Japanese Cultural Psychology and Empathic Understanding: Implications for Academic and Cultural Psychology

This article examines personally divergent ways that Japanese individuals understand and act on the cultural script of empathy (omoiyari). Through interviews with highschool students and observations of people in real-life situations, I shall show the contradictory and multidimensional motives that...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethos (Berkeley, Calif.) Calif.), 2000-06, Vol.28 (2), p.224-247
Main Author: Shimizu, Hidetada
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
A Special Section on Japanese Cultures and Communities
Adolescents
Ambivalence
Apologies
Behavior
Cross cultural psychology
Cultural norms
Cultural psychology
Culture
Empathy
Essays
Ethnic ethos
Ethnocentrism
Hypothesis
Japan
Japanese culture
Japanese language
Motivation
Normativity
Psychological anthropology
Psychology
Relativism
Self
Semantics
Social norms
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Summary:This article examines personally divergent ways that Japanese individuals understand and act on the cultural script of empathy (omoiyari). Through interviews with highschool students and observations of people in real-life situations, I shall show the contradictory and multidimensional motives that do not always fit into the culturally idealized patterns of empathic behavior. In so doing, I shall critique Markus and Kitayama's and Wierzbicka's use of hypothetical problems and situations to generalize from cultural norm to individual subjects. Implications of the empathic and experiential approach to academic and cultural psychology are discussed.
ISSN:0091-2131
1548-1352
DOI:10.1525/eth.2000.28.2.224