Past President
Professor
College of Science, Health and Engineering, School of Psychology and Public Health
Biological Science 2, Room 121, Melbourne (Bundoora)
T: +61 3 9479 3829
F: +61 3 9479 1956
E: e.kashima@latrobe.edu.au
W: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/psychology/staff/profile?uname=Ekashima
Background
Emi Kashima is a cultural psychologist based in Melbourne, Australia. Born in Tokyo, Japan, she received her PhD in social psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1989). She is currently Associate Professor at La Trobe University. She has been an active member of AASP since the Association’s inception in 1995.
Research interests
Emi’s research interests broadly concern cultural adaptation, and she takes two main approaches in her research. The first approach focuses on cross-cultural adaptation of immigrants and sojourners. When crossing the boundaries of culture people are required to learn novel cultural norms in order to build new social relations and engage in the activities in the new communities. How do newcomers learn the complex cultural norms and rules rapidly, and even without a teacher or a guidebook to aid them? Who are more flexible than others and why? How does social networks developed in the new society facilitate or hinder culture learning? These questions are investigated by using survey and experimental methods.
The second approach concerns psychological threat reaction. When exposed to mild threats such as thinking about own limitations and own mortality, individuals engage in implicit self-regulatory processes to cope with the impacts of threats. By using behavioural, cognitive, and neuroscience methods, her research clarifies roles of various psychological and sociocultural factors in threat regulation, such as shared cultural meanings, mindset, language use, and social ties.
She is also interested in language and communication, and cultural differences in social motives. She is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and the International Academy for Intercultural Research.
Selected publications
Research on Threats
Yanagisawa, K., Kashima, E., Moriya, H., Masui, K., Furutani, K., Yoshida, H., Ura, M., & Nomura, M. (2017). Tolerating dissimilar other when primed with death: Neural evidence of self-control engaged by interdependent people in Japan. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12(6), 910-917. DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsx012
Yanagisawa, K., Abe, N., Kashima, E. S., & Nomura, M. (2016). Self-esteem modulates amygdala-VLPFC connectivity in response to mortality threats. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145 (3), 273-283. doi.org/10.1037/xge0000121
Kashima, E. S., Beatson, R., Branchflower, S., Kaufmann, L., & Marques, M. D. (2014). Mortality salience and cultural cringe: The Australian way of responding to thoughts of death. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 45(10), 1534-1548. doi:10.1177/0022022114543521
Gelfand, M. J., Raver, J. L., Nishii, L., Leslie, L. M., Lun, J., Lim, B. C., Duan, L., Almaliach, A., Ang, S., Arnadottir, J., Aycan, Z., Boehnke, K., Boski1, P., Cabecinhas, R., Chan, D., Chhokar, J., D’Amato, A., Ferrer, M., Fischlmayr, I. C., Fischer, R., Fülöp, M., Georgas, J., Kashima, E. S., Kashima, Y., Kim, K., Lempereur, A., Marquez, P., Othman, Z., Overlaet, B., Panagiotopoulou, P., Peltzer, K., Perez-Florizno, L. R., Ponomarenko, L., Realo, A., Schei, V., Schmitt, M., Smith, P. B., Soomro, N., Szabo, E., Taveesin, N., Toyama, M., Van de Vliert, E., Vohra, N., Ward, C., Yamaguchi, S. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures. Science, 332(6033), 1100-1104. DOI: 10.1126/science.1197754
Research on Acculturation
Kashima, E. S., Greiner, T., Sadewo, G., Ampuni, S., Helou, L., Nguyen, V. A., Lam, B. C. P., & Kaspar, K. (2017). Open- and closed-mindedness in cross-cultural adaptation: The roles of mindfulness and need for cognitive closure. Submitted to International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 59, 31-42. 10.1016/j.ijintrel.2017.05.001
Buchanan, Z. E., Abu-Rayya, H. M., Kashima, E. S., & Paxton, S. J. (2017). The interconnection between acculturation and subjective and social wellbeing among refugee youth in Australia. Journal of Refugee Studies. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/few040
Kashima, E. S., & Sadewo, G. R. P. (2016). Need for cognitive closure and acculturation of international students: Recent findings and implications. In D. Jindal-Snape & B. Rienties (Eds.), Multi-dimensional transitions of international students to higher education. EARLI New perspective on learning and instruction series (pp. 37-52). Oxon, UK: Routledge.
Kashima, E. S., Kent, S., & Kashima, Y. (2015). Life satisfaction in the new country: A multilevel longitudinal analysis of effects of culture and 5-HTT allele frequency distribution in country of origin. Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, 10(1), 50-54. Doi:10.1093/scan/nsu036
Kashima, E. S., & Abu-Rayya, H. (2014). Longitudinal association of cultural distance with psychological wellbeing among Australian immigrants from 49 countries. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 45, 587-600. doi:10.1177/0022022113519857
Language and communication
Kidd, E., Kemp, N., Kashima, E. S., & Quinn, S. (2016). Language, culture and group membership: an investigation into the social effects of colloquial Australian English. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 47, 713-733. doi:10.1177/0022022116638175.
Kashima, Y., Kashima, E., & Kidd, E. (2014). Language and culture. Oxford Handbooks Online. Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology. DOI:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199838639.013.010
Kashima, Y., Bekkering, H., & Kashima, E. S. (2013). Communicative intentions can modulate the linguistic perception-action link. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33-34.
Kashima, Y., Kashima, E. S., Bain, P., Lyons, A., Tindale, R., Robins, G., & Whelan, J. (2012). Communication and essentialism. In M. Drogosz, M. Bilewicz & M. Kofta (Eds.), Beyond Stereotypes: Dehumanization and Essentialism in Group Perception. Warsaw, Poland: PWN (pp. 67-94).