Implicit Self-Esteem in Japan: Name Letters and Birthday Numbers

TLDR

Japanese studies have repeatedly failed to find an explicit tendency to enhance self‑esteem. The authors conducted two studies to implicitly assess positive feelings toward Japanese selves and found evidence of such feelings. Study 1 examined preference for Japanese alphabetical letters, finding that letters in one’s own name were liked more, while Study 2 assessed numeric preference, showing that birthday month and day numbers were liked more. The findings revealed a gender‑specific preference for name initials—males favored family‑name initials and females favored first‑name initials—and a strong preference for birthday month and day numbers.

Abstract

Japanese studies have repeatedly failed to obtain any explicit tendency to enhance self-esteem. In two studies, the authors attempted an implicit assessment of positive feelings attached to Japanese selves and found evidence for such feelings. Study 1 examined preference for Japanese alphabetical letters and found that letters included in one's own name were significantly better liked than the remaining ones. Further, an especially strong preference was expressed by male respondents for the first letters of their family names, and by female respondents for the first letters of their first names. Study 2 assessed preference for numerics and showed that the numbers corresponding to both the month and the day of one's birthday were significantly better liked than the remaining numbers. Implications are discussed for theories of Japanese selves.