Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

On Confidence Intervals For Autoregressive Roots And Predictive Regression, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

Local to unity limit theory is used in applications to construct confidence intervals (CIs) for autoregressive roots through inversion of a unit root test (Stock (1991)). Such CIs are asymptotically valid when the true model has an autoregressive root that is local to unity (rho = 1 + c/n), but are shown here to be invalid at the limits of the domain of definition of the localizing coefficient c because of a failure in tightness and the escape of probability mass. Failure at the boundary implies that these CIs have zero asymptotic coverage probability in the stationary case and vicinities …

Realistic Ways To Raise Cpf Returns, Benedict Koh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The CPF Investment Scheme can be modified to help financially illiterate members make better investment decisions.

Governing Energy: Asia’S Future And The G20, Ann Florini

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Asia’s future peace and prosperity depend on whether it can solve its energy challenges. The region’s striking economic growth in recent decades has been – literally – fueled by massive and reckless development of fossil fuel-based energy systems, in ways that are clearly unsustainable. The costs, in environmental devastation, damage to health, and geopolitical instability, are high and growing, and increasingly unnecessary as new technologies reach a transformative tipping point. But new technologies alone will not change the current grim realities. Such change requires overcoming enormous vested interests, deeply entrenched practices, and above all habits of thought and assumptions. And …

Mechanisms For Arranging Ride Sharing And Fare Splitting For Last-Mile Travel Demands, Shih-Fen Cheng, Duc Thien Nguyen, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A great challenge of city planners is to provide efficient and effective connection service to travelers using public transportation system. This is commonly known as the last-mile problem and is critical in promoting the utilization of public transportation system. In this paper, we address the last-mile problem by considering a dynamic and demand-responsive mechanism for arranging ride sharing on a non-dedicated commercial fleet (such as taxis or passenger vans). Our approach has the benefits of being dynamic, flexible, and with low setup cost. A critical issue in such ride-sharing service is how riders should be grouped and serviced, and how …

Oral History Interview With Kirpal Singh: Growing Smu, Kirpal Singh

Oral History Collection

The interview covered: first involvement with SMU, risks, admissions process, first priorities, core curriculum, general electives, creative thinking program, student projects, parent interaction, cross-cultural studies, Wee Kim Wee Centre, writers festivals, humanities, arts and culture management, students.

Biography: In recent years Creativity Guru and poet Dr Kirpal Singh has come to be regarded as one of the world's sharpest Futurists, charting territories yet uncharted but certain to materialize in the not-too-distant futures. Dr Singh believes that thinking of the future in the singular sense is no longer going to hold because the Future will be made up of several futures, …

Uniquely Bloomberg, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

A study conducted at the global media company unveiled the "And factor", which defines leadership qualities in the organisation.

Ethical Culture Starts At The Top, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

In a world where people have little faith in businesses and executives, getting the C-suite to build a credible value system is critical

Do You Know The Speaker?: An Online Experiment With Authority Messages On Event Websites, Kwan-Hui Lim, Binyan Jiang, Ee Peng Lim, Achananuparp Palakorn

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the widespread adoption of the Web, many companies and organizations have established websites that provide information and support online transactions (e.g., buying products or viewing content). Unfortunately, users have limited attention to spare for interacting with online sites. Hence, it is of utmost importance to design sites that attract user attention and effectively guide users to the product or content items they like. Thus, we propose a novel and scalable experimentation approach to evaluate the effectiveness of online site designs. Our case study focuses on the effects of an authority message on visitors' browsing behavior on workshop and seminar …

The Relationship Between Phonological Awareness And Executive Attention Among Chinese-English Bilingual Children, Hwajin Yang, Sujin Yang, Carissa Kang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We examined the relationship between phonological awareness (PA) and executive attention among Chinese-English bilingual children in the process of learning to read. Seventy-four bilingual children (mean age 67.5 months) completed phonological tasks assessing onset and rime awareness and the Attention Network Test (ANT), a nonverbal measure of executive attention (Rueda et al., 2004). Hierarchical analyses revealed bidirectional relations between PA and executive attention, with PA predicting executive attention and vice versa. The predictive relation of PA to executive attention was more pronounced for English onset and Chinese rime awareness. Evidence of cross-linguistic transfer of PA skills suggests concurrent contributions of …

