Publications by authors named "Shian-Ling Keng"

Article Synopsis
  • Despite international criticism, efforts to change sexual orientation and gender identity are still common in Malaysia, particularly among LGBT+ individuals.
  • A survey with 521 participants revealed that about 64% had experienced these change efforts, mainly from family, friends, and religious groups.
  • Experiencing these efforts was linked to increased mental health issues, including higher rates of suicidal thoughts and self-harm, highlighting a need for national healthcare reforms to ban such practices.
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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the level of anxiety among Indonesian senior high school teachers, who face challenges to treat their mental disorder symptoms that arise during their working hours, as mental health services in Indonesia are limited. Therefore, it is vital to equip schoolteachers in Indonesia with early interventions that are easily available, private, and affordable, and 1 feasible approach is to deploy a smartphone mobile app.

Objective: The objectives of this study are (1) to evaluate the feasibility of a brief mindfulness-based mobile app (BM-MA) for Indonesian senior high school teachers experiencing anxiety and stress and (2) to examine the effects of using the BM-MA on anxiety, stress, life satisfaction, self-efficacy, trait mindfulness, self-compassion, and physical and social dysfunction among the participants.

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This longitudinal study aimed to validate the biosocial theory of borderline personality disorder (BPD) by examining the transactional relationship between individual vulnerabilities and parental invalidation, and their links to BPD symptoms. We recruited a sample of 332 adolescents (mean age = 14.18 years; 58.

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This study examined the intergenerational transmission of parental invalidation and whether parental difficulties in emotion regulation mediated the association between past experiences of invalidation and current invalidating parenting practices. We also aimed to investigate whether gender might influence the transmission of parental invalidation. We recruited a community sample of 293 dual-parent families (adolescent and their parents) based in Singapore.

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Some public officials have expressed concern that policies mandating collective public health behaviors (e.g., national/regional "lockdown") may result in behavioral fatigue that ultimately renders such policies ineffective.

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Objectives: Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers (HCWs) may be at greater risk of suffering from psychological distress compared to the general population. This study aimed to investigate the effects of mindfulness practice as delivered using on psychological and cognitive outcomes among HCWs in Singapore.

Methods: A total of 80 HCWs were recruited and randomly assigned to engage in either 3 weeks (10 min/day) of mindfulness practice using or an active control condition (; involving playing cognitive games).

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Anxiety associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and home confinement has been associated with adverse health behaviors, such as unhealthy eating, smoking, and drinking. However, most studies have been limited by regional sampling, which precludes the examination of behavioral consequences associated with the pandemic at a global level. Further, few studies operationalized pandemic-related stressors to enable the investigation of the impact of different types of stressors on health outcomes.

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Before vaccines for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) became available, a set of infection-prevention behaviors constituted the primary means to mitigate the virus spread. Our study aimed to identify important predictors of this set of behaviors. Whereas social and health psychological theories suggest a limited set of predictors, machine-learning analyses can identify correlates from a larger pool of candidate predictors.

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The present paper examines longitudinally how subjective perceptions about COVID-19, one's community, and the government predict adherence to public health measures to reduce the spread of the virus. Using an international survey (N = 3040), we test how infection risk perception, trust in the governmental response and communications about COVID-19, conspiracy beliefs, social norms on distancing, tightness of culture, and community punishment predict various containment-related attitudes and behavior. Autoregressive analyses indicate that, at the personal level, personal hygiene behavior was predicted by personal infection risk perception.

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Tightening social norms is thought to be adaptive for dealing with collective threat yet it may have negative consequences for increasing prejudice. The present research investigated the role of desire for cultural tightness, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, in increasing negative attitudes towards immigrants. We used participant-level data from 41 countries ( = 55,015) collected as part of the PsyCorona project, a cross-national longitudinal study on responses to COVID-19.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Overall, 72.9% of respondents expressed a willingness to get vaccinated, with prosocial behavior positively correlating with vaccine intentions, while belief in conspiracy theories and religiosity negatively influenced them.
  • * The research highlights the need to address misinformation and engage religious organizations in campaigns, emphasizing the importance of promoting prosocial values to boost vaccination rates globally.
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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a global health crisis. Consequently, many countries have adopted restrictive measures that caused a substantial change in society. Within this framework, it is reasonable to suppose that a sentiment of societal discontent, defined as generalized concern about the precarious state of society, has arisen.

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Childhood invalidation has been postulated to be implicated in the development of borderline personality disorder (BPD), according to the biosocial model. Despite its significance, most systematic reviews and meta-analyses have focused on examining the associations between extreme forms of invalidation, such as sexual abuse, and BPD. Nonetheless, individuals could experience mild-to-severe levels of parental invalidation, with or without abuse.

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During the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. conservative politicians and the media downplayed the risk of both contracting COVID-19 and the effectiveness of recommended health behaviors.

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Aim/background: Even though dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) has received substantial empirical support in treating patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD), fewer studies have evaluated whether a brief DBT skills group may be effective in improving clinical outcomes in this population. Further, less is known regarding the feasibility and outcomes of DBT beyond Euro-American contexts. This paper describes outcomes from a pilot study examining the feasibility, acceptability, and clinical outcomes following completion of a shortened, 14-week DBT skills group in a sample of Muslim-majority BPD patients in Malaysia.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study analyzes how social connections and feelings of solidarity influenced experiences of loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown across 23 countries from March to May 2020.
  • - Findings reveal that while online interactions can help lessen loneliness, those who feel lonelier are less likely to engage in online contact, and solidarity has minimal impact on loneliness levels during lockdown.
  • - Additionally, increased online communication does not replace in-person interactions; instead, it appears to encourage more face-to-face contacts later on, highlighting the complexity of social interactions during lockdown.
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This paper examines whether compliance with COVID-19 mitigation measures is motivated by wanting to save lives or save the economy (or both), and which implications this carries to fight the pandemic. National representative samples were collected from 24 countries (N = 25,435). The main predictors were (1) perceived risk to contract coronavirus, (2) perceived risk to suffer economic losses due to coronavirus, and (3) their interaction effect.

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Much research has demonstrated the beneficial effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on psychological and physical health, but it is not known whether MBSR may impact cellular aging in healthy populations. Further, little research has evaluated MBSR against an active control condition, which precludes strong conclusions regarding the unique effects of mindfulness on psychological functioning. The present study examined the effects of MBSR versus music therapy-based stress reduction (MTSR) on trait mindfulness, self-compassion, and several psychological health outcomes, as well as leukocyte telomere length (LTL).

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Telomeres are the caps at the end of chromosomes. Short telomeres are a biomarker for worsening health and early death. The present study consolidated research on meditation and telomere length through a meta-analysis of results of studies examining the effect of meditation on telomere length by comparing the telomere length of meditating participants with participants in control conditions.

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Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a psychological disorder characterized by dysregulation across multiple domains. While selected mindfulness-based interventions are effective in addressing symptoms of BPD, less is known regarding the effects of engaging in brief mindfulness practices on affective correlates of BPD. The present study investigated the effects of engaging in brief, daily mindfulness practice in a sample of young adults with elevated BPD symptoms.

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Background: Whereas meditation training has been purported to support slower cellular aging, little work has explored the association among different facets of dispositional mindfulness, self-compassion, and cellular aging. The present study aimed to examine the relationship between leukocyte telomere length (LTL), an index of cellular aging, dispositional mindfulness, and self-compassion in a sample of Singaporean Chinese adults.

Methods: One hundred and fifty-eight Chinese adults (mean age = 27.

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