Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Older Adult Employment Status And Well‐Being: A Longitudinal Bidirectional Analysis, Jonathan Louis Jie Sheng Chia, Andree Hartanto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Mixed findings in the literature on the effects of older adult employment on well-being and the reciprocal influence of well-being on employment suggest the need for more careful methodology in teasing out this relationship. Moreover, as previous research has shown that different domains of well-being relate to constructs differently, more nuanced definitions of well-being may be appropriate. The present study examined the longitudinal bidirectional associations of employment and different domains of well-being, controlling for stable within-person variables. The present study sampled older adults from the Midlife Development in the US study at three timepoints on employment status and well-being, specifically …

Focus On Sustainable Cities: Urban Solutions Toward Desired Outcomes, M. Georgescu, M. Arabi, Winston T. L. Chow, E. Mack, K. C. Seto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Urbanization represents the single most impactful and long-lasting transformation of the Earth system since the dawn of civilization. Cities are simultaneously locations of innovation, social connectivity, and wealth, but they also create local-to-global environmental degradation and socioeconomic disparities. For example, food provision for cities has required significant land-use change and fertilizer input, has altered regional climate, biogeochemical cycles, and degraded marine and landscapes through biodiversity loss, algal blooms and fish kills. To maintain urban livelihoods and the provision of goods and services, cities require vast amounts of energy (e.g. to provide access to transport, cooling systems), which are massive producers …

Cultural Diplomacy And Co-Operation In Asean: The Role Of Arts And Culture Festivals, David Ocon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Beyond their traditional role as entertainment, form of expression and meeting spaces within local communities, arts and culture festivals can perform various functions. They can serve as showcases of artistic pride, signal openness towards cultural diversity, support the local economy, contribute to reducing political tension and provide grounds to consolidate international relationships. On occasion, such festivals function as tools to support the vision of a multilateral co-operation institution, as is the case of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Through a comprehensive review of the arts and culture festivals curated in ASEAN, this article investigates the festivals’ ulterior motivations. …

Older Adult Employment Status And Well-Being: A Longitudinal Bidirectional Analysis, Jonathan L. Chia, Andree Hartanto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Mixed findings in the literature on the effects of older adult employment on well-being and the reciprocal influence of well-being on employment suggest the need for more careful methodology in teasing out this relationship. Moreover, as previous research has shown that different domains of well-being relate to constructs differently, more nuanced definitions of well-being may be appropriate. The present study examined the longitudinal bidirectional associations of employment and different domains of well-being, controlling for stable within-person variables. The present study sampled older adults from the Midlife Development in the US study at three timepoints on employment status and well-being, specifically …

Loosening The Definition Of Culture: An Investigation Of Gender And Cultural Tightness, Alexandra S. Wormley, Matthew Scott, Kevin Grimm, Norman P. Li, Bryan K. C. Choy, Adam B. Cohen

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

To date, the study of cultural tightness has been largely limited to exploring the strictness of social norms and the severity of punishments at the level of nations or regions. However, cultural psychologists concur that humans gather cultural information from more than just their nationality. Gender is a cultural identity that confers its own social norms. Across three studies using multi-method designs, we find that American women feel the culture surrounding their gender is “tighter” than that for men, and that this relationship is mediated by perceived gender-related threats to the self. However, in a follow-up study in Singapore, we …

Emigrants’ Citizenship In China, Jiaqi M. Liu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Scholars have examined closely how China’s citizenship regime, namely, the household registration (hukou) system, manages domestic population movements. However, how China’s citizenship regime regulates emigrants abroad remains largely unexplored. In this study, I throw into sharp relief the external dimension of hukou through a genealogical investigation of China’s citizenship policies towards emigrants abroad over the past seven decades. I argue that the otherwise domestically oriented hukou regime also governs emigrant citizenship by first deregistering emigrants who have obtained foreign residency and then selectively restoring those who seek to return to China. This combination of de- and reregistration processes leads to …

Shifting Employabilities: Skilling Migrants In The Nation Of Emigration, Yasmin Y. Ortiga

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper examines how Philippine state agencies sustain its labour-exporting strategies by encouraging aspiring migrants to invest in their own training and education, taking on the responsibility of turning themselves into desirable workers for employers overseas. Based on a document analysis of newspaper articles and Philippine government reports, this paper uses the case of Philippine nursing education to show how the Philippine state alters these discourses of skill when overseas opportunities decline, channelling aspiring migrants sideways to other sectors of the labour market. Discourses of employability justified these career detours to aspiring migrants by assuring them that such experiences will …

Factors That Promote Or Predict Infidelity, Bryan Kwok Cheng Choy, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Depending on the theoretical perspective taken (e.g., biological, evolutionary, relationships science, individual differences), different factors can promote or predict infidelity. While each factor may independently contribute to infidelity, it is likely that the occurrence of infidelity is contingent on a multitude of factors.

