Long Neck Lady

Traditional Watercolor

Creature: The Rokurokubi, which translates to 'long neck' would possess its human form, transforming an ordinary human to a demonic creature with the ability to stretch its neck to great lengths. The head of this yokai would float mid-air to anywhere it desires, supported by its elongated neck.

Psychology: It is believed that supernatural beings (such as, ghosts, demons, etc.) exist. In Japan, Yokai means supernatural beings. The purpose of this study is to clarify the cognitive, emotional, and psychological utility related to Yokai and to exploratorily examine the psychological mechanism and the social roles. To clarify these, two studies were conducted. Furthermore, in this research, we defined Yokai as “An unknown bizarre phenomenon or mysterious object that causes people’s emotions and behaviors, has an individual name and plays social roles”. Additionally, we will distinguish Yokai from other supernatural beings. Study 1 examined classification of representative Yokai. Multivariate analysis was carried out and classified into three groups: “Arousing fear/Non-human” that is a fear causing existence for people, and they are a symbol of awe and being unapproachable; “Human-like” that likes to positively interact with people, for example, they can help people, bring joy, etc. ; “Arousing attention/Non-human” that is aware of people's attention, and they do like surprising people but rarely show themselves. Study 2 investigated the effects of approval by others on occurrence feeling when encountering an unscientific event. The result shows that regardless of affinity of Paranormal Phenomena, when encountering an unscientific event, an individual’s relieved feelings increase if approval is given by others. If approval cannot be obtained revolted feelings increase. Support was found for our hypothesis. In addition, nervous feelings of people who is not skeptical about Paranormal Phenomena are decreased by approval, and in the case of skeptical people, nervous feelings may weaken by non-approval. Based on these results, additional research is needed to clarify the factors of the social roles and proceed with process investigation of the psychological mechanism of Yokai from the viewpoint of social psychology.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328403380_The_social_roles_of_Yokai_in_Japan