Cecilia Cheng
- Media Contact
- SPN Mentor
Professor Cecilia Cheng is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Hong Kong, specializing in areas including personality, social, health, applied, cross-cultural, and cyber-psychology. She is an elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) and serves as the Director-at-Large of the International Council of Psychologists (ICP). Professor Cheng has received several notable accolades, including the Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, Cambridge Hughes Hall Fellowship, ICP Early Career Research Award, and Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship from the Research Grants Council (RGC).
Professor Cheng has served as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Personality Processes and Individual Differences section), a flagship journal in the social psychology field, and an Associate Editor of Health Psychology Review, a flagship journal in the clinical psychology field. Currently, she holds the position of Senior Editor for Social Science and Medicine (Health Psychology Office) and also serves as a Consulting Editor for esteemed journals such as Psychological Bulletin and the British Journal of Social Psychology. She is also an Editor of the second edition of the SAGE Handbook of Health Psychology. During her tenure at the University of Hong Kong, she held the position of Associate Dean (Postgraduate Education) at the Faculty of Social Sciences and currently serves as the Associate Dean (Personal Development) at the Graduate School.
Professor Cheng’s research team is dedicated to improving the mental and physical wellness of the Hong Kong population. Her work applies theoretical frameworks from personality and social psychology to address real-life pressing issues such as gaming disorder, cyberbullying and school bullying, information technology addiction, digital citizenship, positive education, stress and coping, psychosomatic disorders, emotional disorders, and health-risk behaviors. Her team regularly organizes workshops, courses, and lectures to raise public awareness about mental and physical well-being.
Primary Interests:
- Applied Social Psychology
- Close Relationships
- Culture and Ethnicity
- Gender Psychology
- Health Psychology
- Interpersonal Processes
- Motivation, Goal Setting
- Person Perception
- Personality, Individual Differences
- Self and Identity
- Social Cognition
Research Group or Laboratory:
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Journal Articles:
- Cheng, C. (2009). Dialectical thinking and coping flexibility: A multimethod approach. Journal of Personality, 77, 471-493.
- Cheng, C. (2003). Cognitive and motivational processes underlying coping flexibility: A dual-process model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 425-438.
- Cheng, C. (2001). Assessing coping flexibility in real-life and laboratory settings: A multimethod approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 814-833.
- Cheng, C., Chen, Z., & LuoKogan, A. (2008). Social support and money as double-edged swords: Primary soothers and precipitants of pain. Psychological Inquiry, 19, 153-160. doi:10.1080/10478400802608806
- Cheng, C., & Cheung, M. W. L. (2005). Cognitive processes underlying coping flexibility: Differentiation and integration. Journal of Personality, 73, 859-886.
- Cheng, C., Cheung, M. W. L., & Lo, B. C. Y. (2016). Relationship of health locus of control with specific health behaviours and global health appraisal: A meta-analysis and effects of moderators. Health Psychology Review, 10, 460-477. doi:10.1080/17437199.2016.1219672
- Cheng, C., Cheung, M. W. L., Montasem, A., & Members of the International Network of Well-Being Studies. (2016). Explaining Differences in Subjective Well‐Being Across 33 Nations Using Multilevel Models: Universal Personality, Cultural Relativity, and National Income. Journal of Personality, 84, 46-58. doi:10.1111/jopy.12136
- Cheng, C., Cheung, M. W. L., & Wang, H.-Y. (2018). Multinational comparison of internet gaming disorder and psychosocial problems versus well-being: Meta-analysis of 20 countries. Computers in Human Behavior, 88, 153-167. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2018.06.033
- Cheng, C., Cheung, S., Chio, J. H., & Chan, M. S. (2013). Cultural meaning of perceived control: A meta-analysis of locus of control and psychological symptoms across 18 cultural regions. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 152-188.
- Cheng, C., Chiu, C., Hong, Y., & Cheung, J. S. (2001). Discriminative facility and its role in the perceived quality of interactional experiences. Journal of Personality, 69, 765-786.
- Cheng, C., Hui, W., & Lam, S. (2004). Psychosocial factors and perceived severity of functional dyspeptic symptoms: A psychosocial interactionist model. Psychosomatic Medicine, 66, 85-91.
- Cheng, C., Hui, W., & Lam, S. (2000). Perceptual style and behavioral pattern of individuals with functional gastrointestinal disorders. Health Psychology, 19, 146-154.
