This study tested the “city air” hypothesis, which posits that the social constraints prevalent in rural life are weaker in metropolitan areas, freeing metropolitan residents from pressure to suppress their pursuit of individual goals. To do so, we replicated Yamagishi et al.’s vignette study of pen choice. In the first study using a web-based survey of 821 respondents from all prefectures in Japan, choice of a unique color pen was the highest among respondents from metropolitan areas, while respondents from non-urban prefectures were less willing to choose the unique pen. The second study with 1,398 respondents from Tokyo and rural Japan confirmed the findings.
ChenJ.ChiuC.- y.ChanF. S.- F. (2009). The cultural effects of job mobility and the belief in a fixed world. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 851-865.
2.
HashimotoH.LiY.YamagishiT. (2011). Beliefs and preferences in cultural agents and cultural game players. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 14, 140-147.
3.
KashimaY.KokuboT.KashimaE. S.BoxallD.YamaguchiS.MacraeK. (2004). Culture and self: Are there within-culture differences in self between metropolitan areas and regional cities. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 816-823.
4.
KimH.MarkusH. R. (1999). Deviance or uniqueness, harmony or conformity? A cultural analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 785-800.
5.
KitayamaS. (2010). Frontiers in social and behavioral sciences: Toward the new history of frontiers. In IshiguroH.KamedaT. (Eds.), Culture and practice: Looking for the fundamental sociality of the mind (pp. 199-244). Tokyo: Shinyosha.
6.
KitayamaS.IshiiK.ImadaT.TakemuraK.RamaswamyJ. (2006). Voluntary settlement and the spirit of independence: Evidence from Japan’s “Northern Frontier.”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 369-384.
7.
KitayamaS.ParkH.SevincerA. T.KarasawaM.UskulA. K. (2009). A cultural task analysis of implicit independence: Comparing North America, Western Europe, and East Asia. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 236-255.
8.
MatsumotoD.WillinghamB.OlideA. (2009). Sequential dynamics of culturally moderated facial expressions of emotion. Psychological Science, 20, 1269-1274.
9.
OishiS. (2010). The psychology of residential mobility: Implications for the self, social relationships, and well-being. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 5-21.
10.
SchugJ.YukiM.MadduxM. (2010). Relational mobility explains between- and within-culture differences in self-disclosure to close friends. Psychological Science, 21, 1471-1478.
11.
SnibbeA. C.MarkusH. R. (2005). You can’t always get what you want: Educational attainment, agency, and choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 703-720.
12.
StephensN. M.MarkusH. R.TownsendS. S. M. (2007). Choice as an act of meaning: The case of social class.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 814-830.
13.
YamagishiT. (2010). Micro-macro dynamics of the cultural construction of reality: A niche construction approach. Advances in Culture and Psychology, 1, 251-308.
14.
YamagishiT.HashimotoH.SchugJ. (2008). Preference vs. strategies as explanations for culture-specific behavior. Psychological Science, 19, 579-584.
15.
YamagishiT.SuzukiN. (2009). An institutional approach to culture. In SchallerM.NorenzayanA.HeineS.YamagishiT.KamedaT. (Eds.), Evolution, culture, and the human mind (pp. 185-203). New York: Psychology Press.
