We are delighted to announce that our undergraduate students have won the Best Research Project Award (Undergraduate Category) and Best Writing Award (Undergraduate Category) conferred by the Singapore Psychological Society (SPS) at the Student Research Awards 2017!
Best Research Project Award (Undergraduate Category)
Supervisor: Dr. Jia Lile (Situated Goal Pursuit Lab)
Students (pictured from left to right): Lim Chun Hui, Ismaharif Bin Ismail, Ang Yu Ting Shuantae, Gabriella Lim
Research Title: Taking Part and Taking Sides: Examining Third-Parties in Intergroup Conflict
“Initially uninvolved individuals, or lay third-parties, often participate and take sides in costly intergroup conflicts in pursuit of social (e.g., ingroup bias) and moral motives (e.g., punish perpetrators or support victims). In our study, we demonstrated how third-parties pursued moral legitimacy in the context of social goals. When the perpetrator was an outgroup, third-parties’ moral legitimacy to harm the perpetrator was strengthened by ingroup bias. Third-parties were more likely to support the ingroup victim, and harm the outgroup perpetrator. When the perpetrator was an ingroup, third-parties’ moral legitimacy to harm the perpetrator was suppressed by ingroup bias. 3PO were less likely to harm the ingroup perpetrator. Instead, they provided support to both ingroup perpetrator and outgroup victim. Our findings highlighted a multi-motive approach to understanding why third-parties take part in intergroup conflicts.”
Best Writing Award (Undergraduate Category)
Supervisor: Dr. Michelle See (Attitudes and Social Cognition Lab)
Student: Noorfaadhilah Abdul Halil Khan
Research Title: Value-Expressive Attitudes Predict Concerns for Processing Cognitive Information
“The distinction between reasoning and emotion dates back to Plato, and is ubiquitous in psychology – both have unique impact on meaningful outcomes such as persuasion and social judgment. Notably, people vary in their concern for processing affect versus cognition. The present research studied attitude function (i.e., one’s motives in forming an attitude), chiefly the value-expressive function, as an antecedent to processing concerns. Based on research showing that people view rationality as a moral virtue, and that higher sensitivity to justice correlates with activation in brain areas linked to cognitive functioning, I proposed that the extent to which attitudes express one’s moral values positively predicts cognitive processing concerns. Participants completed scales of attitude function and processing concerns for attitudes toward social issues in Singapore. In 8 out of 10 issues, value-expressive function positively predicted cognitive processing concerns, implying that motivation to develop attitudes conveying moral values dominates cognitive processing concerns.”
