Areas of Specialisation

The Psychology Department offers graduate degrees based on coursework and research.

The coursework programme provide an entry level professional training in clinical psychology and completion of the programme requirements will be recognised with a Master of Psychology (Clinical) degree. Programme details can be found in here.

The research programmes require the completion of general and area courses as well as a research project. The completion of programme requirements will be recognised with a Master of Social Sciences (M.Soc.Sci.) or a doctorate (Ph.D.) degree.

The graduate programme of the Department of Psychology is divided into six research areas. They are Clinical Science, Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology, and Quantitative Psychology. These six research areas reflect the diversity of research topics that our faculty have considerable expertise on. Prospective students are welcome to explore the specific research interests of individual faculty members within the areas.

Clinical Science

The Clinical Science area has research interests in psychological well-being. Faculty members investigate various aspects surrounding psychological disorders and symptoms, including etiology, assessment, and intervention strategies. Notable expertise in this area include emotion dysregulation, neuropsychology, autistic spectrum disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and therapy approaches like cognitive-behavioural therapy and mindfulness.

For more information regarding the research of individual faculty members in the Clinical Science area, please visit their personal webpages.

Core Faculty

De Meyer, Hsu, Jeevanandam, S Lee, M Lim, Zainal

Affiliated Faculty

Derbyshire, Hong, McConnell

Cognitive Neuroscience

The Cognitive Neuroscience area is a diverse and multidisciplinary group engaging in a wide spectrum of research topics. These topics include examining the neurological bases of (a) cognitive functions like memory, attention, and decision making, (b) the experience of pain, and (c) non-human primate neurophysiology. Faculty members in this group are united by an interest in understanding the biological and neurological underpinnings of cognitive function and behavior, and their use of neuroimaging techniques such as EEG and fMRI.

For more information regarding the research of individual faculty members in the Cognitive Neuroscience area, please visit their personal webpages.

Core Faculty

Derbyshire, Garcia-Pelegrin, Kozhevnikov, Libedinsky, Palmer

Affiliated Faculty

Hon, Oh

Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive Psychology studies how people perceive, remember, learn, and process information. Areas of inquiry include perception, attention, memory, and language processing. The cognitive psychology group at NUS Psychology has notable strengths in the following specific topics: lexical processing, the organisation of lexical knowledge in memory, visual attention and visual-spatial perception, and auditory-related cognition.

For more information regarding the research of individual faculty members in the Cognitive Psychology area, please visit their personal webpages.

Core Faculty

Goh, Hon, S Lim, McConnell, Pan, Siew, Yap

Affiliated Faculty

Garcia-Pelegrin, Kozhevnikov, Oh

Developmental Psychology

Faculty members in the Developmental Psychology area are broadly interested in growth processes in infants, children, and adolescents. The group has specific expertise in infant language development, cognitive development, children’s socio-emotional development, and psychosocial development in adolescents. Faculty members use a range of methodologies to address important issues in human development.

For more information regarding the research of individual faculty members in the Developmental Psychology area, please visit their personal webpages.

Core Faculty

Ding, Lee HY, Lee LN, Powell, Qin, Sim

Personality and Social Psychology

The Personality and Social Psychology group is broadly interested in understanding human behavior from multiple perspectives – from within-person factors (e.g., personality, emotion, and motivation) to those external of individuals (e.g., interpersonal and contextual influences). Faculty members in this group have interests in a wide range of topics such as attitudes and persuasion, positive emotions, motivation and goal pursuit, moral judgements and emotions, interpersonal relationships, personality and psychopathology, negotiation and conflict management, and dynamics of trust. In their research, members use a variety of designs and statistical techniques like multilevel analysis, structural equation modelling, and meta-analysis.

For more information regarding the research of individual faculty members in the Personality and Social Psychology area, please visit their personal webpages.

Core Faculty

Au, Cha, Hong, Jia, Oh, Prasad, See, Tong

Affiliated Faculty

Powell

Quantitative Psychology

The Quantitative Psychology area focuses on advancing methodological and statistical techniques used in psychological research. The area has notable expertise in advanced statistical procedures like structural equation modelling, meta-analysis, and machine learning techniques. Graduate students in this area would gain a comprehensive understanding of various statistical techniques and be in a good position to handle and evaluate empirical data.

For more information regarding the research of individual faculty members in the Quantitative Psychology area, please visit their personal webpages.

Core Faculty

Cheung, Espkamp, Isvoranu, Vijayakumar