Cross Cultural Variation In Men's Preference For Sexual Dimorphism In Women's Faces, U. M. Marcinkowska, M. V. Kozlov, H. Cai, J. Contreras-Garduño, B. J. Dixson, O. A. Gavita, G. Kaminski, Norman P. Li, M. T. Lyons, I. E. Onyishi, K. Prasai, F. Pazhoohi, P. Prokop, S. Cardozo, N. Sydney, Jose C. Yong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Both attractiveness judgements and mate preferences vary considerably cross-culturally. We investigated whether men's preference for femininity in women's faces varies between 28 countries with diverse health conditions by analysing responses of 1972 heterosexual participants. Although men in all countries preferred feminized over masculinized female faces, we found substantial differences between countries in the magnitude of men's preferences. Using an average femininity preference for each country, we found men's facial femininity preferences correlated positively with the health of the nation, which explained 50.4% of the variation among countries. The weakest preferences for femininity were found in Nepal and strongest in Japan. …

Measurement Invariance Of The Wong And Law Emotional Intelligence Scale Scores: Does The Measurement Structure Hold Across Far Eastern And European Countries?, Nele Libbrecht, Alain De Beuckelaer, Filip Lievens, Thomas Rockstuhl

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In recent years, emotional intelligence and emotional intelligence measures have been used in a plethora of countries and cultures. This is also the case for the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS), highlighting the importance of examining whether the WLEIS is invariant across regions other than the Far Eastern region (China) where it was originally developed. This study investigated the measurement invariance (MI) of the WLEIS scores across two countries, namely Singapore (N= 505) and Belgium (N= 339). Apart from items measuring the factor use of emotion, the measurement structure underlying the WLEIS ratings was generally invariant across both …

The What, Why, When, And How Of Teaching The Science Of Subjective Well-Being, Ed Diener, Christie N. Scollon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The field of subjective well-being (SWB), or happiness, has become a thriving area of science, with over 10,000 publications per year on the topic in recent years. Discoveries about the causes and processes involved in SWB range widely, from culture to biology to circumstances, providing instructors an opportunity to draw broadly on concepts from psychology. New research shows that high SWB not only feels good but is also good for one’s health and social relationships. In addition to providing a platform for discussions about what constitutes a life well-lived, teaching about SWB is an excellent opportunity to emphasize scientific research …

Nurturing A Culture Of Conviction: Developing The Arts Is A Critical Means Of Building S’Pore’S Resilience, Su Fern Hoe

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Singapore celebrates its 50th year of independence next year, but what it means to beSingaporean continues to be a topic of discussion and debate.Of late, there have been passionate reactions to criticism of Singapore from those in ourmidst, Singaporeans and foreigners alike. To counter British writer Charlotte Ashton’slabelling of Singapore as suffering from a “massive compassion deficit”, bloggers andletter writers to the media cited examples of people giving up their seats to those in needon the MRT or going the extra mile to help strangers.

Emotional Fit With Culture: Predictor Of Individual Differences In Relational Well-Being, Jozefien De Leersnyder, Batja Mesquita, Heejung Kim, Kimin Eom, Hyewon Choi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

There is increasing evidence for emotional fit in couples and groups, but also within cultures. In the current research, we investigated the consequences of emotional fit at the cultural level. Given that emotions reflect people’s view on the world, and that shared views are associated with good social relationships, we expected that an individual’s fit to the average cultural patterns of emotion would be associated with relational well-being. Using an implicit measure of cultural fit of emotions, we found across 3 different cultural contexts (United States, Belgium, and Korea) that (1) individuals’ emotional fit is associated with their level of …

A Theory Of Aggregate Consumption, Yun K. Kim, Mark Setterfield, Yuan Mei

Research Collection School Of Economics

We develop a Keynesian model of aggregate consumption. Our theory emphasizes the importance of the relative income hypothesis and debt finance for understanding household consumption behavior. It is shown that particular importance attaches to how net debtor households service their debts, and that the treatment of debt-servicing commitments as a substitute for savings by these households creates the potential for 'sudden stops' in consumption spending (and hence aggregate demand).