Framing Asian Atmospheres: Imperial Weather Science And The Problem Of The Local C.1880–1950, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It would be of the greatest importance to meteorology’, noted the editor of the Singapore Chronicle in 1829, ‘if a set of hourly meteorological observations could be instituted at Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Singapore, Malacca, and some station on the elevated plains of Hindostan’. 1 Of course, the author’s comments speak from a uniquely imperial perspective, whereby such observations would benefit the colonial service of – in this case – the British Empire, enabling enhanced knowledge of imperial atmospheres and the related economic and scientific benefits that this could bring. That meteorology was closely linked to empire and imperial control has …

Distracted: Why Students Cannot Focus By James M. Lang, Joax Wong, Andree Hartanto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Humans are easily distracted creatures. Our attention seems to constantly waver, shifting every second to different objects, sounds or stimuli. As we transition into adolescence, we start to hear the all-too familiar phrase that technology – smartphones, laptops, televisions and gaming devices – is an obstacle preventing us from reaching full productivity and sapping our attention. In Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It, James Lang describes the oftentimes complicated and false conceptions about distraction and the part that technology plays in it. Currently, society places extremely high demands on students and expects them to …

Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey 2021, Paulin Straughan, Mathews Mathew

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Singapore Management University undertook the fourth wave of the Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey (PCSS) with 2,007 Singapore resident respondents providing responses to the survey from February 2021 to May 2021, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2021 wave of the PCSS continued to reflect the overall satisfaction with public cleanliness in Singapore, similar to the last PCSS in 2019. Majority of survey respondents (92%) were satisfied with the cleanliness of public spaces that they had recently visited, a 1% decrease from the findings in 2019.

There was a substantial drop in satisfaction with the cleanliness of food outlets, with a …

A Critical Review On The Moderating Role Of Contextual Factors In The Associations Between Video Gaming And Well-Being, Andree Hartanto, Verity Yu Qing Lua, Frosch Yi Xuan Quek, Jose C. Yong, Matthew H. S. Ng

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The appeal of video gaming has undoubtedly withstood the test of time. In view of its increasing popularity, lay people and researchers alike have taken an interest in the psychological consequences of video gaming. However, there seems to be a paradox associated with the effect of video gaming on gamers' well-being—namely, while most video game players cite “fun” as their motivation to play video games, video games continue to hold a notorious reputation among some researchers for being detrimental to mental health and emotional well-being as measured by indicators such as happiness, perceived stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. We suggest …

When A Pandemic Disrupts The Export Of People, Yasmin Y. Ortiga, Karen Anne S. Liao

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Yasmin Ortiga and Karen Anne S. Liao conducted research supported by the SSRC on the dramatic disruptions that Filipino labor migrants experienced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the support (or lack thereof) of their plight by the Filipino state. Arguing that labor as well as commodity supply chains have been thrown in upheaval, the authors describe the limits of the Philippines’ labor export strategy. In particular, they focus on two sets of labor migrants—nurses unable to take jobs abroad, and repatriated cruise ship workers—for whom dignified work at home was unavailable. Ortiga and Liao conclude that treating …

Balancing Sustainable Development And Cultural Heritage Preservation: Luxury Burial Legacies In Singapore, David Ocon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Singapore tops multiple global rankings for the consumption of luxury products. In this land-scarce and densely-populated city-state, to purchase a high-end car, landed property, or to have a fine dining experience, ranks amongst the most expensive in all Asian cities. That luxurious approach in life, however, does not find a parallel in death. As this paper indicates, a life of luxuries in Singapore does not necessarily mean deluxe burials, graves, mausoleums, or shrines. In fact, due to scarcity of land and the tight control on its usage, there are limited options for the well-off to display the same sense of …

The Digital Void Of Voluntourism: Here, There And New Currencies Of Care, Orlando Woods, Siew Ying Shee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores some of the ways in which “care” is being transformed in response to the mediatory role of digital technologies. Digital mediation has caused care to become an increasingly cross-border practice, and a more expansive construct, that destabilises the assumption of presence (“here”) and absence (“there”). Indeed, as the physical and digital merge into one integrated way of being in the world, they enable connectivity across geographical distance, but so too can they create emotional distance within situations of geographical proximity. These outcomes reflect the “digital void” within which caregivers, and society more generally, are implicated. Digital voids …

Social Psychology Of Climate Change In The Asian Context: Introduction To Special Issue, Kim-Pong Tam, Angela K. Y. Leung, Susan Clayton

