Japanese reactions to reward and punishment: a cross-cultural personality study

The Gray-Wilson Personality Questionnaire (GWPQ) was administered in translation to 597 Japanese college students. The sex differences previously found with a British sample were replicated as well as two others; males were higher on Fight and Approach, while females were more disposed towards Flight and Active Avoidance. Intercorrelations among GWPQ scores confirmed British findings in suggesting two major systems underlying reactions to signals of reward and punishment, Inhibition (represented by Passive Avoidance, Flight, Extinction and Active Avoidance) and Activation (incorporating Approach and Fight). The factor structure found in Britain was only partly replicated in the Japanese sample, the most striking difference being the powerful appearance of response sets in the Japanese data. The implications for cross-cultural questionnaire construction are discussed.