The 21st Annual Meeting of the Japan Society of Personality Psychology (JSPP)
Akihiko Ieshima
The 21st Annual Meeting of the Japan Society of Personality Psychology (JSPP 2012) was held in Shimane on October 6 and 7, 2012, with more than 350 participants in attendance, 11 symposia, and 114 poster presentations. Dr. Hubert J. M. Hermans, Professor Emeritus of the Radboud University of Nijmegen, Netherlands, gave a special lecture titled “ The Dialogical Self: Positioning and Counter-Positioning in a Globalizing World.” Dr. Hermans is one of the main theorists in narrative psychology and is well known for his work on dialogical self theory.
JSPP 2012 differed from previous annual meetings. Traditionally, each meeting has been chaired by a well-known, elderly professor who taught a sufficient number of graduate students to host the annual meeting. This year, however, the conference was hosted by a volunteer group of psychologists who were around 30 years old. They banded together with the objective of organizing JSPP 2012. Hosted by the younger generation, the conference was full of surprises and had a playful spirit. More than 100 participants enjoyed the reception party the first evening. Over 40 kinds of local Japanese sake and plenty of local food were served. In addition, several entertaining presentations were made, including one on how to make Izumo-soba (buckwheat noodles of Izumo Province).
The conference’s timing and setting were also good. The year 2012 marks the 1300th anniversary of the compilation of The Kojiki, the oldest existing record of Japanese history. The Kojiki is not only a historical record, but also a collection of much Japanese mythology. One third of the myths collected in The Kojiki are set in Shimane; therefore, an interesting symposium titled “Personality, narrative, and Japanese myth ” was held. Akihiko Ieshima, from Shimane University, presented ideas about the relations between personality and narrative, referring to Japanese myth and manga. Toji Kamata, from Kyoto University, presented his interpretation of one Japanese myth in The Kojiki as a story of grief-care. Atsushi Oshio, from Waseda University, then commented on their presentations from the standpoint of personality psychology, and Yoko Yamada, from Ritsumeikan University, commented from the standpoint of narrative psychology.
The next JSPP annual meeting will be held in Chiba on October 12 and 13, 2013. The chair of the organizing committee is Edogawa University Professor Dr. Eiko Matsuda.