The personal assessments of the current and expected future state of the environment by 3232 community respondents in 18 nations were investigated at the local, national, and global spatial levels. These assessments were compared to a ranking of each country’s environmental quality by an expert panel. Temporal pessimism (“things will get worse”) was found in the assessments at all three spatial levels. Spatial optimism bias (“things are better here than there”) was found in the assessments of current environmental conditions in 15 of 18 countries, but not in the assessments of the future. All countries except one exhibited temporal pessimism, but significant differences between them were common. Evaluations of current environmental conditions also differed by country. Citizens’ assessments of current conditions, and the degree of comparative optimism, were strongly correlated with the expert panel’s assessments of national environmental quality. Aside from the value of understanding global trends in environmental assessments, the results have important implications for environmental policy and risk management strategies

This study aimed to investigate effects of the interior design of a counseling room on participants' self-disclosure and impressions of a counselor. The authors examined the effects of lighting and decorations. It tested four conditions crossing decorations (with or without home-like decorations) and type of lighting (bright or dim). Eighty undergraduate students (clients) were randomly assigned to one of the conditions and individually underwent a structured interview with an interviewer (a counselor) and then completed a questionnaire. The results showed that dim lighting yielded more pleasant and relaxed feelings, more favorable impressions of the interviewer, and more self-disclosure than did the bright lighting. However, the authors found no predominant pattern of the decorations. Thus, the pleasant and relaxed feelings related to dim lighting may well enhance the perceived attractiveness of a counselor and self-disclosure from clients. The results imply that interior design could influence communication and other relationships in counseling rooms.

No abstract

No abstract

Groups from Japan, China, Bangladesh, England, and the United States recalled, described, and dated specific autobiographical memories. When memories were plotted in terms of age-at-encoding highly similar life-span memory retrieval curves were observed: the periods of childhood amnesia and the reminiscence bump were the same across cultures. However, content analysis of memory descriptions of the U.S. and Chinese groups found that memories from the Chinese group had interdependent self-focus (i.e., were of events with a group or social orientation), whereas the memory content of the U.S. group showed an independent self-focus (i.e., were of events oriented to the individual). These findings suggest that there are culturally invariant features of autobiographical memory that yield structurally similar memories across cultures, yet the content of memories is sensitive to cultural influences related to the nature of the self. Findings are discussed in light of similarities and diversity between selves with different self/other orientations.