Parent-Child Associations in COVID-19-Related Preventive Behaviors and Efficacy Expectations: A One-Year Longitudinal Survey.

Purpose: It is necessary to identify the variables that explain the variance in preventive behaviors against COVID-19 to increase adolescents' engagement in these behaviors. We focused on efficacy expectations of preventive behaviors and their associations within families. This study examined the associations between efficacy expectations and preventive behaviors, and between adolescents and their parents in terms of efficacy expectations and preventive behaviors.

Association Between Individual Differences in Dichotomous Thinking and Current and Childhood High-Crime Environments.

The way people perceive the things around them is closely related to living in a complex and challenging social environment. Dichotomous thinking (preference for dichotomy, dichotomous belief, and profit-and-loss thinking), which classifies things in a simple way, can be useful in dangerous and resource-limited environments. However, based on prior studies, people's manner of perceiving things may have developed as a response to the harshness of their childhood environment, and may not be related to their current environment.

The Molecular Basis of Heat-Stable Enterotoxin for Vaccine Development and Cancer Cell Detection.

Heat-stable enterotoxin (ST) produced by Enterotoxigenic is responsible for causing acute diarrhea in infants in developing countries. However, the chemical synthesis of ST peptides with the native conformation and the correct intra-molecular disulfide bonds is a major hurdle for vaccine development. To address this issue, we herein report on the design and preparation of ST analogs and a convenient chemical method for obtaining ST molecules with the correct conformation.

A validation of the Japanese adaptation of the Big Five Inventory-2.

The purpose of this study was to adapt a Japanese version of the Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2-J) to examine its factor structure, reliability, validity, and measurement invariance. The BFI-2-J assesses five domains and 15 facets of the Big Five personality traits. We analyzed two datasets: 487 Japanese undergraduates and 500 Japanese adults.

Younger adults tolerate more relational risks in everyday life as revealed by the general risk-taking questionnaire.

A range of self-report questionnaires were developed to quantify one's risk-taking (RT) tendency. Exploring people's perceived risk level associated with negative risk behaviors is essential to develop a better understanding and intervention policies for RT. In the present study, we proposed a 2 × 10-item scale, namely, the general risk-taking questionnaire (GRTQ), to evaluate RT tendency and risk attitude among the general population by measuring people's engagement in and perceptions toward 10 commonly known risky behaviors.

The association between personality traits and hoarding behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between personality traits and hoarding behavior during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. An online survey was conducted among 530 Japanese adults (274 women;  = 44.26,  = 8.

Development of Metacognition in Adolescence: The Congruency-Based Metacognition Scale.

Introduction: Previous studies on metacognitive ability were explored using self-report questionnaires that are difficult to adequately measure and evaluate when the capacity for self-reference is undeveloped. This study aimed to validate the Congruency-based Metacognition Scale (CMS) to measure metacognition and the feeling of confidence abilities and to investigate the development of metacognition during adolescence.

Methods: The CMS was administered to 633 child-parent pairs in Japan (child, mean age = 16.