Abstract
Maladaptive social interaction and its related psychopathology have been highlighted in psychiatry especially among younger generations. In Japan, novel expressive forms of psychiatric phenomena such as “modern-type depression” and “hikikomori” (a syndrome of severe social withdrawal lasting for at least six months) have been reported especially among young people. Economic games such as the trust game have been utilized to evaluate real-world interpersonal relationships as a novel candidate for psychiatric evaluations. To investigate the relationship between trusting behaviors and various psychometric scales, we conducted a trust game experiment with eighty-one Japanese university students as a pilot study. Participants made a risky financial decision about whether to trust each of 40 photographed partners. Participants then answered a set of questionnaires with seven scales including the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS)-6 and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-9. Consistent with previous research, male participants trusted partners more than female participants. Regression analysis revealed that LSNS-family (perceived support from family) for male participants, and item 8 of PHQ-9 (subjective agitation and/or retardation) for female participants were associated with participants’ trusting behaviors. Consistent with claims by social scientists, our data suggest that, for males, support from family was negatively associated with cooperative behavior toward non-family members. Females with higher subjective agitation (and/or retardation) gave less money toward males and high attractive females, but not toward low attractive females in interpersonal relationships. We believe that our data indicate the possible impact of economic games in psychiatric research and clinical practice, and validation in clinical samples including modern-type depression and hikikomori should be investigated.
Highlights
Culture and society have strongly influenced on human mental health and its disturbance [1]
Most scales and subscales were not selected as significant independent variables for trusting behaviors, we found that Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS)-family for male participants and item 8 of Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-9 for female participants were selected as a significant independent variable. (The scatter plots of these variables is shown in S1 Fig.) Interestingly, male participants with higher scores on LSNS-family showed lower monetary scores across all the types of photographs
In the present pilot study, we have specified the psychometrics associated with trusting behaviors among young generation
Summary
Culture and society have strongly influenced on human mental health and its disturbance [1]. Human communications have considerably shifted from direct to indirect contacts such as personal computers and mobile phones. In line with these changes, new types of psychiatric or behavioral disorders, such as Internet addiction, have emerged [2,3]. The majority of patients are adolescents and young adults who become recluses in their parents’ homes for months or years [8]. They withdraw from contact with family, rarely have friends, and do not attend school or hold a job. People with these novel psychiatric syndromes have difficulty in communicating to others and establishing fruitful social interactions [10]
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