شرایط خود خبررسان برای بهزیستن ذهنی در میان ژاپنی ها

Abstract The present study examined the convergence between self- and informant-ratings for well-being among Japanese students. A total of 202 same-sex friend pairs completed self-reports and informant reports of life satisfaction, domain satisfaction, positive and negative affect, extraversion, and neuroticism. Life satisfaction and other variables showed significant self–informant agreement correlations, thereby establishing their convergent validity. However, the size of agreement on life satisfaction was lower than the previous findings conducted in the United States, whereas other variables did not differ from previous results. Furthermore, there was a significant difference in the size of agreement between life satisfaction and extraversion; that is, life satisfaction produced lower agreement than extraversion.

. Introduction Informant judgments traditionally have been used as evidence of the construct validity of self-reports (e.g., Diener et al., 1995 and Pavot et al., 1991). Recently, Schneider and Schimmack (2009) conducted a meta-analysis of published studies that reported self–informant agreement for well-being. Based on 44 independent samples, the results showed that the average self–informant correlation for well-being measures was .42. Because of the relatively high convergences, Schneider & Schimmack concluded that well-being judgments have some validity. However, most previous research on self–informant agreement has been conducted in the United States, and surprisingly few studies have examined self–informant agreements outside North America. Thus, it is still unclear whether self-ratings on well-being have convergent validity in Asia or not. In the present study, we examined the convergence on several components of well-being (i.e., life satisfaction, positive and negative affect) between self- and informant-ratings among Japanese. The importance of examining potential cross-cultural differences in self–informant agreement is highlighted by recent research suggesting that cultural differences in basic psychological findings may be more widespread than psychologists traditionally have acknowledged. The knowledge base for psychological and other social/behavioral sciences comes largely from Western, Educated, Industrial, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). The self–informant agreement literature is no exception. The lack of non-WEIRD data could obscure the possibility of societal/cultural variation, and could lead researchers and readers to reach a potentially erroneous conclusion that subjective well-being can be assessed by informants reliably across any cultural groups. The current study is an attempt to broaden the basis of knowledge on subjective well-being to non-WEIRD samples, in particular, on the issue of self–informant agreement. Previous work has examined cultural differences in self–informant agreements on personality ratings. For instance, Heine and Renshaw (2002) found that the average self–informant agreement correlations on personality traits were significantly lower for Japanese than for Americans. Suh (2002) also reported a similar pattern of results between Americans and Koreans, and speculated that cultural differences in self–other agreements on personality traits may arise from cultural differences in consistency of behavior across situations. Because judgments about a target person’s personality may influence judgments about the target’s well-being, it is likely that cultural differences in the convergence of self- and informant-ratings on personality would also extend to cultural differences in self–informant agreement on life satisfaction and positive and negative affect. In one of very few studies to have previously computed self–informant agreements of well-being among the people from an Asian cultural background, Kim, Schimmack, and Oishi (2012) collected self- and informant-ratings of well-being from Asian Canadians and European Canadians. Their results showed that the correlations between the latent factors for self-ratings and informant-ratings were significant. However, Kim et al. computed self–informant agreements among the combined sample of European Canadians and Asian Canadians, and did not report self–informant agreement among only Asians Canadians. Okazaki (2002) examined self–informant agreement on depression and affective scales among Asian Americans and White Americans. She demonstrated that agreements of these scales did not differ across cultures. However, given evidence that Asian Americans often score in between European Americans and Asians living in Asia on myriad tasks1 (e.g., Hamamura et al., 2008 and Norenzayan et al., 2002), it is possible that the comparison between European Americans and Asian Americans might underestimate the cultural differences between countries. 1.1. The present study Our study extends the existing literatures in several ways. First, we collected data from Japanese participants living in Japan. To our knowledge, the current study is the first to examine self–informant agreements for well-being ratings among Asians residing in Asia. Because self–informant agreement on personality is lower among Asians than North Americans (Heine and Renshaw, 2002 and Suh, 2002), we predicted that the size of self–informant agreement of life satisfaction would also be lower than those from previous findings conducted in the United States (Schneider & Schimmack, 2009). Furthermore, previous research has demonstrated that Japanese self-enhance less than North Americans (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999). Thus, we also predicted that mean self-reports of life satisfaction would be lower than informant-reports of life satisfaction among Japanese. Second, our respondents completed several components of well-being and personality scales for self-report and informant-report. Thus, we can directly compare the sizes of agreement for the same respondents across multiple measures. Previous studies have demonstrated that easily observable personality traits show stronger self–other agreement than internal, subjective traits (e.g., Funder and Colvin, 1988 and Watson and Clark, 1991). This reasoning predicts that the size of self–informant agreement on life satisfaction might be lower than the agreement on more easily observable traits (i.e., extraversion). Third, we also measured domain satisfaction for self-reports and informant-reports because domain satisfaction is a primary component of subjective well-being (Schimmack, Diener, & Oishi, 2002), but it may have different self–informant agreement and has not yet been tested across cultures. For instance, Schneider and Schimmack (2010) collected self-ratings and informant ratings of life satisfaction and domain satisfaction in five domains (family, health, academics, friends and weather) among Canadians. They found that domain satisfaction produced higher self–informant agreement than life satisfaction. Another study found that significant self–informant agreement for spouses’ informant ratings of marital satisfaction and job satisfaction in the U.S. (Heller, Watson, & Ilies, 2006).

5. Conclusion Although the research design of our study may underestimate self–other agreements, there were moderately significant positive agreement correlations in well-being ratings. Subjective well-being ratings among Japanese therefore have some validity. Self–informant agreement of life satisfaction among Japanese is smaller than in North America, whereas the sizes of agreement for positive and negative affect, domain satisfaction, extraversion, and neuroticism did not differ from the previous results in North America (Connolly et al., 2007, Schneider and Schimmack, 2009 and Schneider and Schimmack, 2010). It is important that future studies devote greater attention to the sources of the cultural differences in self–informant agreements on life satisfaction.