- Cheng, C., Jose, P. E., Sheldon, K. M., Singelis, T. M., Cheung, M. W. L., Tiliouine, H., Alao, A. A., Chio, J. H. M., Lui, J. Y. M., Chun, W. Y., de Zavala, A. G., Hakuzimana, A., Hertel, J., Liu, J., Onyewadume, M., & Sims, C. (2011). Socio-cultural differences in self-construal and subjective well-being: A test of four cultural models. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 42, 832-855.
- Cheng, C., Kogan, A., & Chio, J. H. (2012). The effectiveness of a new, coping flexibility intervention as compared with a cognitive-behavioural intervention in managing work stress. Work & Stress, 26, 272-288.
- Cheng, C., Lau, H. B., & Chan, M. S. (2014). Coping flexibility and psychological adjustment to stressful life changes: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 140, 1582-1607. doi:10.1037/a0037913
- Cheng, C., & Li, A. Y. (2014). Internet addiction prevalence and quality of (real) life: A meta-analytic review of 31 nations across seven world regions. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 17, 755-760
- Cheng, C., Sun, P., & Mak, K. (2015). Internet addiction and psychosocial maladjustment: Avoidant coping and coping inflexibility as psychological mechanisms. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18, 539-546. doi:10.1089/cyber.2015.0121
- Cheng, C., Wang, H., Sigerson, L., & Chau, C. (2019). Do socially rich get richer? A nuanced perspective on sociability and social network site use. Psychological Bulletin, 145, 734-764.
- Lai, C. M., Mak, K. K., Watanabe, H., Jeong, J., Kim, D., Bahar, N., . . . Cheng, C. (2015). The mediating role of Internet addiction in depression, social anxiety, and psychosocial well-being among adolescents in six Asian countries: A structural equation modelling approach. Public Health, 129, 1224-1236. doi:10.1016/j.puhe.2015.07.031
- Li, A. Y.-L., Lo, B. C. Y., & Cheng, C. (2018). It is the family context that matters: Concurrent and predictive effects of aspects of parent-child interaction on video gaming-related problems. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 21, 374-380. doi:10.1089/cyber.2017.0566
- Sariyska, R., Lachmann, B., Cheng, C., Gnisci, A., Sergi, I., Pace, A., . . . Montag, C. (2019). The motivation for facebook use - is it a matter of bonding or control over others?: Evidence from a cross-cultural study. Journal of Individual Differences, 40, 26-35. doi:10.1027/1614-0001/a000273
- Sigerson, L., & Cheng, C. (2018). Scales for measuring user engagement with social network sites: A systematic review of psychometric properties. Computers in Human Behavior, 83, 87-105. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2018.01.023
- Sigerson, L., Li, A. Y. L., Cheung, M. W. L., & Cheng, C. (2017). Examining common information technology addictions and their relationships with non-technology-related addictions. Computers in Human Behavior, 75, 520-526. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2017.05.041
- Sigerson, L., Li, A. Y. L., Cheung, M. W. L., Luk, J. W., & Cheng, C. (2017). Psychometric properties of the Chinese Internet Gaming Disorder Scale. Addictive Behaviors, 74, 20-26. doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2017.05.031
- Sung, H., Sigerson, L., & Cheng, C. (2017). Social capital accumulation in location-based mobile game playing: A multiple-process approach. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 20, 486-493. doi:10.1089/cyber.2017.0222
- Wang, H.-Y., Sigerson, L., & Cheng, C. (2019). Digital nativity and information technology addiction: Age cohort versus individual difference approaches. Computers in Human Behavior, 90, 1-9. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2018.08.031
- Wang, H.-Y., Sigerson, L., Jiang, H., & Cheng, C. (2018). Psychometric properties and factor structures of Chinese Smartphone Addiction Inventory: Test of two models. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1411. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01411
Courses Taught:
- Advanced Personality Psychology
- Advanced Social Psychology
- Current Issues in Psychology
- Graduate Seminar in Social Psych
- Health Psychology
- Interpersonal Communication
- Interpersonal Relations
- Introduction to Psychology
- Personality Psychology
- Social Psychology
Cecilia Cheng
Department of Psychology
University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam Road
Hong Kong
Hong Kong
- Phone: 852-3917-4224
- Fax: 852-2219-4158
