Congratulations to Gabriel Goh and Travis Lim on their Graduate Students' Teaching Awards! This award recognizes excellence in teaching by graduate students in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. We look forward to their continued involvement in the learning journeys of various undergraduate students in the upcoming semesters! 

On the 4th of August 2021, the Group for Persuasion and Evaluative Processes (GPEP) hosted our first virtual symposium, which saw many new and familiar faces. Like many other symposiums, we aimed to create an energizing virtual space for participants to network and connect. We had a series of interesting live talks and Q&A sessions from our graduate students which centered on topics ranging from attitudes, intergroup relations, and cross-cultural differences. Not only that, our members and guests had plenty of opportunities to interact with one another in the many break-out sessions which provided a more comfortable space for light-hearted conversations.

Despite being a fully virtual event, the experience was also enjoyable for me compared to a physical event. With this being the first time, I had to present to an online audience, I realized my worries were for naught because the participants were engaged and provided me with many interesting future directions that were worth pursuing. Moreover, having a virtual event allowed colleagues from overseas to join us, even with the travel restrictions in place due to the pandemic. Through this symposium, I felt recharged as I got to interact with other researchers and gained more insights into my field of research.

In reflecting on the symposium, many participants found the event to be valuable. One participant highlighted that the symposium was a much-needed respite from her daily routine. Another mentioned that the causal break-out sessions allowed the opportunity for understanding the future plans that the different researchers had.

In light of the current pandemic, this virtual symposium provided a way for us to keep in touch and exchange ideas without having to return to campus. Through this and future symposiums, we hope that participants can forge and expand their networks with other like-minded individuals who are also interested in the research we do at Group for Persuasion and Evaluative Processes.

By Reiner NG and Rachel SNG

Congratulations to Tan Yang Sheng, Jonathan and Choo Zhan Yi for graduating! The lab is proud of your accomplishments and we wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors. Congratulations once again, Class of 2021!

We are excited to share news about our forthcoming paper, co-authored with Andy Luttrell in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology on “When dueling emotions and conflicting beliefs predict subjective ambivalence: The role of meta-bases.” Given that subjective ambivalence can have desirable or undesirable outcomes for one’s attitudes and receptivity to persuasion, this work is interesting because it demonstrates that mixed emotions predict subjective ambivalence when there is relatively strong interest in processing affect, but it is mixed beliefs that predict subjective ambivalence when there is relatively strong interest in processing cognition. Thus, this research sheds light on the under-explored distinction between affect and cognition in mixed reactions and meta-bases when predicting subjective ambivalence.

A pre-print of this paper can be found here:
https://www.michellesee.com/uploads/1/1/9/6/119627433/iac_n_icc_x_mb_on_sa_pre-print.pdf

We are excited to share news about our forthcoming paper, co-authored with Kenneth Tan in Social Cognition on “Tugging at Their Heartstrings: Partner’s Knowledge of Affective Meta-Bases Predicts Use of Emotional Advocacies in Close Relationships.” This work suggests that in the context of romantic relationships, a persuader is more likely to tailor their influence attempts by using emotional appeals when their perception of their partner (the intended message recipient) is validated by their partner’s self-perception.

A pre-print of the paper can be found here:
https://www.michellesee.com/uploads/1/1/9/6/119627433/emotional_advocacy_preprint.pdf

We are excited to share news about our forthcoming paper in Journal of Social Issues on “Effects of living arrangements on well-being, perceived conflict, and intergroup attitudes for local and international students: Results from a field intervention”!
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This work examines the causal effects of separating, clustering, and integrating international and local students by randomly assigning them to various living arrangements. The results suggest that efforts to improve well-being and intergroup relations via the social ecology of host and migrant residents should provide opportunities for integration over separation or even enclaves. A pre-print of the paper can be found here: https://www.michellesee.com/uploads/1/1/9/6/119627433/living_arrangements_preprint.pdf.

Congratulations to Reiner Ng Wei Jie on his B.Soc.Sci. (highest distinction) and M.Soc.Sci. degrees! For his thesis research titled, "When objective ambivalence leads to subjective ambivalence for health behaviors: An affect-cognition matching perspective", he examined the effects of message matching on subjective ambivalence. His research demonstrated that the simultaneous existence of positive and negative reactions are more likely to manifest as the subjective experience of ambivalence, when people receive a message that matches the affective-cognitive orientation of a topic. Moreover, this occurs especially among people for whom the message is counter-attitudinal. This work is important in identifying novel antecedents to subjective ambivalence, which has been shown to have adaptive social functions and has implications for the ability of attitudes to predict behavior. We congratulate Reiner on accomplishing this interesting research that advances our understanding of ambivalence!

Congratulations to Rachel Sng Wei Yi on her offer of admission to the Concurrent Degree Programme [B.Soc.Sci. (Hons) and M.Soc.Sci.]! Rachel has already completed an Independent Study Module in our lab, and has been assisting with various research projects for the past two semesters. For her thesis, she will conduct research on intergroup. Welcome to the lab, Rachel!

Congratulations to Wang Binhui on the acceptance of her poster submission to the upcoming Association for Psychological Science (APS) Virtual Conference in May 2021! Her poster is entitled “Disadvantaged group relations: Enhanced or backfired depending on the membership of the source highlighting shared experience of discrimination.” This research demonstrated that although heterosexual females were more positive toward gay men and lesbian women when the shared experience of discrimination was made salient than not, the positive impact of such salience only occurred when the source was a heterosexual male and not a heterosexual female. This work highlights the role of source group membership in increasing receptivity to information about shared discrimination, and has implications for our understanding of solidarity between groups. We look forward to her sharing this interesting work in the upcoming APS conference!

Congratulations to Noorfaadhilah Abdul Halil Khan who will be joining Home Team Behavioural Sciences Centre (Ministry of Home Affairs) as a research psychologist from February 2021. We are immensely proud of her, and wish her the best in this new chapter of her life!