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Short-term CBT group intervention seems to be a robust intervention for natural disaster victims. Short-term CBT group intervention was more effective than the general supportive intervention and the no-treatment group in enhancing psychological resilience and reducing PTSD and depression among adolescents who had lost parents in the earthquake. The general supportive intervention was effective only in improving psychological resilience.

Items covering both core and culture‐specific facets of depression were generated based on literature review and clinical experience. They were modified following focus group discussions with depressed adolescents and adolescents in the community. The newly constructed Asian Adolescent Depression Scale (AADS) was administered to a clinical and a community sample of adolescents together with other rating scales. The AADS comprised 4 factors (negative self‐evaluation, negative affect, cognitive inefficiency and lack of motivation) and demonstrated sound psychometric properties. Negative socially oriented self‐evaluation and cognitive inefficiency were important in Singaporean adolescents’ conceptualization of depression and are likely to be Asian culture‐specific dimensions.

A series of three studies was conducted to test the internal structure of the Chinese value hierarchy (CVH) in Singapore. Study 1 identified the empirically best-fit model with six factors: Prudence, Industry, Civic-Harmony, Moral Development, Social Power and Moderation. Relative magnitudes and interfactor correlations suggested that these factors could be further grouped into two superordinate clusters: (i) The Modern factor, with significantly higher magnitude, consisted of Prudence, Industry, Civic-Harmony and Moral Development; and (ii) the Tradition factor, with lower magnitude, consisted of Social Power and Moderation. Study 2 surveyed university students with differential preference for language usages: English or Chinese. Both language groups were equally high on the Modern factor, but the Chinese-language-preferred group showed a significantly higher endorsement for the Tradition factor, Chinese Worldview (CWV) and Chinese Health Beliefs (CHB). Further convergent validation for the Modern and the Tradition factors was provided by investigating their correlations with traditional Chinese beliefs and practices for the two language groups separately. Study 3 tested generation differences in CVH. University participants (Self) were compared with their parents (Parents) and friends (Friends). There were no differences between Self and Friends on both the Modern and Tradition factors, CWV and individual differences of modernity. Parents and Self did not differ on individual differences of modernity. Parents, however, were higher on the Modern factor, the Tradition factor and CWV. Results were discussed to support the concept of 'multiple modernity' (Tu, 2000) in Asian societies, and the 'revised convergence hypothesis' proposed by Yang (1988).

There is a scarcity of systematic reports on the prevalence of depression in Chinese elderly populations. The available reports used a variety of diagnostic and screening instruments to identify elderly depression. Furthermore, samples were drawn from different elderly populations. In spite of these difficulties, the reports are consistent in terms of the prevalence rates of severe depression which is lower than those reported in Western studies; though the prevalence rates of depressive symptoms approach those of most Western countries. However, the Chinese elderly showed a particular sensitivity to social factors either as vulnerability or protection factors for depression. There is a consistent social dimension in depressive complaints by Chinese elderly; hence the need to construct specific culturally sensitive instruments and to establish within ethnic group norms and diagnostic criteria for elderly depression. Current intervention efforts to prevent and ameliorate depression in the community-dwelling elderly will be discussed.

Contemporary literature on culture, self, and motivations (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) suggests that in collectivistic cultures, individual achievement is interdependent of one's social others. We proposed that this cultural characteristic could be exemplified in the achievement goal orientation and tested the notion with university students in a collectivistic community-Singapore. A socially oriented achievement goal construct was developed by taking into consideration the significant social others in the students' lives. A measuring instrument was established with a sample of Singaporean Chinese university students (N = 196; 144 females and 52 males); its relationships to achievement motives, goals, and consequences were examined. Although the socially oriented achievement goal items were originally constructed from four categories of social others, confirmatory factor analysis suggested a unifactor structure. Results showed that the socially oriented goal was related positively with students' performance goal, mastery goal, and competitive motive; it bore no relationship to mastery motive, work ethic, and interest in learning; and it predicted negatively future engagement. After the effects of mastery and performance goals were controlled for, the socially oriented goal did not predict test anxiety.

This study explores the construct of family resilience defined as a family variable that enables the family to survive major life challenges and as a coping resource that enables the individual to deal with traumas and to thrive from the experience. Nurses who were working with infected patients in a major epidemic in Singapore provided the sample and the context to search for family resilience. Two studies are reported in this article: Study 1 consisted of an in-depth interview with 30 nurses and some of their family members to identify the factors within their families that they perceived to have enabled them to cope with the stress and difficulties. Based on the results from Study 1, a family resilience (FR) scale was constructed. Using the FR scale, Study 2 employed a structured survey to identify the internal organization and the psychometric properties of FR. Factor analysis of the results identified five meaningful factors. The FR scale was found to have excellent psychometric properties. Path analyses were conducted to test whether family resilience is a spurious factor and whether it is a construct distinct and independent from individual resilience (IR). It was found that FR predicts individual well-being with both direct and indirect effect mediated by individual resilience, supporting the nonspurious nature of FR and the potential reciprocal causal effects between FR and IR.