Predicting Romantic Interest And Decisions In The Very Early Stages Of Mate Selection: Standards, Accuracy, And Sex Differences, Garth J. O. Fletcher, Patrick S. G. Kerr, Norman P. Li, Katherine A. Valentine

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In the current study, opposite-sex strangers had 10-min conversations with a possible further date in mind. Based on judgments from partners and observers, three main findings were produced. First, judgments of attractiveness/vitality perceptions (compared with warmth/trustworthiness and status/resources) were the most accurate and were predominant in influencing romantic interest and decisions about further contact. Second, women were more cautious and choosy than men—women underestimated their partner’s romantic interest, whereas men exaggerated it, and women were less likely to want further contact. Third, a mediational model found that women (compared with men) were less likely to want further contact because they …

South Africa And Abusive Regimes At The Un Human Rights Council, Eduard Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

There is some dispute over the extent to which South Africa has become a defender of regimes that abuse human rights. This article sheds further light on this question by focusing on South Africa's positions during the UN Human Rights Council's engagement with human rights problems in six countries: Democratic Republic of Congo, Israel, North Korea, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Sudan. In five of the six chosen cases. South Africa's attitude ranged from reluctant to obstructive of efforts to defend human rights. In only one case-Israel-was South Africa willing to bring to bear the full weight of the council's power. …

The Role Of Social Relationships And Culture In The Cognitive Representation Of Emotions, Sharon Koh, Christie N. Scollon, Derrick Wirtz

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

There are individual and cultural differences in how memories of our emotions are cognitively represented. This article examines the cognitive representation of emotions in different cultures, as a result of emotional (in)consistency in different cultures. Using a continuous semantic priming task, we showed in two studies that individuals who were less emotionally consistent across relationships have stronger associations of their emotions within those relationships. Further, we found (in Study 2) that in a culture characterised by higher levels of emotional inconsistency across relationships (Singapore), stronger associations between emotions within relationships were found than in a culture characterised by emotional consistency …

Strike The Right Balance To Make Singapore A "City In A Country", David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In an invited commentary, SMU Behavioural Sciences Institute Director Professor David Chan discussed the tensions between Singapore’s goals to become a global city and maintain national solidarity. Building on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s recent speech in London which emphasised that Singapore “must get the balance just right”, Professor Chan noted the limitations of adopting a “give-and-take” mindset to the city-country paradox. He suggested several strategic principles for dynamic balancing between city and country goals. He provided the example of building Singapore’s cultural capital and policy adaptations to illustrate the issues.

Long-Term Health Effects Of Malaria Exposure Around Birth: Evidence From Colonial Taiwan, Simon Chang, Belton Fleisher, Seonghoon Kim, Shi-Yung Liu

Research Collection School Of Economics

In the early 20th century, the Japanese colonial government initiated an island-wide malaria eradication campaign in Taiwan, resulting in not only a rapid decline in malaria across time but also elimination of disparity across regions. Exploiting variations in malaria deaths caused by the campaign, we estimate causal effects of malaria exposure around birth on the health of elderly born in the colonial period. To mitigate potential biases caused by measurement errors and omitted confounders, we employ climatic factors to instrument for malaria deaths. Our findings suggest that people who were exposed to a high malaria risk around birth tend to …

Further Evidence On The Spatio-Temporal Model Of House Prices In The United States, Badi H. Baltagi, Jing Li

Research Collection School Of Economics

Holly, Pesaran, and Yamagata (Journal of Econometrics 2010; 158: 160–173) use a panel of 49 states over the period 1975–2003 to show that state-level real housing prices are driven by economic fundamentals, such as real per capita disposable income, as well as by common shocks, such as changes in interest rates, oil prices and technological change. They apply the common correlated effects estimator of Pesaran (Econometrica 2006; 74(4): 967–101), which takes into account spatial interactions that reflect both geographical proximity and unobserved common factors. This paper replicates their results using a panel of 381 metropolitan statistical areas observed over the …

Effects Of Labour Taxes On Hours Of Market And Home Work: The Role Of International Capital Mobility And Trade, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Prescott hypothesis that permanently higher marginal tax rates on labour income fully explain the decline in market hours worked in Europe (relative to North America) over three decades is subject to a theoretical investigation. The Prescott model consists of isolated economies that are not linked by international capital mobility or international exchange of goods. We study a two-country model with free international capital mobility. We find that imposing higher marginal labour tax rates in one country leads to international capital inflows into that country, which acts to counteract the negative employment effect of higher taxes. Market hours worked in …

