Four experiments provided support for the hypothesis that upon making a choice, individuals justify their choice in order to eliminate doubts about culturally sanctioned aspects of the self, namely, competence and efficacy in North America and positive appraisal by other people in Japan. Japanese participants justified their choice (by increasing liking for chosen items and decreasing liking for rejected items) in the standard free-choice dissonance paradigm only when self-relevant others were primed, either by questionnaires (Studies 1-3) or by incidental exposure to schematic faces (Study 4). In the absence of these social cues, Japanese participants showed no dissonance effect. In contrast, European Americans justified their choices regardless of the social-cue manipulations. Implications for cognitive dissonance theory are discussed.

Students at football games in the United States (the Rose Bowl) and Japan (the Flash Bowl) evaluated in-group and out-group universities and students before and after the games. In both cultures, the university with the better academic reputation lost the game, whereas the university with the better football program won. European American students from both universities evaluated their in-groups more positively than out-groups on all measures before and after the game. In contrast, Japanese students' ratings offered no evidence of intergroup bias, although Japanese students were as identified with their teams and the game's outcome as were European American students. Instead, Japanese students' ratings reflected the universities' statuses in the larger society and the students' statuses in the immediate situation.

In this study, the history of psychological testing in Japan is described using the oral history method. Seven test developers discussed the development of Japanese versions of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale, and Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children. Three conclusions were identified. First, the motivation for developing the tests shifted from one of personal aspiration to a wider responsibility of specialists' desiring to make social contributions. Second, the test developers shifted from working in small, familiar, collaborative groups to working in groups of specialists conducting well-organized projects. Third, the development of tests has variously been led by researchers, publishers, researcher-and-publisher collaborations, or institutes. In addition, this study identifies contemporary challenges for developing psychological tests, specifically due to insufficient numbers of participants and test developers.

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