The present study focused on an acquisition of personal growth through anger-inducing events among female adolescents. Negative emotional events are frequently shared with intimate others. Promotion of reappraisal and social support perception in social sharing would be dependent on disclosure-recipients' response. Personal growth would also be obtained through negotiation with anger-inducing targets. It was thus hypothesized that trial of revision, receptive response in social sharing, and constructive expression toward anger-inducing targets would facilitate personal growth. Results supported the hypothesis solely for whom anger-inducing events were socially shared. Only trial of revision had positive influence on personal growth among who did not disclosed the anger experience. These results were discussed with respect to characteristics of the events.

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People doing emotional labor need to suppress their feelings as a part of their job. As a result, they suffer from persistent work stress. We examined if writing disclosure about secondary emotions by using cell phone text messages is an effective intervention against the stresses of emotional labor. Participants who engaged in interpersonal work were randomized to the following groups: (a) experimental condition consisting of participants who wrote about secondary emotions for three consecutive weeks (N=6), (b) control-writing condition consisting of participants who recorded their daily life activities, such as sleeping time for three consecutive weeks (N=6), and (c) no-writing condition (N=8) consisting of participants that only responded to a questionnaire. Changes in emotional dissonance, burnout, frequency of recalling the job, and secondary emotions were assessed on three occasions. Results of ANOVAs indicated that participants in the experimental condition had a significant reduction in all variables except secondary emotions at follow-up. These results indicate that written disclosures about secondary emotions may restrain the progression of burnout in emotional laborers.

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The mutual constitution of culture and the mind has been found in various fundamental psychological processes. One important research question is to expand the previous findings and examine neural processes that may vary across cultural groups. Moreover, a growing body of research shows that a person's psychological tendency may emerge as a result of an interaction between genetic and environmental factors and that certain genes may be associated with greater plasticity or susceptibility to the environment. If these environmental factors include cultural ideas and practices, an interaction between genetic and cultural factors may shape the individual's psychological and neural processes. Here, this review will highlight some emerging studies that explore whether and to what extent genes are linked to culture and the mind and discuss the implications.

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Mindfulness is currently attracting a great deal of attention as a psychotherapeutic technique, which originated from Eastern meditation practices. It is defined as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994). This article reviews neuroscience studies of mindfulness, and genetic contributions to individual differences on the effect of the mindfulness intervention. Finally, we will discuss differences and similarities in neurobiological bases of emotion regulation between Eastern and Western people.

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Since the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake in 1995, media reports on importance of mental health services for survivors and service providers, and hundreds of mental health teams were coordinated and dispatched to the disaster areas right after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami last year. However, how much of such services were truly welcomed and utilized by the survivors? Some argue that the concept of mental health itself is western born hence it does not really fit with Japanese culture. This paper, however, points out aftereffects of disaster are universal but how they are expressed might be influenced by culture, social structures, and individual differences. And survivors in general need support to recover but it does not have to be ‘mental health’ per se, and it is up to providers' ability in how to present it so that mental health service is accepted and utilized. Examples from author's experiences are included to make points.

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