivity to the mental‐state meanings conveyed by gaze patterns. Fifty‐seven European American young adults varying in social anxiety viewed different gaze patterns, immediately followed by a mental‐state word that was either congruent or incongruent with the culturally recognized meaning of the gaze, while their electroencephalogram (EEG) was monitored. Our focus was N400—an event‐related potential (ERP) component indexing semantic expectation violations. We found the N400 amplitude to be more negative for incongruent (vs. congruent) mental‐state words. Notably, this N400 incongruity effect increased significantly with social anxiety. Moreover, the social anxiety effect was specific to mental state inference and was not observed in a comparable N400 incongruity effect involving animal stereotypes ( n = 50). These findings suggest that social anxiety may confer enhanced neural sensitivity during the inference of others' mental states from gaze, even in the absence of overt performance differences. We discuss the implications of these findings with respect to the potential functional benefits of social anxiety.

In many social contexts, group success is perceived as crucially dependent on members’ personal achievements, as in team sports. We propose that this form of interdependence—centered on a shared model of how group success is realized through individuals’ striving and achievement, termed self-promotive interdependence—is particularly pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We examine whether this culturally shared model manifests in the balanced activation of positive socially disengaging emotions (e.g., pride) and positive socially engaging emotions (e.g., connection) upon success, regardless of whether the success is personal or belongs to an ingroup member. To assess the distinctiveness of self-promotive interdependence, we tested participants in five cultural regions: SSA (N = 3,638), the Middle East (N = 401), Latin America (N = 570), Japan (N = 592), and the United States (U.S., N = 812). We found that a relatively pronounced pride-connection balance in both self-success and an ingroup member’s success—a signature of self-promotive interdependence—was most consistently observed in SSA. Notably, the regional patterns differed systematically: pride–connection balance emerged primarily for self-success in Japan, primarily for ingroup-success in the Middle East, and for neither in Latin America and the U.S. These findings provide the first large-scale cross-cultural evidence for self-promotive interdependence in SSA. Moreover, they suggest how cultural regions may differ in the models of success through which personal achievement and collective outcomes are linked.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) exhibits a unique cultural dynamic, herein called self-promotive interdependence, based on the belief that group success depends on the personal achievements of its members. Within this cultural system, individual striving and within-group competition are seen not as contradictions, but as vital contributions to collective welfare. We tested this hypothesis by examining patterns of emotional expression (Total N > 6000). Study participants across several SSA countries reportedly expressed both socially disengaging (e.g., pride) and engaging positive emotions (e.g., feelings of closeness) upon success, regardless of whether it was personal or belonged to an ingroup member. This sharply contrasts with patterns found in the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and the West. Together, this study offers the first multi-national evidence for self-promotive interdependence, highlighting a cultural logic in SSA where personal advancement and group cohesion are not in conflict, but fundamentally intertwined.

Purpose: Uric acid (UA), the end product of purine metabolism, serves as a potent deoxidant of the brain. UA may therefore be related to psychological activities that are culturally endorsed and normatively promoted, insofar as such activities would require high levels of cortical processing, and thus, gradually expose the brain to a greater oxidation risk. We tested this analysis in Japan, a society that values interdependence of the self with others. Methods: Middle-aged Japanese adults (N = 243) were tested twice for the serum UA concentration, with five years in-between. Moreover, an assortment of measures assessing culturally sanctioned traits (those related to interdependence) and culturally non-sanctioned traits (those related to independence) were collected. Results: We found that the baseline levels of interdependence predicted an increase in the UA in the next five years. In contrast, there was no such effect for independence. Moreover, the effect of interdependence on the UA increase was mediated by cognitive effort in various domains (such as work, finance, and social relations), suggesting that the culturally sanctioned traits increased cognitive effort devoted to mundane everyday activities, which in turn, predicted the UA to increase over time. Notably, baseline UA levels did not affect changes in psychological traits. Conclusion: Interpreting these results in light of UA’s role as a potent antioxidant for brain tissues, we propose that higher UA levels may support metabolically demanding actions aligned with culturally sanctioned practices, particularly those associated with interdependence in the Japanese context.

Although individuals of Latin American heritage ( Latin Americans in short) are considered interdependent, they also value traits like uniqueness and positivity, like individuals of European American cultural heritage, who are considered independent. It remains unclear whether this inclination toward positivity extends to a bias in self-perception known as self-enhancement. Moreover, if Latin Americans are indeed self-enhancing, it is uncertain how these tendencies align with their interdependent cultural orientation. In this article, we report three studies ( N = 1,246) with three operationalizations of self-enhancement. We found that Mexicans, Colombians, and Ecuadorians show self-enhancement that is mostly similar in magnitude to European Americans. Notably, Study 3 found that self-enhancement is related to interdependence in Latin America: Unlike European Americans, Latin Americans in Ecuador exhibited stronger self-enhancement when interdependence is primed rather than independence. Our findings suggest that among Latin American individuals, self-enhancement not only exists but also reinforces interdependence.

