Kondo Fumiya

<p>This study aimed to investigate differences in the common factor of community consciousness between Japan and Korea. The scale included four subscales: "solidarity," "self-determination," "attachment," and "dependency on others." Web surveys were conducted in 669 adults (330 Japanese, 339 Koreans). Results of the survey showed that configural invariance was confirmed only for "self-determination" and its latent mean was higher in Korean participants. In sum, the results suggest that Japan and Korea have similarities and differences regarding community consciousness, which may be attributed to various factors such as social mobility and attitudes toward civil rights.</p>

<p>This study examined the relationship between images of religious believers and tolerant attitudes toward them. A questionnaire was administered to 220 respondents via a web survey. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that images of religious believers consisted of three factors: "mentally vulnerable," "pious," and "virtuous." Furthermore, hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that, regardless of whether the respondents were themselves religious or not, virtuous images were associated with tolerant attitude toward them. In contrast, the relationship between mentally vulnerable and pious images and a tolerant attitude was different, depending on respondents' religiousness.</p>

<p>This study aims to explore how the relationship between punitiveness and attributional style differs between Japan and Korea. Data from 330 Japanese and 339 Koreans were analyzed. Multi-group structural equation modeling showed that in both Japan and Korea, punitiveness consisted of three factors (support for harsher punishment, greater criminalization, and use of the death penalty) while the attributional style consisted of two factors (dispositional attribution and situational attribution). In both countries, dispositional attribution was related to punitiveness. Regarding differences, the scores for punitiveness on all three subscale scores and for dispositional attribution were higher in Korea whereas the negative relationship between punitiveness subscale scores and situational attribution was stronger in Japan. This suggests that Japanese are less likely to support punitive measures for criminals and to attribute the causes of crime to the criminals themselves than Koreans. In addition, when deciding on the severity of punishment, Japanese are more likely to take situational causes into consideration.</p>

This article examines the determinants of tolerance attitudes of the Japanese people toward Muslims, within the context of "Non-Muslim Studies," through statistical analysis. Attitudes were investigated by a questionnaire, in 232 university students. The questionnaire contained questions to measure images, perceived threat, sex, and contact experience. Additionally, in terms of discussions of "globalization," the stability of identity, general trust, and psychological essentialism were also examined.At first, to construct a detailed structure of images toward Muslims, we constructed image scales by factor analysis. As a result, it was found that there were three factors of images named "the positive image factor," "the negative image factor," and "the piety image factor."Secondly, we considered tolerance attitudes through structural equation modeling, which made it clear that the stability of identity, perceived threat, the positive image factor, and the negative image factor had statistically significant and direct relationships to tolerance attitudes. Additionally, general trust, psychological essentialism, and contact experience had indirect relations. Conversely, the piety image factor and sex did not exhibit any relationships. In conclusion, it became clear that tolerance attitudes are determined by complex and multi-layered relationships among several variables.