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Department of Psychology

Jean Anne Heng is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Generation New Era (GNE) core research team at the University of Cambridge, and an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London. She was previously an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Child, Adolescent and Family Research, University of Cambridge (2024-25). Her research explores early caregiving environments, parent-child interaction, and child developmental outcomes across diverse cultural and socioeconomic contexts, with a particular focus on families in low- and middle-income settings. Her work applies cross-cultural, longitudinal, and multi-method approaches to examine how caregiving beliefs and practices shape young children's social, emotional, and cognitive development.

Publications

Key publications: 

Heng, J. A.*, Wang, Z.*, Xu, C.*, Agtchin, A., Chen, L. L., Dempsey, C., Edwards, M., D’Souza, H., ...& Hughes, C. (2025). Mind-mindedness, parenting, and family adversity: Associations and moderation effects across three sites. Journal of Family Psychology.

Chen, L. L.*, Heng, J. A.*, Xu, C.*, Ellefson, M. R., Edwards, M., D'Souza, H., ... & Hughes, C. (2025). Links Between Child Executive Function and Adjustment: A Three‐Site Study. Child Development. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14264

Ip, K. I.*, Heng, J. A.*, Lin, J., Shi, J., Li, W., & Olson, S. (2024). Parents’ ethnotheories of the nature and causes of children’s misbehaviors: A comparison of mothers across two cultures. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 48(5), 385-397. https://doi.org/10.1177/01650254241239974

Heng, J. A., & Olson, S. (2024). Examining Malaysian mothers' causal attributions of maladaptive externalizing and internalizing behaviors in young children. Family Relations, 73(5), 3603-3622. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.13050

Kong, K., Heng, J. A., Tan, S. T., Shafee, A., & Cheah, A. (2024). Links between Duration of Early Childhood Education Participation and School Readiness Domains: A Study with Malaysian Public Preschool Children. Early Childhood Education Journal, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-024-01757-y

Heng, J. A., & Gone, J. P. (2018). Islam and mental health: a Malaysian profile. Malaysian Journal of Psychiatry, 27(2), 66-74.

Other publications: 

Cheah, A., Kong, K., Heng, J. A., Ereky-Stevens, K., & Siraj, I. (2026). Assessing school readiness domains in a large cohort of refugee children: Validation and links with family factors. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 88, 101557.

Devine, R. T., Gray, L., Edwards, M., Jess, M., Dempsey, C., Heng, J., Mehrotra, M., D'Souza, H., Fink, E., & Hughes, C. (2025). Changes in children’s well-being and mental health across the early school years: Links with academic and social competence.Developmental Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001962

Hughes, C., Ronchi, L., Heng, J., Basile, C., Del Sette, P., Lecce, S., & the i-FAM COVID-19 Consortium. (2023). What mediates the effect of family disruption in the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s prosocial behavior: A multisite study. Social Psychology, 54(1-2), 52–65. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000485

Teaching and Supervisions

Research supervision: 

Co-supervisior, PBS 8 Dissertation 

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Contact Details

Classifications: 
Not available for consultancy