Cultures, such as Japan, are characterized by tighter or more rigid norms than others, like the United States. However, the mechanism underlying this cultural difference remains unclear. We tested the hypothesis that individuals carrying genetic polymorphisms linked to cultural learning, particularly the 7- or 2-repeat variable number of tandem repeat variants of the dopamine D4 receptor gene, DRD4, would show heightened sensitivity to norm violations if they are from tight cultures but not in loose cultures. A total of 214 Japanese and 236 European American young adults (total N = 450) evaluated the normativity of various behaviors while their electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. Consistent with previous findings, norm violations elicited a robust N400 response, an electrocortical marker of expectancy violation. Critically, this N400 norm-violation effect was significantly stronger for Japanese carriers of the DRD4 alleles linked to cultural learning, but no such genetic moderation was observed among European Americans. Moreover, Japanese non-carriers showed a significantly weaker N400 response than their American counterparts. These results suggest that in a tight culture like Japan, heightened neural sensitivity to norm violations may be concentrated among individuals with genetic predispositions for enhanced reward processing, pointing to the dynamic interplay between genetic variations and cultural environments.

Japanese adults typically have healthier lipid profiles than American and European adults and a lower prevalence and later onset of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Many Japanese also have uniquely elevated levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). The following analysis examined the relationship between HDL-C level and HDL-C peroxide content, a bioindicator of unhealthy lipid metabolism in Japanese adults. Blood samples were collected from 463 participants, 31–84 years of age, who lived in Tokyo. A second blood sample was collected 5 years later from 241 of the participants, allowing us to evaluate the temporal stability of the inverse correlation between HDL-C level and HDL-C peroxide content. Glucoregulation and inflammatory activity were assessed because both can be associated with dyslipidemia and HDL-C dysfunction. Obesity and central adiposity were also considered. Overall, women had healthier HDL-C profiles than men. Elevated HDL-C (>90 mg/dL) was common (16.6%) and found more often in women. Higher HDL-C peroxide content was associated with older age and central adiposity and incremented further when HA1c and CRP were higher. When assessed 5 years later, lower HDL-C peroxide content continued to be evident in adults with higher HDL-C. While similar associations have been described for other populations, most Japanese adults typically had healthier levels of HDL-C with lower HDL-C peroxide content than previously reported for American adults.

Research in cultural psychology over the last three decades has revealed the profound influence of culture on cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes shaping individuals into active agents. This article first appeared in the Annual Review of Psychology (2024). It first reviews four notable cultural dimensions believed to underlie cultural variations: independent versus interdependent self, individualism versus collectivism, tightness versus looseness of social norms, and relational mobility. Then it examines how ecology and geography shape human activities and give rise to organised systems of cultural practices and meanings, called eco-cultural complexes. In turn, the eco-cultural complex of each zone is instrumental in shaping a wide range of psychological processes, revealing a psychological diversity that extends beyond the scope of the current East–West literature. Finally, it explores how some of the non-Western cultural zones of today, namely Arab, East Asian, Latin American, and South Asian zones, and discusses how they may have contributed, to varying degrees, to the formation of the contemporary Western cultural zone.

In an ongoing cycle of mutual constitution, culture, the self, and associated psychological tendencies dynamically interact. Prior studies show that people from Western individualist cultures construe the self in independent terms (stressing their uniqueness and separation from others), promoting analytic, context-independent ways of thinking. In contrast, people from Eastern collectivist cultures emphasize their interdependence and connectedness with others, promoting more holistic, context-sensitive ways of thinking. Recently, this literature has been extended to study within-culture variations by socio-economic status (SES). This work has suggested that higher SES contexts foster the view of the self as an independent agent and analytic cognitive tendencies. By contrast, individuals from lower SES tend to emphasize interdependence with others while displaying more holistic cognitive tendencies. Of importance, these SES differences are embedded in larger socio-cultural contexts differing in individualism and collectivism. Hence, the relationship among SES, self-construal, and cognitive tendencies can sometimes vary dramatically between cultures.

Although individuals of Latin American heritage (Latin Americans in short) are considered interdependent, they also value traits like uniqueness and positivity, like individuals of European American cultural heritage, who are considered independent. It remains unclear whether this inclination toward positivity extends to a bias in self-perception known as self-enhancement. Moreover, if Latin Americans are indeed self-enhancing, it is uncertain how these tendencies align with their interdependent cultural orientation. In this paper, we report three studies (N=1246) with three operationalizations of self-enhancement. We found that Mexicans, Colombians, and Ecuadorians show self-enhancement that is mostly similar in magnitude to European Americans. Notably, Study 3 found that self-enhancement is related to interdependence in Latin America: Unlike European Americans, Latin Americans in Ecuador exhibited stronger self-enhancement when interdependence is primed rather than independence. Our findings suggest that amongst Latin American individuals, self-enhancement not only exists but also reinforces interdependence.