Master of Arts (Counselling & Guidance)

Depression has been projected to be the second leading cause of disability affecting both genders and all ages by 2020. On the other hand, gratitude has been shown to initiate upward spirals towards greater emotional well-being and life satisfaction. The present study examines the effects of a „3 good things‟ gratitude intervention on the positive and negative affect, depressive symptoms and satisfaction with life in 128 secondary school students. Four classes were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control condition. The weekly interventions were carried out over six weeks. The self-report results at the immediate post intervention showed that the gratitude intervention works better with the older participants with regards to negative affect compared to the control condition. It is also shown to have greater impact on females in satisfaction with life. Apart from these interactions, the study did not yield significant main effects. The study therefore partially supports two of the hypotheses. At pre intervention, participants‟ baseline scores were relatively high. The implications are discussed. Strengths and limitations are also discussed. The study opens doors for more research on the promising gratitude intervention in the Asian Singapore context.

Singapore adolescents are at risk from the negative effects of pathological video gaming and Internet addiction. Although there are studies conducted on pathological video gaming and its effects, there is a lack of research done in Singapore to examine the impact of parental supervision and parent-child relationship on adolescents’ pathological video gaming. This research aims to investigate the association between parent-child relationship and their adolescent children’s’ pathological video gaming behaviour. It also investigates the association between parent-child relationship and parental supervision of the adolescents’ pathological video gaming in terms of active and restrictive mediation. A total of 690 Secondary 1 to 3 students from three secondary schools in Singapore were involved in the survey. The data was analysed through correlations and one-away ANOVA statistical tests. The results showed that there is a significant and negative correlation between pathological video gaming with parent-child relationship. The results also showed that better relationship with fathers and mothers are associated with more active parental mediation. However, there is no significant relationship between parent-child relationship and restrictive mediation by the parents. The level of active mediation and restriction mediation were not significantly related to the adolescents’ pathological video gaming. With these findings, it is important that the parents of pathological video gaming adolescents are supported with counselling and mediation services. Parents need to learn and pick up specific adolescent appropriate parenting skills to put in place effective parental supervision. They also need to keep abreast of trends, activities and developments in the media and cyber space that their children are involved in or exposed to.