A Psychologist with High Curiosity

Chee-Seng Tan is a psychologist passionate about contemplating issues and enjoys appreciating life's beauty. His experience in psychological research and self-awareness has led him to believe that everything has bright and dark sides. 

He sees himself as a navigator, guiding others to discover their hidden strengths. He enjoys assisting people in realizing their potential and advocates using scientific methods to explore sustainable well-being and ways to improve life satisfaction. 


Research Interests

Creativity

I investigate interventions and mechanisms that enhance creative performance. My Ph.D. thesis explored a hotly debated topic in the fields of cognition, emotion, and creation – what role emotion plays on creativity. I have argued that the previous approach overlooked the effect of self-appraisal and hence, fails to describe the whole picture of the relationship between emotion and creativity. Therefore, instead of examining the impact of positive and negative emotions alone, I proposed a new conceptual model to investigate the impact of self-appraisal in the emotion-creativity link. In three experiments, I found that both positive and negative emotions could improve creative performance. The facilitation effect, however, is subject to how the individual interprets the task. For instance, negative emotion is only conducive to creative performance when individuals perceived the task as important.  

Scale Development and Validation

Measurements with good qualities are critical to research. I examined the psychometrics qualities of measurements that developed in other cultural backgrounds to understand if they are usable in the Malaysian context. 

Positive Psychology

My interest also extends to exploring psychological factors and interventions that enhance human well-being.


Selected Award


 

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