Some individuals experience the feeling that they have become a person they had not anticipated. The life path they had expected to take is not consonant with the one they are taking in reality. This perception of “off-course” in identity and self-direction is referred to as derailment. Although previous studies have postulated and demonstrated that derailment causes a low level of well-being, no studies have examined its existence and effect across cultures. We hypothesized that East Asians (Japanese) are less vulnerable to feeling derailed than North Americans (Canadians/Americans), and that those Japanese who feel derailed do not necessarily experience long-term damage to their well-being. Two correlational studies and one longitudinal study with a one-year interval supported these hypotheses and also demonstrated metric invariance of the Derailment Scale between countries. We discuss that these findings may be explained by East Asian’s dialectical thinking, in which the perception of one’s life direction is flexible.

有些人体验到他们已经成为一个他们没有预料到的人的感觉。他们所期望的人生道路与他们在现实中所走的道路并不相符。这种在身份和自我方向上“偏离轨道”的看法被称为脱轨。尽管以前的研究假设并证明出轨会导致低水平的幸福感，但没有研究检查过它在不同文化中的存在和影响。我们假设东亚人（日本人）比北美人（加拿大人/美国人）更不容易感到出轨，而那些感到出轨的日本人不一定会长期受到伤害。两项相关研究和一项以一年为间隔的纵向研究支持了这些假设，并证明了国家之间脱轨量表的度量不变性。我们讨论这些发现可以用东亚人的辩证思维来解释，其中对一个人的生活方向的感知是灵活的。