Thursday 23 July 14:05
- 15:35
Hall: 22 - Room 19
Chair and Presenter:
Choi Hoon-Seok
Discussant:
Di Fabio Annamaria
Division: Division 8: Health Psychology
In this symposium, we discuss various issues related to individual well-being in East Asia. Choi argues that a simple dichotomy between individualism and collectivism does not adequately capture the dynamic changes in highly industrialized Asian countries, where people must negotiate their experiences between traditional collectivistic values and the Western notion of independence. Along these lines, Choi proposes that a combination of collectivistic values and independent self-views promotes individuals' functioning in the social world, thereby positively affecting their mental and physical health in Korea. Ohtaka examines the link between place attachment and well-being in Japan and introduces empirical data showing that enhancing the natural environment in urban areas and improving convenience in rural areas may increase people's place attachment, promote their well-being, trust in society, and active community participation. Hashimoto examines how online communication—especially the rise of social media—shapes our everyday moral life and sense of well-being. He introduces a study with Japanese participants, showing that individuals' praise-seeking motives predict their willingness to engage in online shaming, but this effect is moderated by whether the situational norm supports or discourages shaming. From these, he discusses how online spaces affect how people "live a good life" by simultaneously satisfying and threatening the psychological needs of belonging and moral standing. Cho argues that cultural contexts shape how individuals engage cognitive resources across the lifespan. She introduces cross-cultural behavioral and neuroimaging data indicating that the interplay of age and culture in memory depends on cognitive load and processing demands rather than reflecting fixed differences between cultural groups. She argues that for aging societies such as Korea and Japan, this finding highlights the importance of examining when and how culture shapes cognition across adulthood.
