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Social Psychology, Cultural Psychology, Communication Keywords: self/other perception, langauge usage and interpersonal cognition, intercultural conflicts, conflict management, behavioral science, etc. Imagine a bilingual person, with the ability to speak two different languages equally freely. He/she could live and survive in both language A society and language B society, without language barriers. Would this person behave in the same manner in both societies? Judging from the past findings, this person would act differently in each language society. Language not represents a culture, but at the same time, our lives are being influenced by our languages as long as we belong to a culture. It would be widely agreed that interacting with people from other cultures, or jumping into another culture brings a valuable experience. In one way, this is indeed true. However, we must not forget that the interaction with other “unknown” culture do have some negative side effects on our psychological states. Just like so many phenomena in our world, what is so called “intercultural communication” should not be considered as a magical term that benefits all people. There is “dark side” of intercultural communication, such as psychological stress under unknown culture. You might consider a person growing up in a foreign country as “lucky”, but the life in other culture could be much bitter than it seems. Although the benefits of intercultural experiences are often being highlighted, the bright side and dark side should be studied equally to better understand the real intercultural communication. “Cultures” could influence our lives, and sometimes cultural psychological researches have been influenced by cultural differences. In short, “imposing” the western developed theories to Japanese culture could be considered as a typical example of such cases. It would be widely agreed that the recent development in psychology owes a lot to the western scholars for their productivity and creativity. However, as stated earlier, one must not neglect to consider cross-cultural equivalence. How well could you agree with the research report on “Japanese” psychology, when the assessments were done in “non Japanese” methods? The reliability for such reports could appear to be fare, but couldn’t it be less than 50% due to the lack in cross cultural equivalence? Research at Takai laboratory evaluates the cultural equivalence. We try to reflect some unique features of cultures to our theories and models when conducting research.
・ Takai, J. (1998). Accounting for culture in a model of interpersonal communication competence. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 3, 223-258. ・ Takai, J. (1999). Extracting the "culture" from Japanese student samples in cross-cultural communication research. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 4, 79-111. ・ Tasaki, K. & Takai, J. (1999). The effects of self-construals on influenceability. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 6, 189-201. ・ Ota, H., Harwood, J., Williams, A., & Takai, J. (2000). A cross-cultural analysis of age identity in Japan and the United States. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 21, 33-41. ・ Oetzel, J., Ting-Toomey, S., Matsumoto, T., Yokoichi, Y., Pan, X., Takai, J., and Wilcox, R. (2001). Face and facework in conflict: A cross-cultural comparison of China, Germany, Japan, and the United States. Communication Monographs, 68, 235-258. ・ Oetzel, J., Ting-Toomey, S., Yokoichi, Y., Matsumoto, T., & Takai, J. (2001). A typology of facework behaviors in conflicts with best friends and relative strangers. Communication Quarterly. 2, 397-419. ・ Takai, J. (2001). Direct and indirect communication strategies: An overview of research from a cross-cultural perspective. Academia (Literature and Language), 69, 259-279. ・ Takai, J. (2003) Current trends of intercultural communication research in Japan. The Annual Report of Educational Psychology in Japan, 42, 240-254. ・ Igarashi, T., Takai, J., & Yoshida, T. (2005). Gender differences in social network development via mobile phone text messages: A longitudinal study. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 22, 691-713.
The Japanese Social Psychological Society, The Japanese Group Dynamics Association, National Communication Association, Japan-U.S. Communication Association etc.
・ Member of executive committee for the Japanese Social Psychological Society 2005/4―2007/3 ・ Member of executive committee for the Japanese Group Dynamics Association 2003/3―2007/3 ・ Member of executive committee for the Japanese Communicaiton Association ・ Member of executive committee for Intercultural Education Association, Japan ・ "Psychologia" editor ・ Member of executive committee for Japan-US Communication Association -2005/11 ・ Vice President of Japan-US Communication Association -2007/11 ・ President of Japan-US Communication Association 2007/11- ・ Several committees in Nagoya University
・ 1994.6, Japanese Communication Association Top Paper Award ・ 2000.6, International Communication Association Top Paper Award ・ 2000.11, National Communication Association Top Paper Award ・ 2005.11, National Communication Association, Japan-US Communication Association Top Paper Award ・ 2006.11, National Communication Association, Japan-US Communication Association Top Paper Award ・ 2007.09, Japan Society for Natural Disaster Science, The Excellent Presentation Award (Unagami T., Motoyoshi, T., Takai, J., & Yoshida, T.) ・ 2007.11, National Communication Association, Japan-US Communication Association Top Paper Award
Prof. Takai is a truly supportive and gentle mentor. At no matter how busy he was, he allows students to visit his office for a consultation. Conducting numbers of researches and contributing to numbers of academic societies, one could imagine how tough his schedules are, but he never closes the door of his office. Growing up in Canada, he provides us an opportunity to learn several aspects (i.e., positive/negative) of intercultural communication. His explanations on intercultural communication theories are "based on facts", which add a lot reality to psychological theories. Link to... Introduction by Graduate School of International Development, Nagoya University (English) (Japanese)
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