Behavioural Sciences Institute

In the United Nations reporting system, the two major indicators taken to index a nation’s well being are the GDP and the HDI. However, there has been increasing concerns, both locally and internationally, that these “objective” well-being indicators may not be sufficient or even adequate as aggregate measures of citizens’ well-being such as their level of life satisfaction and happiness. Indeed, a major part of an individual’s well-being is inherently subjective insofar as it is about how the individual thinks and feels about his or her quality of life. As subjective well-being is correlated with or predictive of the individual’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviours, it is important that public policy makers and organisational leaders have a good grasp of the research on happiness and well-being.

We will first examine well-being at different levels of analysis (the nation, the group or team, individual) and discuss the complexities in the conceptualisation and measurement of well-being in scientific research. I will provide a brief summary of a report that I coauthored with 5 other researchers on an international committee (including Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman) and submitted to the United Nations on measures of national well-being across countries. Next, we will discuss several studies conducted in Singapore to illustrate important issues on well-being. Drawing on scientific research, we will discuss challenges to well-being posed by negativity bias and defensive pessimism. We will then examine how the ability to judge and effectively respond to practical situations is key to enhancing well-being. Specifically, situational judgment effectiveness will determine whether an individual’s proactive behaviours are adaptive or maladaptive for well-being as well as whether an individual’s thinking styles and motivational goals may be help or hurt well-being. Finally, we will discuss how the science of happiness and well-being can provide us an evidence-based approach towards developing better management in organisations and policy making in Singapore.

David Chan received his PhD in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Michigan State University. He is currently Professor of Psychology and Director of the Behavioural Sciences Institute and formerly Deputy Provost (2008-2011) at Singapore Management University. He also served as Deputy Director of the Wharton-SMU Research Centre.

Professor Chan's research includes areas in research methods and data analysis with a focus on longitudinal modeling and multilevel issues, work and organizational psychology with a focus on personnel selection and adaptation to changes, and subjective well-being. He has published numerous journal articles, Handbook chapters, and Encyclopedia entries, authored a textbook in personnel selection, and delivered several keynote speeches and papers at international conferences.

Professor Chan has received several scholarly awards including the William Owens Scholarly Achievement Award and the Edwin Ghiselli Award for Innovative Research Design presented by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and the Dissertation Research Award presented by the American Psychological Association. He is the first non-American to receive the Distinguished Early Career Contributions Award from the SIOP. In 2000, he was ranked 9th world-wide in the list of Top 100 most published researchers of the 1990’s in the top journals of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. As of early 2011, his works have been cited more than 1600 times by other scholars in articles published in refereed journals in various disciplines.

Professor Chan has served as Senior Editor of the Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Associate Editor of the Journal of Organizational Behavior, and member on the editorial boards of several journals. He is the Advisory Editor for Oxford Bibliographies Online: Management, published by the Oxford University Press. He also serves as regular reviewer for over 10 journals, the National Science Foundation in United States, and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council. He has worked with several public and private organisations in Singapore and United States on personnel selection, national surveys and related projects. He is also Consultant to the Prime Minister’s Office in Singapore, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, the Singapore Police Force, and the Singapore Prison Service. He is a member of the National Council on Problem Gambling and Chairman of the Council’s Committee on Research, a member of the National Youth Council’s Advisory Panel on Youth Research, a member on the International Advisory Board of the Centre for the Advancement of Research Methods and Analysis and a member of the Economics and Social Research Network which advises the Singapore Government on issues in economic and social sciences research. He is also Chairman of the International Advisory Panel to the National Addictions Management Service and National Council on Problem Gambling.

Together with Nobel Laureate in Economics Professor Daniel Kahneman and world-renowned psychologist Professor Ed Diener, Professor Chan serves on an international committee formed to develop measures of national well-being across countries. Professor Chan is an elected Fellow of the SIOP, the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association and the International Association of Applied Psychology. His biographical profile is featured in Marquis Who’s Who in Asia, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in the World.