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing many countries in the Asia Pacific. Asia as a whole is a primary contributor to carbon emissions. According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020, the Asia Pacific region alone accounts for more than half of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. This represents an increase in consumption of oil, gas, and coal in Asia Pacific from 44.5% in 2009 to 50.5% in 2019. According to the review, compared to the rest of the world, Asia Pacific had the highest growth rate (2.7%) of carbon emissions between 2008 and …

The Influence Of Masculinity And The Moderating Role Of Religion On The Workplace Well-Being Of Factory Workers In China, Quan Gao, Orlando Woods, Xiaomei Cai

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores how the intersection of masculinity and religion shapes workplace well-being by focusing on Christianity and the social construction of masculinity among factory workers in a city in China. While existing work on public and occupational health has respectively acknowledged masculinity’s influences on health, and the religious and spiritual dimensions of well-being, there have been limited efforts to examine how variegated, and especially religious, masculinities influence people’s well-being in the workplace. Drawing on ethnography and in-depth interviews with 52 factory workers and 8 church leaders and factory managers, we found that: (1) Variegated masculinities were integrated into the …

(Un)Tethered Masculinities, (Mis)Placed Modernities: Queering Futurity In Contemporary Singapore, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper considers how socio-political prescriptions can bring about the queering of futurity in Singapore. In Singapore, state-sponsored narratives of progress view futurity in terms that are bound to place, and reproduced through the heteronormative family unit. These factors have caused constructions of masculinity to be tethered to the family, and placed within public housing. Recently, this narrative has become an increasingly inflexible and marginalizing construct that can cause straight males to be queered by their prescribed futures. In contrast, gay males are more likely to be untethered from their families, and thus occupy “unplaced” positions in Singapore’s social structure.

Feminist Geographies Of Online Gaming, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper identifies opportunities and pathways through which feminist digital geographies can expand into the realm of online gaming. Whilst research at the nexus of gender and online gaming has come a long way in the past two decades, geographical perspectives are noticeably lacking. They can contribute to the discourse by emphasising the contingent nature of online gamespaces, and how a gendered subject position might be redefined through, and help to redefine, the (in)distinctions between “online” and “offline”, “gaming” and “non-gaming” spaces. I identify four directions in which feminist geographies of online gaming can unfold: aesthetic-affective spaces of the “virtually …

Connecting Care Chains And Care Diamonds: The Elderly Care Skills Regime In Singapore, Yasmin Y. Ortiga, Kellyn Wee, Brenda S. A. Yeoh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Research on the globalization of care work often faces the persistent challenge of building meaningful connections between the movement of care labour at a global scale and place-based frameworks of care access and delivery. In addressing this gap in this article, we propose to take a closer look at how the care-migration nexus produces 'ideal' care workers through a skills regime. Based on the case of elderly care in Singapore, in this article, we demonstrate how state institutions and private agencies attempts to fill local labour needs by producing care workers among both Singapore citizens and migrant women. This leads …

Rural China Under The Covid‐19 Pandemic: Differentiated Impacts, Rural–Urban Inequality And Agro‐Industrialization, Forrest Q. Zhang, Zhanping Hu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We use field data collected in a village in northern China to examine the impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on rural economy and livelihoods. The lockdown effectively protected the village from the pandemic, resulting in zero infection. The economic impacts were mostly negative but differentiated across economic sectors and livelihood strategies; some gained from the business opportunities arising from the pandemic. Wage loss for migrant workers was the most common negative impact but lasted less than 2 months. Overall, rural China has escaped the worst impacts of the pandemic found in other developing countries. We argue that the structure of …

Beliefs And Social Norms As Precursors Of Environmental Support: The Joint Influence Of Collectivism And Socioeconomic Status, David K. Sherman, John A. Updegraff, Michelle S. Handy, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Sim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The present research investigates how the cultural value of collectivism interacts with socioeconomic status (SES) to influence the basis of action. Using a U.S. national sample (N = 2,538), the research examines how these sociocultural factors jointly moderate the strength of two precursors of environmental support: beliefs about climate change and perceived descriptive norms. SES and collectivism interacted with climate change beliefs such that beliefs predicted environmental support (i.e., proenvironmental behaviors and policy support) more strongly for those who were high in SES and low in collectivism than for all other groups. This interaction was explained, in part, by sense …

Rural China Under The Covid‐19 Pandemic: Differentiated Impacts, Rural–Urban Inequality And Agro‐Industrialization, Qian Forrest Zhang, Zhanping Hu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We use field data collected in a village in northern China to examine the impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on rural economy and livelihoods. The lockdown effectively protected the village from the pandemic, resulting in zero infection. The economic impacts were mostly negative but differentiated across economic sectors and livelihood strategies; some gained from the business opportunities arising from the pandemic. Wage loss for migrant workers was the most common negative impact but lasted less than 2 months. Overall, rural China has escaped the worst impacts of the pandemic found in other developing countries. We argue that the structure of …

