In recent years, male loneliness has become a significant social issue in Japan. Against this backdrop, the study aimed to examine the relationship between attitudes toward traditional male roles and loneliness among men, with a particular focus on age. A web-based survey was conducted with 358 Japanese men to collect data on loneliness, attitudes toward traditional male roles (i.e., high social status, physical and psychological toughness, high agency, low effeminacy, and superiority over women), and age. Mediation analysis of the data revealed that age was positively associated with all dimensions of attitudes toward traditional male roles. Notably, attitudes toward high social status and low effeminacy were positively associated with loneliness, whereas that toward high agency was negatively associated with loneliness. Furthermore, age was found to be indirectly related to loneliness through these dimensions of traditional male role attitudes.

This study examines the relationship between Big Five personality traits and university students’ grade point average (GPA), as well as within-person changes in GPA. A total of 349 university students participated in the survey, and their responses were linked with institutional research (IR) data, including GPA, for analysis. The results indicate that, consistent with international research, conscientiousness was the strongest predictor of GPA among the Big Five traits in a Japanese university context. Furthermore, the trajectories of within-person changes in GPA across semesters were moderated by extraversion and conscientiousness; students with lower extraversion and lower conscientiousness exhibited declines in GPA until the third semester, whereas those with higher traits showed declines in GPA only until the second semester. Based on these findings, we discuss the nature of the relationship between Big Five personality traits and GPA in Japan and the implications for effective interventions aimed at promoting college adjustment.

Which themes have attracted sustained attention in Japanese personality research? This study maps trends in domestic scholarship by extracting and organizing author keywords from article metadata, using The Japanese Journal of Personality as a representative outlet. We collected keywords from all articles published in the journal from Volume 1, Issue 1 (1993) to Volume 33, Issue 2 (2024). In total, 1662 unique, non-duplicated keywords were identified and classified into nine domains and 43 topics. The results indicate that Japanese personality research has concentrated on themes related to adaptation, scale development, internalizing problems, and self/identity. In contrast with international trends, studies on the Big Five traits remain comparatively scarce. Based on these findings, we discuss the need to further examine the role and significance of the Big Five in Japan, investigate personality structures that may be specific to Japan, and promote research focusing on particular personality traits.

Crying is considered a form of emotion regulation, with beliefs about its effects categorized as helpful, unhelpful-individual, and unhelpful-social. Although helpful beliefs have been linked to improved mood after crying, it remains unclear whether these beliefs are associated with the frequency of intentional crying or with mental health. This study examined 334 participants to explore these associations. Stronger helpful beliefs were associated with more frequent intentional crying, whereas unhelpful-individual and unhelpful-social beliefs were significantly associated with poorer mental health. These findings suggest that beliefs about crying relate to how crying is used as a regulatory strategy and to psychological well-being.

This study examined psychological factors related to marriage hunting within matchmaking agencies by examining marriage images among female members across different stages of the marriage-hunting process. The results showed stage-related differences in marriage images concerning restriction of freedom and expectations for a happy life. These findings suggest that psychological factors are related to the marriage-hunting process within matchmaking agencies.

Prior research on associations between anger regulation strategies and relational context has been limited by the absence of anger intensity measurement and the confounding of relational and situational factors. Using refined scenarios, this study examined the effects of target’s relative status and intimacy on anger intensity and four regulation strategies in a survey of 289 Japanese adults. Two-way ANOVAs revealed no main or interaction effects of relative status or intimacy on anger intensity or regulation strategies, except that constructive expression was higher toward equal-status targets than higher-status targets. Mediation analysis revealed that this effect was not mediated by anger intensity.

This study examined relationships between multidimensional perfectionism and empathy in 237 Japanese adults using an online survey. Correlation and partial correlation analyses were conducted using the Japanese Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale and the Multidimensional Empathy Scale. Self-oriented perfectionism was positively associated with both cognitive and emotional empathy, indicating relatively adaptive interpersonal tendencies. Other-oriented perfectionism was negatively associated with perspective taking after controlling for other perfectionism dimensions. Socially prescribed perfectionism was positively associated only with susceptibility to others’ influence. These findings suggest dimension-specific associations between perfectionism and the multidimensional structure of empathy.

This study examined changes in state self-esteem following failure among defensive pessimists (DPs) and strategic optimists (SOs), focusing on contingent self-esteem (CSE). Using a scenario-based failure manipulation with 118 undergraduates, we tested whether DPs would show higher CSE and greater post-failure declines in state self-esteem than SOs. Neither hypothesis was supported. Although all groups showed significant declines, effect sizes suggested that defensive pessimism buffers the impact of failure on self-esteem, consistent with Norem and Cantor’s theoretical account. Future research should incorporate success and control conditions to further examine this possibility.