“At first, it seemed strange that in Japan, people didn’t open up and share a lot about themselves with each other,” says Joanna Schug of Hokkaido University. “But Japanese often look at Americans and think, ‘Why are they telling me so much about themselves?’”
In the United States, friends often share intimate details of their lives and problems, but in Japan this degree of self-disclosure between friends is much less common. A new study published in Psychological Science by an American researcher living in Japan suggests that this difference may be due to distinct social systems, in particular the extent to which there are opportunities to make new friends in each culture.
[source: Psychological Science ]
