What are the social and neural mechanisms that contribute to fluctuations in self-esteem in healthy adolescents and adolescents with depression?

Our mission is to improve the description, prediction, understanding and the prevention and treatment of mood disorders, including unipolar and bipolar depression, as well as suicidal thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. To tackle this ambitious mission, we focus on several research streams.

Optimization, mechanisms of action and predictors of the outcome of light therapy in depression: A multicenter randomized trial

What are the circadian disturbances underlying depression vulnerability? How are they related to mood, cognition and sleep ?

Heightened activation of the striatum that adolescents show in response to reward is often associated with risk-taking and negative health consequences. This article in Nature Communications investigates a potential positive side of this heightened activation. It shows that the activity peak in late…

What role do parent-child interactions play in the development, maintenance and treatment of depression in young people?

Is blended care a feasible and effective treatment method for social anxiety in adolescence?

Nowadays children grow up with social media. This may influence the development of brain regions involved in social interaction. In their review article in Nature Communications, Crone and Konijn illustrate how neuroscience can contribute to a better understanding of how media and peers influence adolescents'…

The Leiden Index of Depression Sensitivity (LEIDS) measures cognitive reactivity (CR) to sadness, an aspect of cognitive vulnerability to depression, conceptually similar to rumination.

Fundamental insights into the working of the adolescent brain help lecturers and parents to teach adolescents to function better. Professor Eveline Crone studies executive functions – such as planning and behaviour – in the adolescent brain.

Effects of age and social anxiety

Are you thinking about studying Child and Adolescent Psychology? Learn more and watch the videos.

Serious forms of anxiety concerning other people’s opinions can hinder teenagers at school in social interactions or carrying out tasks. Psychologist Anne Miers is looking for ways to reduce this so-called ‘social anxiety’.

A study on the development of prosocial behaviour.

In a longitudinal study, Eichengreen and colleagues explored how the certain aspects of emotional intelligence impact the development of adolescents’ mental health, thus identifying potential warning signs and targets for intervention programs. Despite a higher risk for mental health issues and lesser…

This project investigates which aspects of social media content adolescents attend to and how these relate to their credibility judgments, aiming to systematically understand their susceptibility to misinformation and inform effective educational programs that foster youth’s resilience to misinforma…

What is the neural basis of social decision-making across childhood, adolescence and adulthood and what are the developmental patterns in terms of behavior and brain activation?

In the specialisation Child and Adolescent Psychology , part of the Master in Psychology, you develop practical skills in assessing and managing developmental psychopathology.

During adolescence, mood disorder onset peaks. Mood variability is associated with negative mental health outcomes, so understanding biological factors that might be associated with mood variability, such as sleep and structural brain development, could elucidate the mechanisms underlying mood and anxiety…

Trust and reciprocity are two important social behaviors that help adolescents to navigate their social world successfully. In their empirical article in Journal of Research on Adolescence, van de Groep, Meuwese, Zanolie, Güroğlu, and Crone describe the development of trust and reciprocity in adolescents…

We found that, next to the effectiveness of the intervention, it’s also very likely that the intervention is cost-effective compared to attention only.

How does having limited access to the social world affect Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) children’s emotional development? And in turn, how do impairments in emotional functioning affect social development and the development of psychopathology?

In online games conflicts between players may arise. Novin, Bos, Stevenson and Rieffe investigated factors that may explain why some adolescents react more angrily than others in this type of situation. In their realistically designed gaming environment, the (pre-programmed) fellow player suddenly started…

Promotores: C.A.J. Knibbe; J.N. van den Anker, Co-promotores: H.P.A. van Dongen; B. van Ramshorst

Why do children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulties with acquiring emotion regulation skills; and how is this related to their social impairments and comorbid psychopathology?

How do genetic and environmental factors make us vulnerable to depression?

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To investigate the effectiveness of an online self-help programme for people with HIV and depressive symptoms.

My ERC Starting Grant, funded with €1.5 million for 5 years as part of the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, is focused on building the early warning system WARN-D to reliably forecast depression in young adults before it occurs. Why depression, and why prediction?

Bernet Elzinga (Clinical Psychology) is one of the seven scientists from the Leiden University who has received a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros from NWO. Vici is one of the largest grants for individual scientists in the Netherlands. The funding will enable her to do research for the next five years…

Up to 50% of all children and adolescents growing up worldwide are exposed to at least one form of childhood adversity (CA), which is one of the strongest predictors for later-life psychopathology.

Children and adolescents really do use their ‘smart’ brain areas. This has been confirmed by an extensive and long-running study of the brain carried out by developmental psychologist Sabine Peters . Her findings can have important consequences for education. PhD defence 27 January.

The main aim of this dissertation was to provide insight into possible subtle forms of bias in youth socialization by various socializing agents in the Netherlands, and exploring new ways to document bias. Additionally, it addresses the importance of using sound statistical methods for calculating effect…

Depression has traditionally been linked to increased inflammation. Innovative research by psychologist Eiko Fried refutes this popular assumption. He shows that specific depression symptoms such as sleeping problems explain this relationship. Publication in Psychological Medicine .

The overall aim of the project is to investigate effective ways to strengthen vocational identity of at-risk adolescents in order to contribute to a successful transition from late secondary to post secondary lower vocational education or to work.

What is the effectiveness of (booklet or online) self-help programmes for people with somatic stressors and depressive symptoms? What works best for whom? How to improve motivation and adherence?

The ‘empathic mind’ in children with Specific Language Impairments (SLI); what can children with SLI understand of other people’s minds and emotions?

Development and validation of instruments that can measure different aspects of emotional competence in children with normal and atypical development, and in different cultures

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Positive friendships are characterised by understanding mutual wishes and intentions, respect for each other’s boundaries and pro-social behaviour. Qualities that might be more challenging for autistic adolescents.

Some people are more sensitive to depression than others. But why is that the case? Clinical psychologist Niki Antypa studied how vulnerability to depression is influenced by cognition. She also found a first careful indication that a treatment with omega-3 fatty acids might provide a solution.

Can positive peer feedback break the cycle of negative self-relevant cognitive processes and reduce self-reported anxiety in early adolescents?

I want to understand the overlap between physical health, mental health, and healthy aging and whether/how stress (behaviorally and biologically) may tie these concepts together.

CERQ is a questionnaire measuring cognitive coping strategies developed by Dr. Nadia Garnefski and Dr. Vivian Kraaij.

Why does social anxiety increase in adolescence and how does it grow out of control in some adolescents?