The purpose of this study was to investigate communications in deception when the interpersonal system is in the centrifugal tendency. It is connected to two levels of systems: the interpersonal system and the conversational system. The interpersonal system is defined by relationships among persons. The conversational system is defined by the chain of events in the conversation. Participants were 20 pairs of undergraduates. Half of them were asked to tell their demerits and the rest were asked to answer negatively (deceptive condition) or affirmatively (truth condition). The results were as follows: (1) The deception lead the interpersonal system for the centripetal tendency when it is the centrifugal tendency. (2) In the deceptive condition participarts smile lesser than in the truth condition. (3) In the deceptive condition they talk longer, are reticent shorter, look at their partner longer and move their head to ask their partner's to respond more frequency. These results confirmed that in the truth condition, which the interpersonal system is more centrifugal, their communication leads in the interpersonal system have a centripetal tendency and, in the conversational system have a centrifugal tendency.

　　The purpose of this investigation was to compare secondary stressors after spousal loss with those after parental loss and to examine the relationship between secondary stressors and mental health after bereavement.

　　48 widow(er)s and 48 bereaved children answered a questionnaire concerning secondary stressors (Bereavement Secondary Stressors Scale: BSSS) and mental health (General Health Questionnaire Japanese Version, 28 version: GHQ-28).

　　A review of differences by kinship to the deceased on secondary stressors, show that bereaved spouses experienced more secondary stressors than bereaved children. As a result of pass analysis, “Financial problems,” “Troubles with other people,” “Incidental tasks during bereavement,” and “Difficulties in daily life” were influenced by the kinship to the deceased. These influenced mental health. These results suggest that differences in mental health between bereaved spouse and bereaved children were partially related to some of secondary stressors. Implications of these findings for bereavement care are discussed.

　　The nature of parents' involvement in a child's care while shopping was examined in relation to the child's developmental stage (0-1 yr, 2-3 yr, 4-5 yr) and the presence of younger siblings. Patterns of parent involvement in the care of older and younger children were also examined in two-children families. Three hundred twenty-six families (229 one-child families and 97 two-children families) were observed while passing through an open space in a large indoor shopping mall All of the 0-1 year-old children observed were directly controlled by either their mother or father : 59.0% were in a stroller and 39.1% were held in a parent's arms. On the other hand, 2-3 year-old children with younger siblings were less frequently directly controlled by their parents than those without younger siblings, while no such diffrences were found for 4-5 year-old children. Regardless of whether they had younger siblings, 2-3 year-old children were likely to be controlled by holding the hand of their mother or by being held by or holding the hand of their father, whereas most 4-5 year-old children held a parent's hand. An analysis of the patterns of parent involvement with older and younger children revealed that in two-children families in which the older siblings were 2-3 years old (and most of the younger siblings were 0-1 years old), the father and mother were most often caregivers for the older and younger children, respectively, while a similar pattern was not found in families in which the older sibling was 4-5 years old. These findings suggest that a father's disproportionate care of an older 2-3 year-old child when the younger sibling is an infant or young toddler may play an important role in family adaptaion to the birth of siblings.

　　In their examination of human communication from a pragmatic view, Watzlawick, et al. (1967) proposed that “a man who doesn't want to communicate needs to communicate that”. In short, one must communicate to others whether or not one has something to say. If you want to avoid communication with another, what do you do? The purpose of this study was to identify features of avoidance behavior in conversation, from the point of “management communication” (Hasegawa, et al., 1996). Ten undergraduate (female) pairs were assigned to either a “non-avoidance” or an “avoidance”. Each experimental condition was videotaped and analyzed. Results indicate that “gaze-avoidance” is very often used to avoid conversation as observed through a combination of behavioral indices and contexts. Implications for further research that considers differences between maintenance of conversational system and construction of intimacy and maintenance are discussed.

　　This study examined the relationships between father-child and mother-child relationships, marital discord, and children's aggression, emotionality, and self-esteem. Participants were 144 primary school students (78 male, 66 female), who completed a questionnaire that measured the extent of discordance and the child's self-esteem, emotionality, and aggression. Results revealed; marital discord affected the father-child relationship, the mother-child relationship, and the self-esteem of the child; the father-child relationship influenced the self-esteem of the child; the mother-child relationship affected the father-child relationship and the aggression of the child. These results suggest that the problematic issues of children are highly influenced by discordance between parents, and that these issues emerged as emotional problems through father-child discord, and as behavioral problems through mother-child discord.