Dr. Shamsul Haque
Monash University Malaysia
Shamsul Haque completed his Bachelor of Science (Psychology) and Master of Science (Psychology) from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Soon after his Master's degree, he joined the Department of Psychology at the University of Dhaka in 1994. In 1996, he went to the University of Bristol, the UK to do his Ph.D. on a Commonwealth Scholarship where he studied the retrieval of autobiographical memories in healthy adults.
After completing his Ph.D. in 1999, he returned to his job at the University of Dhaka. From 2001 to 2003, he obtained two fellowships from the Ford Foundation that enabled him to conduct postdoctoral research on culture, identity, and autobiographical memory in China, Malaysia, and the UK. In 2003, he moved to Malaysia to join the Department of Psychology at the International Islamic University Malaysia.
After successfully completing a three-year contract with this university, he joined Monash University Malaysia in 2006, where he founded the Department of Psychology. He has been active in research throughout his academic career - published 70 plus journal articles, book chapters, and newspaper articles. His research mainly focuses on the retrieval of autobiographical memory; trauma, memory, and mental health; and narrative identity and autobiographical memory. He has recently edited a Special Issue for Frontiers in Psychology on Autobiographical memory, narrative identity, and mental health, which has been viewed by more than 40K individuals. He has supervised 8 Ph.D. students to completion at Monash University Malaysia.
Physical Plenary Talk
Trauma, Memory and Mental Health Among Rohingya Refugee People Living in Short- & Long-Term Resettlements
Ample research has shown that exposure to traumatic events leads to autobiographical memory (AM) impairment, but the differential effects of direct and indirect trauma on memory remain unclear. We investigated AMs of 100 Rohingya refugee people recruited from camps in rural Bangladesh and urban communities in Malaysia. The participants retrieved ten memories to cue words, and completed the PTSD-8 scale and a trauma checklist reporting the types of traumatic events they were exposed to. Results revealed that participants with frequent exposure to direct and indirect trauma retrieved more traumatic memories. Contrary to our expectations, however, direct trauma memories appeared to be more specific than indirect trauma and non-trauma memories. Refugee people who scored higher on the PTSD-8 scale recalled more non-specific AMs. The participants from Bangladesh who migrated months before data collection, thus retaining recent trauma experiences, retrieved more non-specific memories than those in Malaysia who migrated years ago. The participant’s ability to recall more direct trauma memories with specificity could be attributed to the repeated recall of those memories to the relevant authorities of the host countries to justify their refugee status.