Affective Cosmopolitanisms In Singapore: Dancehall And The Decolonisation Of The Self, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper advances a new understanding of cosmopolitanism; one that is rooted in the affective potential of the body. It argues that whilst the self is often projected onto the body, so too can the body play an important role in (re)imagining the self. As such, the body can decolonise the self from the mind, from the expectations of society and culture, and from the normative epistemological underpinnings of academic knowledge production. I validate these theoretical arguments through an empirical focus on the practice of dancehall in Singapore. Dancehall is an emancipatory cultural movement that emerged in Jamaica in the …

The New Normal Of Social Psychology In The Face Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: Insights And Advice From Leaders In The Field, Kim Pong Tam, Angela K. Y. Leung, Sammyh Khan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Revisiting the history of social psychology, one noticeable trend is that the agenda of social psychologists is interwoven with events that happen in society and the world (Ross et al., 2010). For example, the Holocaust during World War II stimulated social psychologists’ interest in ethnocentrism, aggression, and obedience, just as increasing globalization became one of the impetuses for investigations into the role of culture in human behaviour, and hence the emergence of cultural and cross‐cultural psychology. Considering its immensity, we believe that the COVID‐19 pandemic will likely be a trigger for profound and consequential changes in social psychology (Khazaie & …

Teaching Migration In A Year Of Pandemic, Yasmin Y. Ortiga

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In August 2020, I faced the ironic task of teaching a class on international migration in the midst of a pandemic that halted most forms of cross-border movement in the world.

Haptic Heritage And The Paradox Of Provenance Within Singapore's Cottage Food Businesses, Orlando Woods, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper offers a “more-than-representational” understanding of how heritage value is reproduced by cottage food businesses in Singapore. It advances the notion of haptic heritage to highlight the importance of touch and feel in inculcating food with a sense of heritage value. Haptic heritage is reproduced through the physical handling of ingredients in ways that contribute to more “authentic” products. However, it also foregrounds food production processes that are more tactile, time-consuming and thus unscalable than their automated counterparts. Accordingly, the reproduction of haptic heritage is becoming increasingly unviable in Singapore’s competitive economic landscape. These ideas are explored through a …

Selling A Resume And Buying A Job: Stratification Of Gender And Occupation By States And Brokers In International Migration From Indonesia, Andy Scott Chang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study examines how state and commercial actors construct gender, occupation, and nationality hierarchies in guest worker programs by comparing the migratory procedures for female domestic workers and male industrial operators from Indonesia. Based on 19 months of multi-sited ethnography and 86 interviews in Indonesia, Taiwan, and Singapore, I introduce the notion of multilateralism to theorize the stratification of global migration processes. In multilateral labor markets, governments, brokers, employers, and migrants in multiple countries contend for labor and employment. The homecare market is governed under the rubric of “selling a resume,” whereby Indonesian regulators and labor suppliers pass on recruitment …

Project Coolbit: Can Your Watch Predict Heat Stress And Thermal Comfort Sensation?, Negin Nazarian, Sijie Liu, Manon Kohler, Jason Lee, Clayton Miller, Winston T. L. Chow, S. B. B. Alhadad, Alberto Martilli, Matias Quintana, Lindsey Sunden, Lindsey Norford

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Global climate is changing as a result of anthropogenic warming, leading to higher daily excursions of temperature in cities. Such elevated temperatures have great implications on human thermal comfort and heat stress, which should be closely monitored. Current methods for heat exposure assessments (surveys, microclimate measurements, and laboratory experiments), however, present several limitations: measurements are scattered in time and space and data gathered on outdoor thermal stress and comfort often does not include physiological and behavioral parameters. To address these shortcomings, Project Coolbit aims to introduce a human-centric approach to thermal comfort assessments. In this study, we propose and evaluate …

Loneliness, Sense Of Control, And Risk Of Dementia In Healthy Older Adults: A Moderated Mediation Analysis, Hwajin Yang, Germaine Tng, Wee Qin Ng, Sujin Yang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Objectives: Despite the rising prevalence of dementia, little research has been conducted to identify modifiable psychological factors that alleviate the risk of dementia in older adults and the underlying mechanisms. Given that loneliness is, in part, concomitant with a weakened sense of control, we examined whether sense of control would mediate the relation between loneliness and dementia risk. Further, considering that working -memory capacity is a critical cognitive resource that serves as a buffer against age-related cognitive decline, we examined a second-order moderated mediational model whereby working-memory capacity moderates the relation between control beliefs and dementia risk in older adults. …