The present study examined how undergraduates (n=142) and their parents (n=142) perceive the youth and the adult generation, and the Korean society. Results indicated that there were clear-cut differences between the two generations on the 6 value and 10 personality trait dimensions, in the negative attitudes toward and frequencies of the 3 sexual misbehaviors, and in the subjective well-being. Two subgroups of judges were not consensual for all of those variables, which implies that generation gaps also exist in the perceptions of the two generations in some respects. However, there was large agreement in evaluating the Korean society as overall negative for the 6 evaluation variables, normlessness, political controllability and the sense of alienation. Regression analyses revealed that the 6 value and the 10 personality trait dimensions and the sense of alienation explained a large portion of variance in the subjective well-being of the both generations. Also, the 6 evaluation variables, normlessness and political controllability explained largely the subjective well-being of the Korean society. Those findings were discussed in relation to socio-cultural characteristics of the Korean society.
Three studies were conducted to explore psychological meanings of ingo (painful endurance) for Koreans. Study 1 analyzed ingo-related everyday behavior of Koreans and Study 2 did Korean folk tales. Analyses uncovered that ingo was different on both the intended-unintended and the self-other oriented dimensions. However, ingo was perceived to be followed by positive outcomes in most cases. In Study 3, two scenarios were constructed, one for ingo and the other for non-ingo behavior, for each of four types of ingo. Then 262 participants rated those eight scenarios in relation to outcomes from ingo and non-ingo behavior. Results indicated that positive outcomes from ingobehavior were more valuable and legitimate than those from non-ingo behavior. Also, participants were more sympathetic to those individuals whom negative outcomes were incurred to through ingo experiences. Further, higher values were assigned to ingo behavior per se than to non-ingo behavior. However, differences in possibility of accompanying positive outcome between ingo and non-ingo behavior varied as a function of ingo-context. All of these findings were discussed in relation to the Korean culture.
This study examines adolescents' causal attribution of accidents and their cognitive representation of safety using the indigenous psychology approach. In addition, this study examined safety efficacy beliefs with a sample of primary, junior high, senior high, and university students. A total sample of 1,074 adolescents participated in the study (primary school students=200, junior highschool students=241, preparatory high school students=206, and vocational high school students=206, and university students=206). The results indicate that the most severe accidents occurred during recreational activities, followed by traffic accidents, and majority of adolescents perceive that their lack of self-regulation, specifically their inattentiveness, was the cause of accidents. When they were involved in accidents, they were most likely to receive support from their parents. To avoid future accidents, adolescents responded that they needed to regulate themselves by being cautious and careful. In contrasts, very few respondents pointed out problems with facilities or environmental factors. In terms of safety efficacy beliefs, adolescents had moderate level of safety efficacy belief, with primary school students having the highest mean and the university students having the lowest mean. Finally, safety efficacy belief was positively correlated with parental socio-economic status and academic grade.
A secondary analysis was performed on 61 countries' data commonly obtained from (a) Transparency International's 1998 corruption perceptions indices for 85 countries, (b) Inglehart's (1997) interpersonal trust percentages for 43 countries, and (c) Hofstede's (1991) indices for four dimensions of culture (power distance, individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, and uncertainty avoidance) for 53 countries. Main findings are (a) that 66% of variances in national transparency and 57% of variances in interpersonal trust were explained by the four dimensions of culture, and (b) that 45% of variances in national transparency were explained by interpersonal trust. Individualism was the most powerful dimension of culture in predicting national transparency, and power distance was the most efficient in predicting interpersonal trust. The higher the interpersonal trust score, the higher the transparency index. In addition, in was also found that interpersonal trust significantly mediated the effects of individualism and uncertainty avoidance on national transparency, while the effect of power distance was mostly direct on national transparency with little mediation of interpersonal trust. It was suggested that the habituation of high context communication style (which includes more guessing than accepting the expressed communication as it is), based on collectivism and authoritarianism, may work as an important factor interfering with the development of transparency.
The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the actual conditions of dating violence among Korean high school students and determine the patterns of predictors associated with it by multivariate analysis. Participants were 128 male and 178 female students from 3 high schools at Namyangju City who had been involved in a heterosexual dating relationship. Anticipating variables for dating violence were selected by researchers based on social learning theory. Results indicated that 23.4% of male students and 41.1% of female students had been inflicting violence toward their dating partners, and there is significant difference between male and female students. The girls 'threw something' or 'slapped' their dating partners more frequently than the boys did. The girls were more positive toward violence than the boys, while the boys were more exposed to community violence and expressed aggression and playing violent computer game, and drinking than the girls. The remarkable finding on correlational analysis is that there is highly significant relationship between male recipient of dating violence and mother's corporal punishment. And there are significant relationship between recipient of dating violence and community violence, history of aggression, and drinking for both male and female. Logistic regression analysis indicated that community violence and playing violent computer games are predictors of dating violence for male, while father to mother violence, community violence, number of dating partners, and recipient of dating violence are predictors for female.
The potential for pretrial publicity to create or exaggerate anti-defendant bias in community members has been well-established. Aware of these biasing effects, organizations such as the American Bar Association and the U.S. Justice Department have provided guidelines for lawyers concerning types of information that should not be disseminated prior to trial. Media guidelines for police and prosecutors also exist in the Netherlands, but they differ somewhat from the U.S. guidelines. On the other hand, Korean criminal law contains a provision for media regulation which is purported to protect the defendant's fame in his/her community. Korean law does not recognize the possibility of bias caused by media and introduced into the court eventually to damage the fairness of the trial. Consequently, it is hypothesized that the nature of crime reporting is qualitatively different among the three countries. To test this, a comparative content analysis of crime reports in Korean, Dutch and U.S. newspapers was conducted. The content of text was coded to reflect the nature of the statement. Statements about defendants (suspects) and victims were coded. Types of statements included reports of demographic information, positive and negative characterizations, and statements made by the suspect or victim. An examination of over 2813 articles from the three countries revealed that media accounts of crimes are more a function of the intended purpose of legal provisions and social values attached to defendants and victims of the particular country rather than a function of the historical and philosophical tradition (civil v. commons law) of the legal system.