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Yiyun Shou

Yiyun Shou

Lead Scientist (Health and Lifestyle),

yiyun.shou@nus.edu.sg
Mental Health

Dr Yiyun Shou joined IPUR in 2022 as Lead Scientist in the domain of Health and Lifestyle. She also holds a joint appointment as Assistant Professor at the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health.  Before joining IPUR, Dr Shou was a Senior Research Fellow at the Australia National University and was a recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Her research concerns understanding human’s judgement and behaviors under risk and uncertainty; measurement of dispositions relating to risk-taking; understanding cross-cultural measurement issues; and development of statistical methods. Her current research focuses on attitudes toward risk and uncertainty in health and medical settings, and communication of health risks in the Asian context.

published papers

  1. Mewton, P., Dawel, A., Miller, E. J., Shou, Y., & Christensen, B. K. (2024). Meta-analysis of face perception in schizophrenia spectrum disorders: Evidence for differential impairment in emotion face perception. Schizophrenia Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbae130
  2. Sakki, H., St Clair, M. C., Shou, Y., & Allen, J. L. (2024). Punishment and reward sensitivity in risk-taking as potential mechanisms explaining the relationships between childhood callous-unemotional traits and adolescent substance use in a longitudinal cohort study sample. Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-024-01255-0
  3. Deng, J. et al. (2024) ‘Core features of callous–unemotional traits: A cross-cultural comparison of youth in four countries’, European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry [Preprint]. doi:10.1007/s00787-023-02357-8.
  4. Batterham, P.J. et al. (2024) ‘Covid-19 infection associated with poorer mental health in a representative population sample’, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 177, p. 111588. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychores.2023.111588.
  5. Shou, Y. et al. (2024) ‘Psychological mechanisms of the development of suicidal ideation: Longitudinal Cohort Study’, Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 54(3), pp. 593–605. doi:10.1111/sltb.13060.
  6. Batterham, P.J. et al. (2024) ‘Testing a syndemics perspective on the effects of multiple adversities on depression and anxiety symptoms in a representative population sample’, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology [Preprint]. doi:10.1007/s00127-024-02638-w.
  7. Murray, K. et al. (2024) ‘Cognitive reappraisal moderates the protective effect of body satisfaction on Mental Health and wellbeing in adults: A prospective study during COVID-19 lockdown’, Journal of Affective Disorders, 351, pp. 268–277. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2024.01.253.
  8. Chia, A. et al. (2024) ‘Complexity of consumer acceptance to alternative protein foods in a multiethnic Asian population: A comparison of plant-based meat alternatives, cultured meat, and insect-based products’, Food Quality and Preference, 114, p. 105102. doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2024.105102.
  9. Sivanathan, D., Bizumic, B. and Shou, Y. (2024) ‘The unified narcissism scale-revised: Testing incremental validity and shortening the measure’, Journal of Personality Assessment, pp. 1–14. doi:10.1080/00223891.2024.2346768.
  10. Mende, M. et al. (2024) ‘People, peace, prosperity, and the planet: A journey toward sustainable development in consumer research’, Journal of Consumer Research, 51(1), pp. 91–103. doi:10.1093/jcr/ucad068.
  11. Shou, Y. et al. (2024) ‘Measuring risk tolerance among Japanese adults and cross-national comparison of its role in covid-19 attitudes’, European Journal of Psychological Assessment [Preprint]. doi:10.1027/1015-5759/a000831.
