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The aim of this study was to test the relationship of theory of mind (ToM) and maternal emotional expressiveness with children's aggressive behaviours (i.e., relational aggression, physical aggression). ToM is vital to relational aggression, which involves harming others through purposeful manipulation and damaging peer relationships. However, little is known about how ToM and family emotional environment are interactively associated with aggressive behaviours. Fifty-one Japanese children, aged 4 and 5 years, completed measures of ToM and receptive vocabulary. Mothers reported their emotional expressiveness towards their children and classroom teachers rated each child's aggressive behaviours. The results revealed that when boys have mature ToM and their mothers show high negative emotional expressiveness, they exhibit higher relational aggression in their peer relationships. Such interaction effect was not found for girls. The findings suggest that boys with mature ToM are likely to learn to use ToM for antisocial purposes via negative family emotional environments.

This study investigated sensitivity to teacher and peer criticism among 89 Japanese 6-year-olds and examined the connection between sensitivity to criticism and first-order and second-order theory of mind separately. Participants completed a common test battery that included tasks assessing sensitivity to criticism (teacher or peer condition), the Picture Vocabulary Test--Revised, and theory of mind tasks. The results showed that the children with better understanding of second-order mental states rated their ability negatively after teacher criticism, but they were motivated to keep trying. This phenomenon was found under only the teacher condition, and peer criticism did not significantly affect children's response, irrespective of theory-of-mind level. Cognitive and social factors that may have contributed to the children's responses to criticism are discussed.

We conducted 3 studies to explore cultural differences in global versus local processing and their developmental trajectories. In Study 1 ("N" = 363), we found that Japanese college students were less globally oriented in their processing than American or Argentine participants. We replicated this effect in Study 2 ("N" = 1,843) using a nationally representative sample of Japanese and American adults ages 20 to 69, and found further that adults in both cultures became more globally oriented with age. In Study 3 ("N" = 133), we investigated the developmental course of the cultural difference using Japanese and American children, and found it was evident by 4 years of age. Cultural variations in global versus local processing emerge by early childhood, and remain throughout adulthood. At the same time, both Japanese and Americans become increasingly global processors with age.