(2012) sent two hikikomori case vignettes to psychiatrists from Australia, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. Hikikomori is considered a more severe type of marginalization on the spectrum and was posited to be a culture-bound syndrome ( Saito, 1998 Teo and Gaw, 2010), although similar cases have now been observed in countries outside of Japan. Norasakkunkit and Uchida (2011, 2014) argue that marginalization can assume three forms – “freeter lifestyle orientation”, which refers to those who do not seek a full-time job, engaging in part-time jobs only “NEET”, those “not in education, employment, or training” and “ hikikomori” (social withdrawal), a more extreme form of social marginalization, referring to those who do not take part in social interactions, even with family members, shutting themselves in their rooms for six months or longer. Thus, Japanese youth compose the social stratum most prone to marginalization (see Toivonen et al., 2011 for a review). In Japan, while business elites and senior government officials resisted pressures to change the labor market structure, a peripheral labor force, mostly composed of youth, has been pushed out of the system. Since the 1990s, pressures stemming from globalization and long recessions have changed social and economic systems in most countries.
![freeter vs neet vs hikikomori freeter vs neet vs hikikomori](https://wikihoidap.org/upload/images/Neet-la-gi%203.jpg)
Socioecological factors that promote actual HAP in Brazilians may encourage other mainstream cultural ideals, which buffers against cultural marginalization. Though the study has limitations regarding its small sample size, we can explore future perspectives and discuss the relationships between emotion and cultural marginalization. The other variables, including ideal affect, were only minorly or not significantly associated with NHR. Regression analyses showed that actual HAP and the discrepancy between ideal and actual HAP were negatively associated with NHR in Brazil, but no association was found in the Japanese data. Participants from Japan ( N = 54) and Brazil ( N = 54) reported their ideal affect and actual affect and completed the NEET-Hikikomori Risk Scale (NHR). Hence, we hypothesized that individuals’ ideal affect, actual affect, and the discrepancy between ideal and actual affect would be associated with higher risk of social marginalization. In contrast, Latin American cultures value HAP over LAP, because social relationships are promoted through vibrant positive emotional expression in these cultures. Affect valuation theory suggests that in East Asia, individuals are encouraged to pursue and value low arousal positive emotions (LAP: e.g., calmness, serenity) over high arousal positive emotions (HAP: e.g., excitement, elation, etc.) as they can harm social relationships in these societies. We predicted that cultural differences would emerge in the valuation of affective states. As a social marginalization index, we used the NEET-Hikikomori Risk Scale (NHR).
![freeter vs neet vs hikikomori freeter vs neet vs hikikomori](https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.uoregon.edu/dist/2/11416/files/2015/04/konbini.jpg)
Since cultural values reflect affect valuation, the present research investigates the relationships between social marginalization and ideal/actual affect in two different non-WEIRD cultures, Brazil and Japan. Previous research has associated social marginalization with the rejection of mainstream cultural values.