Satoshi Akutsu

Why Do People Give? The Role of Identity in Giving

Why do people give to others? One principal driver involves ones identity: who one is and how they view themselves. The degree to which identities are malleable, involve a readiness to act, and help make sense of the world have significant implications determining whether and how much people give. Drawing on the Identity-Based Motivation model (IBM; Oyserman, 2009), we provide a tripartite framework to help advance the research on the psychology of giving.

Consequences of Beliefs about the Malleability of Creativity

Attempts to maximize creativity pervade corporate, artistic, and scientific domains. This research investigated how individuals lay beliefs about the malleability of creativity affect several measures of creative potential. Two correlational and 1 experimental study examined the relationship between malleability beliefs about creativity and creative problem-solving and prior creative achievement. In Study 1, incremental beliefs in creativity were associated with interest in creative thinking, self-reported creativity, and creative problem-solving. In Study 2, incremental beliefs were associated with prior creative achievement in a cross-cultural, professional sample. In Study 3, incremental primes of creativity led to improved creative problem-solving. All studies provide discriminant validity and domain-specificity for malleability beliefs in creativity. Specifically, Studies 1 and 2 controlled for individual differences in beliefs about the malleability of intelligence, suggesting that malleability beliefs of creativity and intelligence are meaningfully distinct. Meanwhile, Study 3 found that incremental beliefs of creativity enhance creative problem-solving but not problem-solving more generally.

Work, meaning, and gene regulation: Findings from a Japanese information technology firm

The meaning in life, typically reflected in a sense of purpose, growth, or social embeddedness (called eudaimonic well-being, EWB), has been linked to favorable health outcomes. In particular, this experience is inversely associated with the conserved transcriptional response to adversity (CTRA), which involves up-regulation of genes linked to inflammation and down-regulation of genes linked to viral resistance. So far, however, little is known about how this transcriptome profile might be situated in specific socio-cultural contexts. Here, we tested 106 male workers at a large Japanese IT firm and found that the CTRA is inversely associated not only with general EWB but also with a more contextualized sense of meaning derived from the perceived significance of ones work and a sense of interdependence with others in the workplace. These results expand previous links between personal well-being and CTRA gene expression to include the socio-cultural determinants of meaning in life.

Self-construals, anger regulation, and life satisfaction in the United States and Japan

Previous studies have reported evidence that indicates differences between Western and East Asian cultures in anger regulation and its psychological consequences. However, many of these studies have focused on a specific anger regulation strategy and its relation with a psychological consequence. Here, we developed an integrated model that can comprehensively examine three different anger regulation strategies (anger suppression, expression, and control), independent and interdependent self-construals as the psychological antecedent, and life satisfaction as the psychological consequence. We estimated the model using large samples of American and Japanese adults to examine the associations between the two self-construals, three anger regulation strategies, and life satisfaction. We compared the difference in the patterns of relationships among the key constructs between the American and Japanese samples. The results confirmed previously suggested cultural differences while also discovering new culturally different paths. The results generally suggest that individual-level self-construals matter more when anger is a culturally condoned emotion (vs. condemned). The implications and limitations of the integrated model are discussed.

Relationship between bicultural identity and psychological well-being among American and Japanese older adults

In a large national sample of American and Japanese older adults, this study investigated how bicultural identity affects perception of health and well-being in 11 individual psychological variables (i.e. positive well-being: self-esteem, optimism, subjective well-being Japanese equivalent, gratitude, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule–positive adjectives, and satisfaction with life; negative well-being: depression, pessimism, social anxiety, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule–negative adjectives, and perceived stress). This sample consisted of 1248 Americans from the Midlife in the United States survey, 2004–2006, and 380 Japanese from the Midlife in Japan survey in Tokyo, Japan, 2008–2010. Results showed that bicultural individuals (having both highly independent and interdependent self-construals) in both countries tend to exhibit higher scores across most perceived health and well-being measures when compared to other groups (i.e. marginal, interdependent, and independent). Cultural-specific aspects of self-construal, health, and well-being are explained to support the findings. Discussion of these findings and their implications is also provided.

Preference and strategy in proposer’s prosocial giving in the ultimatum game

The accumulation of findings that most responders in the ultimatum game reject unfair offers provides evidence that humans are driven by social preferences such as preferences for fairness and prosociality. On the other hand, if and how the proposer’s behavior is affected by social preferences remains unelucidated. We addressed this question for the first time by manipulating the knowledge that the proposer had about the responder’s belief concerning the intentionality of the proposer. In a new game called the “ultimatum game with ambiguous intentions of the proposer (UGAMB),” we made the intentionality of the proposer ambiguous to the recipient. We expected and found that the proposer would make more unfair offers in this new game than in the standard ultimatum game. This expectation can be derived from either the preference-based model or the strategy model of the proposer’s giving decision. The additional finding that more unfair giving in the UGAMB was not mediated by the proposer’s expectation that the recipient would be more willing to accept unfair offers provided support for the preference-based model. Using a psychological measure of cognitive control, the preference-based model received additional support through a conceptual replication of the previous finding that cognitive control of intuitive drive for prosociality in the dictator game, rather than mind reading in the ultimatum game, is responsible for the difference in giving between the two games.

Effects of anger regulation and social anxiety on perceived stress

The mediating role of social anxiety was explored within the effect of anger regulation on perceived stress in the national sample of American and Japanese older adults. Results indicated that anger suppression is a significant factor in perceived stress mediated by social anxiety. Anger suppression was also directly related to perceived stress. The correlation of anger suppression with social anxiety was stronger in Japan than in the United States. Understanding both universal and culture-specific aspects of emotion regulation and perceived stress will be essential for the development of sound theory, future research, and effective prevention and intervention efforts.

Optimism and the conserved transcriptional response to adversity.

Dispositional optimism, a personality trait predisposing individuals to positive expectations, has been suggested to promote better health. However, little is known about the biological mechanism of the salubrious health effects of optimism. We hypothesized that by diminishing a sense of threat to the self, optimism will be associated with a healthier profile of gene expression in immune cells. Specifically, the “conserved transcriptional response to adversity” (CTRA) is activated by fight-or-flight stress responses and results in increased transcription of genes involved in inflammation and decreased transcription of genes involved in antiviral defense. In a sample of 114 male Japanese workers, we found that optimism was inversely linked to CTRA after controlling for demographic variables, health-risk factors, and indices of well-being. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that reduced activity of threat-related gene expression programs may contribute to the health effects associated with optimism.

Context Management Approach to Value Co-creation: Toward Dynamic Process Model of Customer as Value Co-creator

In this chapter, we take a service-dominant logic perspective to discuss value co-creation process by which both a firm and its customers engage in value creation activities. We first take a look at “simple, linear, and predeterministic” process typically described in the existing research and compare and contrast it with the “complex, dynamic, and emergent” process observed in our exploratory qualitative research. We then extend insights from our research toward developing a dynamic and emergent process model, based on such key concepts as “affordance,” “context,” and “culture.”