ASIJ Authors

New! From Sayuri Hayakawa '04 and Forence Minowa '07

Sayuri Hayakawa '04 The Foreign-Language Effect: Thinking in a Foreign Tongue Reduces Decision Biases. With Boaz Keysar and Sun Gyu An - University of Chicago. Psychological Science (April 18, 2012). Would you make the same decisions in a foreign language as you would in your native tongue? It may be intuitive that people would make the same choices regardless of the language they are using, or that the difficulty of using a foreign language would make decisions less systematic. We discovered, however, that the opposite is true: Using a foreign language reduces decision-making biases. Four experiments show that the framing effect disappears when choices are presented in a foreign tongue. Whereas people were risk averse for gains and risk seeking for losses when choices were presented in their native tongue, they were not influenced by this framing manipulation in a foreign language. Two additional experiments show that using a foreign language reduces loss aversion, increasing the acceptance of both hypothetical and real bets with positive expected value. We propose that these effects arise because a foreign language provides greater cognitive and emotional distance than a native tongue does. Sayuri received a BA in psychology from Boston University. She worked with Dr. Catherine Caldwell-Harris to study bilingual biculturals and the impact of language on self-promotional strategies. She went on to get an MA in social sciences from the University of Chicago. Under the guidance of Dr. Boaz Keysar, she examined the effect of language on priming culturally congruent nonverbal behavior. She continued working in the Keysar lab as a research assistant until 2011, at which point she began her doctorate studies at the University of Chicago. Research Interests Sayuri is generally interested in how bilingualism and language affect cognition and behavior. Her current line of research with Dr. Keysar examines differences in processing a first vs. second language and the subsequent impact of using a foreign language on decision making.	Florence Minowa '07 Spatiality: Word/Image Juxtapositions. Capstone Thesis. Soka Unversity of America, 2012. This book is the product of my senior Capstone project for my undergraduate studies at Soka University of America. It is a compilation of my original short stories, poems, illustrations, and photography that explores the various ways in which people experience, interact with, and identify themselves within spaces. How does a space become personalized? How does one find oneself reflected in spaces? What are the significance, implications, and consequences of locality? Using questions such as these as prompts, I reconsider the human-space relationship as a social instrument for introspection and self-identification. Akiko Florence Minowa was born in Machida, Japan in April 1989. Since the age of four she has been receiving an American education at the American School in Japan in Fuchu, Tokyo. At seventeen, she moved to Aliso Viejo, California to obtain her bachelor's degree in liberal arts at Soka University of America. She is currently a full-time student and works as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator.

Karen Pond - ASIJ Parent
*Getting Genki in Japan:The Adventures and Misadventures of an American Family in Tokyo .* Tuttle Publishing; Hardcover with Jacket edition (May 10, 2012). ISBN-13: 978-4805311769 Illustrated by Akiko Saito. The unexpected gift of a favored bottle of shiraz from her husband leads to the adventure of a lifetime for Karen Pond and her family—moving from rural Maine to the largest city in the world: Tokyo, Japan. Getting Genki in Japan is a collection of illustrated essays and musings of a Down East Mom's absurd and exhilarating adventures in the Far East. From bewildered and befuddled (and back again) to (somewhat) wise, these narratives recount a journey of cultural discoveries, experiences and the follies of a newcomer to Japan; including (mis)identifying food, (mis)pronouncing Japanese, (mis)pantomiming for necessities, and finally figuring out how to flush the Japanese toilet!	"We are moving where?" A few years ago, my husband, three sons, one anxious border collie, our drawer of old forks and a collection of new stir fry cookbooks, moved. Not across the street. Not across the state. Not to my mother's. But across the world. We moved from small town New England, USA to Tokyo, Japan. To my sons' dismay (and sometimes embarrassment, sorry boys!), their middle-aged mom chronicled the family's follies, foibles and absurd "fish-out-of-water" experiences as we attempted to fit in and figure out a new home, new language, new food, new city, and new toilets. Many days were challenging; other days surprisingly easy, but every day was an adventure. I hope you enjoy reliving these experiences as we got "genki" and jumped feet first into our new life...even if that meant ending up in a pool of epidermis-eating fish. When not writing stories about living in Japan, I am a dinnertime referee, beginner taiko drumming student, and Japan adventurer. I love to laugh. Over the years, I have written for local newspapers, magazines and catalogs. "Getting Genki in Japan" is my first book. Thanks for checking it out! I hope you enjoy it! Karen Pond worked as a catalog copywriter for LL Bean before moving to Tokyo with her family, where she chronicled her culture shock with essays that appeared in iNTOUCH Magazine, Tokyo Families Magazine, and Being A Broad Magazine. Karen still lives in Tokyo, Japan, with her husband, three sons, and their border collie Fergus.

Research Interests Sayuri is generally interested in how bilingualism and language affect cognition and behavior. Her current line of research with Dr. Keysar examines differences in processing a first vs. second language and the subsequent impact of using a foreign language on decision making.

Research Interests
Sayuri is generally interested in how bilingualism and language affect cognition and behavior. Her current line of research with Dr. Keysar examines differences in processing a first vs. second language and the subsequent impact of using a foreign language on decision making.