Sleep
Our aim is to understand the impact of sleep on a wide array of human functioning, from physical health, neurocognitive affective functions, social relationships, to personality formation and character development. We also investigate how our daytime behaviours and environmental factors may, in turn, affect our night-time sleep. Our studies are conducted cross-sectionally as well as across multiple time points. We do so using sleep diary, actigraphy, ambulatory and laboratory polysomnogram (PSG) recordings, eye-tracking, resting-state EEG recordings, event-related potentials, cognitive testing, clinical interviews and behavioural methods in both patient groups and healthy volunteers.
Spirituality
Previous research findings suggest that a person’s religiosity/ spirituality is often associated with better quality of life and wellbeing. This can be due to a stronger social network, which in turn may facilitate social support. There is also evidence that certain experiences deemed religious heighten faith maturity, motivate more religious practices, and even predict better sleep quality at a later time. While religiosity seems to be generally associated with positive outcomes, different facets of religiosity/spirituality may have different impacts on a person. Using a prospective longitudinal approach, we examine if certain aspects of religiosity/spirituality (e.g., having different life goals, being converted, adopting prosperity gospel beliefs, exiting faith, holding religious hope, etc.) would bring about specific changes in psychological characteristics such as personal values, psychological symptoms, and personality, as well as overall human flourishing. We also modify and evaluate some scales of religiosity in the local context such that future research can use more culturally-sensitive measures of this construct. With this methodological advancement and the accumulating findings on religiosity/spirituality, we hope to inspire future research for a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the construct.
Flourishing
We aim to study the processes and outcome variables pertaining to human flourishing, including physical and mental wellbeing, life satisfaction and happiness, meaning and purpose, character and virtues, and social functioning. We utilize online surveys, laboratory-based cognitive testing, actigraphy, clinical interviews and neurobehavioural methods, and apply statistical techniques such as longitudinal cross-lagged panel design and latent growth modelling approach. Ultimately, our goal is to understand the pathways to human flourishing, and to inform interventions and public policies that may foster an individual’s ability to flourish.
