Why Japanese people are so fearful

Sounds like more research needs to be done before making such bold declarations.

I call Bulls***

A “unique” fear gene? Gimme a break.

How do you explain the ethnic Japanese living abroad in, say, Hawaii and California?!

I know a guy with 2 Japanese parents born abroad now living in Japan, and he’s more courageous than me.

I’m curious why the separation in multi-ethnic US but not in multi-ethnic Germany, India, or South Africa?

This is the worst kind of pseudo-science bullshit. Once you start claiming that a race of people have some kind of unique qualities or attributes, it can be used to justify almost anything. And yes, as noted above, EVERY country on that list is multi-ethnic, not just America, further proving that whoever assembled this “data” is an idiot.

It sounds like he’s just found some sort of genetic marker which is more prominent in Japanese than other ethnicities and said, “there, that’s the fear gene!” The marker’s true meaning may be something entirely different (like a relationship to skin pigmentation, hair texture or some other nonsense).

The truth is that 95% of human genomes are classified as “junk” by geneticists and the human genome project, which was so triumphant about their now “completed” mapping work, have only figured out and mapped the 5% which they feel is relevant at this time. That leaves a whole lot of wiggle room for hacks to assert that some of the remaining 95% controls whatever they say it does.

Fear is almost certainly related to culture and upbringing. If the Japanese are risk-averse and fearful, it’s because their culture inculcates them to be so.

There are more combinations possible in our DNA than there are molecules on planet earth but some guy says he’s narrowed down fear?

This is more and more the kind of recent bull masquerading as science that I’m coming across recently all over the web. It’s disturbing how much non-scientific methodology is being used in the name of science. Don’t these people get a drilling in the dangers of confirmation bias, conflict of interest, etc. in University? Or do they just spend 3 years @rsing around and then sit their final exams? Yep, that’d be it.

P.S. Can somebody turn down the insane spam filter? Quotation marks are part of the English language.

Ha, I call bullshit.
Japan already has a government-run health care insurance as well as already being a socialist country in essence. The entire nation should have had heart-attacks during social studies class in middle or high school and be dead by now, seeing as how white Americans ranked lower are so raging with fear at Obama merely proposing it!

Jokes aside, the idea that the ONLY differences between different ethnicities and races of people are the kinds visible, like skin color and hair, doesn’t really make any sense. It seems like knee-jerk reaction under the political correctness flag, or some perceived association to eugenics.
It’s a fact that different races tend to have different levels of susceptibilities to various diseases and genetic disorders. So, IF it can be proven that behavioral differences can be attributed to genetics and not just culture, which does seem plausible, than at least this claim wouldn’t be totally absurd.

The video segment says that, serotonin transporters are a protein in the brain that reduces fear, and that genetics are responsible for how much is produced. It’s claimed that 97% of Japanese people have the gene that produces less. That certainly seems plausible to me.

I can’t tell from this video alone where any discrepancies may be, aside from the shoddy classifications of people around the world.

This all reminds me of the research on how conservatives are more susceptible to fear.

http://www.denverpost.com/politicswestnews/ci_10503487?source=bb

It’s just as much if not more influenced by cultural surroundings than it may be by genetics. Behavior is easily influenced by psychology.

Japanese exceptionalism. It’s no more surprising than American exceptionalism, the doctrine that states that the US version of freedom and democracy is the best way in the world to live because they invented it. I mean, look at their perfect society with no problems whatsoever.

Fear isn’t based on DNA or genes. Come on. A bit of research on such a matter doesn’t prove a thing. Japanese are more fearful because it is an innate cultural thing. On average, Japanese people are very superstitious and more likely to stick to what they know than change procedure. It comes from thousands of years of history and maintaining a culture built around ceremony and respect.

Kiwis (such as myself), on the other hand, have a very recent history. So taking everything in stride and without a care in the world is just a part of our cultural heritage. And so it is altogether natural for us to experience excitement or surprise more than fear.

When it comes down to it, it’s a psychologically hereditary matter, not a biologically hereditary one.