On Modeling Community Behaviors And Sentiments In Microblogging, Tuan Anh Hoang, William Cohen, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we propose the CBS topic model, a probabilistic graphical model, to derive the user communities in microblogging networks based on the sentiments they express on their generated content and behaviors they adopt. As a topic model, CBS can uncover hidden topics and derive user topic distribution. In addition, our model associates topic-specific sentiments and behaviors with each user community. Notably, CBS has a general framework that accommodates multiple types of behaviors simultaneously. Our experiments on two Twitter datasets show that the CBS model can effectively mine the representative behaviors and emotional topics for each community. We also …

Recurrent Chinese Restaurant Process With A Duration-Based Discount For Event Identification From Twitter, Qiming Diao, Jing Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Due to the fast development of social media on the Web, Twitter has become one of the major platforms for people to express themselves. Because of the wide adoption of Twitter, events like breaking news and release of popular videos can easily catch people’s attention and spread rapidly on Twitter, and the number of relevant tweets approximately reflects the impact of an event. Event identification and analysis on Twitter has thus become an important task. Recently the Recurrent Chinese Restaurant Process (RCRP) has been successfully used for event identification from news streams and news-centric social media streams. However, these models …

Oral History Interview With Sharon Tan: Growing Smu, Sharon Tan

Oral History Collection

The interview covered: first involvement with SMU, risks in joining a new university, roles and responsibilities for corporate communication, first advertising campaign, branding SMU, Bukit Timah campus, first commencement, city campus, Advancement Office, endownments, Lee Kong Chian gift, alumni.

Sharon Tan was the Director of Corporate Communications and Director of the Office of Advancement and Alumni in SMU until 2014.

Seasonal Dynamics Of A Suburban Energy Balance In Phoenix, Arizona, Winston T. L. Chow, Thomas J. Volo, Enrique R. Vivoni, G. Darrel Jenerette, Benjamin L. Ruddell

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Observations of local-scale urban surface energy balance (SEB), which include fluxes of net all-wave radiation (Q*), and eddy covariance measurements of sensible (QH) and latent heat (QE) were collected in an arid Phoenix, AZ suburb from January to December 2012. We studied diurnal variations in SEB partitioning over four distinct seasons: winter, equinoxes, and summer; the latter period is further subdivided into (1) months prior to and (2) months occurring during the North American Monsoon. Largest flux densities were observed in summer, with most available energy partitioned into QH. Much less energy is partitioned into QE, but this term is …

Chinese Land Reforms And The Property Chase, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

China’s leaders embark on the latest round of land ownership reforms. Will it help reduce social tensions and maintain the status quo?

Smu Achievements -- Smu Infographics, Singapore Management University

Research Collection Office of Corporate Communications and Marketing

Despite being a young university, SMU has garnered numerous achievements and has been honoured with many accolades as a result of its world-class research and distinguished teaching. Here's an at-a-glance look at just some of them!

Customer Satisfaction Index Of Singapore 2013: Full Year Overview, Institute Of Service Excellence, Smu

Research Collection Institute of Service Excellence (2007-2024)

The Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) computes customer satisfaction scores at the national, sector, sub-sector, and company levels. Customer responses are derived from Singapore’s resident population and visiting tourists, primarily through face-to-face surveys. This study serves as a quantitative benchmark of the quality of goods and services produced by the Singapore economy over time and across countries. The fourth quarter results mark the end of measurement for CSISG 2013. Singapore’s 2013 national score is computed using the data collected during these four quarters.

Thinking Bigger And Better About "Bad Apples": Evolutionary Industrial/Organizational Psychology And The Dark Triad, Peter K. Jonason, Serena Wee, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The focal article by Guenole (2014) correctly contends that industrial–organizational (I–O) psychology has been overly reliant on the Big Five or the five-factor model (Benet-Martínez & John, 1998). Although popular and useful, the Big Five also tends to be limited in two important ways. The Big Five is a set of atheoretically derived, descriptive adjectives, and it tends to better tap “positive” aspects of people's personality over “negative” or “darker” sides. A number of authors have highlighted the importance of examining “darker” aspects of people's personality both outside (Jonason, Li, Webster, & Schmitt, 2009; Lee & Ashton, 2005; Paulhus & …