  12. Shou, Y., Kuru, O., et al. (2024) ‘Mis- and disinformation’, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science [Preprint]. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199389407.013.521.
  13. Farrer, L.M. et al. (2023) ‘The factors associated with telehealth use and avoidance during the COVID-19 pandemic: Longitudinal survey’, Journal of Medical Internet Research, 25. doi:10.2196/43798.
  14. Shou, Y. et al. (2023) ‘Understanding Australian government risk communication early in the COVID-19 pandemic: Sociodemographics, risk attitudes and media consumption’, Journal of Health Communication, 28(4), pp. 254–263. doi:10.1080/10810730.2023.2197403.
  15. Shou, Y. et al. (2023) Data from an International Multi-Centre Study of Statistics and Mathematics Anxieties and Related Variables in University Students (the SMARVUS Dataset).
  16. Song, F. et al. (2023) ‘Moral judgments under uncertainty: Risk, ambiguity and commission bias’, Current Psychology, 43(11), pp. 9793–9804. doi:10.1007/s12144-023-05050-w.
  17. Tan, N. et al. (2023) ‘A bayesian model of the jumping-to-conclusions bias and its relationship to psychopathology’, Cognition and Emotion, 38(3), pp. 315–331. doi:10.1080/02699931.2023.2287091.
  18. Smithson, M., & Shou, Y. (2023). Flexible CDF-quantile distributions on the closed unit interval, with software and applications. Communications in Statistics - Theory and Methods, 53(11), 3876–3898. https://doi.org/10.1080/03610926.2023.2166352
  19. Tan, N., Shou, Y., Chen, J., & Christensen, B. (2022) Specificity of the Jumping-to-Conclusion Bias in Social Anxiety: An Account using the Bayesian Computational Modelling Approach.
  20. Shou, Y. et al. (2022) ‘From west to east: Recent advances in psychometrics and psychological instruments in Asia’, Chen Frontiers Research Topics [Preprint]. doi:10.3389/978-2-88974-563-0.
  21. Batterham, P.J. et al. (2022) ‘Patterns and predictors of alcohol use during the early stages of the covid‐19 pandemic in Australia: Longitudinal Cohort Study’, Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 46(7), pp. 1248–1257. doi:10.1111/acer.14858.
  22. Zhang, X., Deng, J., Shou, Y., & Wang, M.-C. (2022). Longitudinal network structure of child psychopathy across development in Chinese Community Children. Current Psychology, 42(32), 28119–28129. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03799-0
  23. Banfield, M. et al. (2022) ‘Awareness and perceived helpfulness of mental health peer workers in a representative sample of the Australian Public’, Psychiatry Research Communications, 2(2), p. 100042. doi:10.1016/j.psycom.2022.100042.
  24. Shou, Y., Olney, J. and Wang, M.-C. (2022) ‘Cross-cultural assessment and comparisons of risk tolerance across domains’, Current Psychology, 42(18), pp. 15368–15380. doi:10.1007/s12144-022-02843-3.
  25. Smithson, M., Shou, Y., Dawel, A., Calear, A. L., Farrer, L., & Cherbuin, N. (2022). The psychological benefits of an uncertain world: Hope and optimism in the face of existential threat. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.749093
  26. Batterham, P. J., Calear, A. L., Shou, Y., Farrer, L. M., Gulliver, A., McCallum, S. M., & Dawel, A. (2022). Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Suicidal Ideation in a representative Australian population sample–longitudinal cohort study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 300, 385–391. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2022.01.022
  27. Shou, Y., Smithson, M., et al. (2022) ‘Risk tolerance and changes in coronavirus disease (COVID) related health behaviors: A longitudinal study.’, Health Psychology, 41(8), pp. 507–518. doi:10.1037/hea0001197.
  28. Shou, Y., De Silva, H.S. and Olney, J. (2022) ‘Attitudes toward ambiguous situations resemble the domain-specificity of attitudes toward risk’, Personality and Individual Differences, 195, p. 111667. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2022.111667.

