The Singapore Psychological Society organizes an annual Undergraduate Research Award (URA) Symposium, with the goal of encouraging research and scientific inquiry in undergraduate education in psychology. Awards are presented to an undergraduate student from each of the respective institutions whose Honours thesis is the best in their cohort. The awardee this year from NUS is Ms. Claris Zhao. This year, the Symposium will be held at NUS, LT 12, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, on 30 October 2010.

Claris, who is currently a graduate student with the Psychology department, has given a short summary of what she will be presenting at the symposium:

The looming cognitive style (LCS) describes a durable pattern of cognition associated with the tendency to generate dynamic scenarios of potential threats as escalating in risk or progressing towards a dreaded outcome. The present research examined whether the LCS is associated with a chronic salience of threat- and motion-related mental representations as well as biases in perceptions of probability and cost towards hypothetical future events. State anxiety as a possible moderator of the relations between the LCS and these biases was also investigated. The importance of addressing such biases in the framework of the looming vulnerability model is discussed.

Congratualtions Claris!