title: Voluntary settlement and the spirit of independence: evidence from Japan's "Northern frontier".
abstract: The authors hypothesized that economically motivated voluntary settlement in the frontier fosters independent agency. While illuminating the historical origin of American individualism, this hypothesis can be most powerfully tested in a region that is embedded in a broader culture of interdependence and yet has undergone a recent history of such settlement. The authors therefore examined residents of Japan's northern island (Hokkaido). Hokkaido was extensively settled by ethnic Japanese beginning in the 1870s and for several decades thereafter. Many of the current residents of Hokkaido are the descendents of the original settlers from this period. As predicted, Japanese socialized and/or immersed in Hokkaido were nearly as likely as European Americans in North America to associate happiness with personal achievement (Study 1), to show a personal dissonance effect wherein self-justification is motivated by a threat to personal self-images (Study 2), and to commit a dispositional bias in causal attribution (Study 3). In contrast, these marker effects of independent agency were largely absent for non-Hokkaido residents in Japan. Implications for theories of cultural change and persistence are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 503 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. kitayama@umich.edu
authors.forename: Shinobu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kitayama
authors.forename: Keiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ishii
authors.forename: Toshie
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Imada
authors.forename: Kosuke
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Takemura
authors.forename: Jenny
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ramaswamy
mesh_terms: D000069:Acculturation; D000124:Achievement; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D002391:Catchment Area, Health; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012649:Self Concept; D012922:Social Change; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014836:Volition