ongoing projects

  1. "Risk Barometer" The IPUR Singapore Risk Barometer Report is a flagship initiative to gain deeper insight into the risks that Singaporeans feel are the greatest concerns in their daily lives. It spotlights the needs, expectations and demands of society and serves as an annual scorecard on the management of these risks. The report aims to provide valuable information to government, companies and the media regarding the public’s perceptions of these issues and their expectations about whether sufficient action is being taken to address them.
  2. "Informed consent and risk communication in infectious disease clinical trials in Southeast Asia"
    What are challenges in risk communication in informed consent? What can we do to ease the burden of everyone in this process, especially in the Southeast Asian Region? This project aims to unpack these important issues by understanding perspectives from regulators, researchers, clinicians, and patients. The project involves systematic reviews and multi-site multi-stakeholder interviews to gain in-depth understanding of the experiences and challenges in informed consent faced by different groups. We aim to gain insights on the solutions to improve informed consent in the region.
  3. "Health and medical decisions taxonomy systematic reviews" Systematic reviews aiming to understand the classifications of health behaviors/decisions and their emerging trend over the past decade. The reviews synthesize theoretical models and empirical classifications of health behaviors/decisions.
  4. "Risk and benefit perceptions of health and medical decisions" Identifying the core risk and benefit considerations and the nature of their impact on everyday medical and health decisions are crucial for developing effective health promotion programs. This project includes a series of empirical studies that aim to understand lay participants’ risk/benefit perceptions of health and medical decisions.
  5. "Patient-reported outcomes, experience, and cost-effectiveness of chronic disease management in Singapore" Age-related chronic diseases are the biggest challenge to our health system. The recent initiative by Ministry of Health - Healthier SG –aims to have every Singaporean select and visit a regular family doctor as the first point-of-contact for all care needs. This project aims to develop tools, and assess patient reported outcomes and experiences in relation to chronic disease management as a baseline for Healthier SG.
  6. "Understanding psychological well-being and risk perceptions" Leveraging on a larger project that aims to develop the tool and assess psychological wellbeing among Singaporean youth and community adults, this subproject aims to explore the associations between risk perceptions and psychological wellbeing.  This project is in partnership with MCCY and NYC.
  7. "Risk Propensity and Substance Use – A Multilevel Meta-Analysis" Substance use and disorders pose significant global public health challenges, leading to considerable health burdens and societal consequences. Risk propensity has been identified as a critical factor influencing substance use behaviours. This meta-analysis aims to evaluate the associations between risk propensity and substance use as well as disorders using a meta-analysis. Additionally, it aims to investigate potential factors that can alter the associations to further examine potential mechanisms underlying the link between risk propensity and substance use.
  8. "Assessing chronic disease management in Singapore" The growing wave of chronic diseases has resulted in increased healthcare utilization. Over the years, interventions to enhance patient disease self-management have shown some promise to improving health outcomes across a range of chronic diseases. This study aims to evaluate a measurement tool to assess patients’ chronic disease self-management in Singapore; and examine factors that can influence patients’ chronic disease self-management.
  9. "Measuring and understanding risk tolerance in Singapore"  Understanding how people respond to uncertainty and risk as well as the causes and consequences of their responses is essential for managing and coping with uncertainty and risk, both individually and collectively. This project aims to understand risk attitudes across life domains among Singaporeans, and to develop a measurement tool of assessing risk attitudes for Singaporeans. This project also investigates how risk attitudes relate to behaviours and mental health among Singaporeans.
  10. "Identifying roadblocks and barriers to the equitable access of antimicrobials in Southeast Asia" The antimicrobial resistant (AMR) infections crisis disproportionately affects low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) due to the lack of access to effective antibiotics. This mixed methods project aims to understand the barriers in access to newer antibiotics in Southeast Asia. Our aim is to use these study findings to engage the relevant stakeholders identified in this project to influence change in policy and implementation and address the access challenges we have identified in these countries.
  11. "Promoting risk communication and community engagement in clinical and public health research" The public’s trust and engagement in clinical research is essential for reducing costs of clinical research as well as improving short-term and long-term public health outcomes. This project aims to identify and address the “perception gaps” between clinicians/researchers and the public, and to promote the public’s engagement are critical to improve communication in clinical settings and to facilitate recruitment in clinical research.
  12. "Improving consent and decision-making in time-sensitive healthcare settings" Communicating risk in urgent medical situations is challenging and informed decisions can be difficult under time pressure. This project involves a series of studies that aim to understand Singaporeans’ experiences of decision-making and consent in time-sensitive medical settings. This project aims to bridge gaps between patients, healthcare providers, researchers, and regulators to promote effective risk communication in time-sensitive healthcare settings.
  13. "Risk networks and profiles of segments of media-reported risks in Singapore" Leveraging on the Risk Barometer data, this study delves into the public perceptions of media-reported risks in Singapore. We explore the networks of Singapore public’s concerns regarding various major media-reported risks. We also aim to identify key subgroups of populations in terms of their specific patterns in responding to media-reported risks. Identifying those distinct profiles will inform tailored communication strategies that cater to the unique needs of each group.
  14. "Risk/uncertainty and mental health in emerging adults" This project aims to understand the link between risk/uncertainty and mental health in emerging adults in Singapore
  15. "Enhancing safe telehealth for all in high-risk consultations" This project explores ways to improve the safety of telehealth consultations in primary care, including people with limited English proficiency, through the study of simulated consultations for high-risk medications, using mixed method research. The results of the project will be translated into decision aids for clinicians and consumers addressing medication safety and promotion of shared decision-making, with a particular focus on people with limited English proficiency.
  16. "World Risk Poll and Mental Health Services" Quality mental health services are pivotal in addressing mental health issues worldwide. Despite this importance, many countries face challenges in providing accessible, high-quality mental health care. This project aims to analyse the Lloyd's Register Foundation World Risk Poll 2021, and data sourced from databases such as WHO and OECD to understand the relationship between mental health services and the public's worry about mental health issues.

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