Shoko Yamane

Appraising Unhappiness in the Wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake

Considering the case of the Great East Japan Earthquake, we use the experienced-utility approach to appraise the psychological distress from disaster-related news. We take advantage of the serendipitous timing of our original nationwide weekly panel survey that became a fitting resource for the investigation of subjective well-being in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. Although all of Japanese society was affected, we found geographical heterogeneity between the affected areas (Sendai and Tokyo) and the unaffected areas in terms of mental costs. Our finding reminds us of the focusing effect (Kahneman et al., 2006; Dolan and Kahneman, 2008) as captured by Schkade and Kahneman (1998) in the maxim “Nothing in life is quite as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it”.

The effect of a ticking clock on task performance

We examined the influence of a ticking clock on task performance using a laboratory experiment. We investigated how performance changed in response to various clock ticking speeds using a trick clock that allowed us to control its ticking speed. We found that the subjects’ performance was influenced by the speed at which the clock ticked: Particularly, individuals showed slower performance when exposed to a slow-ticking clock. We demonstrated that common environmental stimuli encountered in daily life, such as the ticking of a clock, have a significant effect on human behavior.

Homo Economicus vs. Human Being: Outcomes of Irrationality

This paper investigates the individual outcomes of irrational thinking, including paranormality and non-scientific thinking. These modes of thinking are identified by factor analysis from a 2008 survey. Income and happiness are used as measures of performance. Empirical results reveal that non-scientific thinking lowers income, whereas paranormality does not affect it. While non-scientific thinking lowers happiness, paranormality raises it. Extending the model, we find that higher ability and self-control result in higher income and happiness. Selfishness raises income, but diminishes happiness. These results suggest that Homo economicus generally achieves higher individual performance, except that belief in paranormality raises happiness.