Search - Leiden University

The Social Consequences of Empathic and Counter-Empathic Emotions: Contextual Influences on Social Perception and Evaluation Event - 26 May 2026
PhD defence

Podcast: Animals have emotions News - 1 April 2022
In this episode, we talk with Mariska Kret about the expressions of emotions in humans and animals. Mariska explores the similarities and differences in emotion expression in humans and primates. Want to learn more about Mariska's research and discover why it's important that we learn more about animal…

Stimulating the gut–brain nerve can influence emotion News - 10 May 2022
Stimulating the vagus nerve, which provides a direct link between the gut and brain, makes people pay less attention to sad facial expressions. This research study by psychologists Katerina Johnson and Laura Steenbergen is published in the journal Neuroscience.

Workshop on the emotional aspects of border control and migration News - 30 September 2024
On 7 and 8 October, a two-day workshop will be hosted by the Van Vollenhoven Institute in collaboration with the University of Oxford’s Border Criminologies network and the Social Citizenship & Migration assisted area. The theme of the workshop will be ‘Border policing, boundary creation and emotion…

AI and emotion recognition: ‘It could disrupt social interactions’ News - 21 July 2025
Just imagine new AI technology is able to read human emotions flawlessly. How would that affect us as humans? That is the question PhD candidate Alexandra Prégent is exploring.

Autistic children develop social-emotional skills with other children News - 10 November 2021
Autistic children have indeed potential: most of their emotional abilities improve with age, concludes developmental psychologist Boya Li in her research on the emotional development of autistic children. Promotion on 10 November 2021.

From horror to silent strength: Leiden researches emotions at Lowlands News - 23 June 2025
This summer, Leiden University will be setting up camp at Lowlands with two research projects. Participants are invited to explore their fears and feelings, and in doing so, contribute to scientific research.

insights into characteristics of Conduct Disorder with "limited prosocial emotions" News - 4 May 2021
In a recent study, Dr. Moji Aghajani and colleagues show that adolescents with a severe form of Conduct Disorder (CD) -with limited prosocial emotions- require an unusually large amount of brain capacity to read emotional faces. These effects were found in comparison to CD youth without limited prosocial…

European Grant for Mariska Kret's Virtual Reality emotion training tool News - 24 May 2022
Teaching people to recognize subtle, real-world expressions will help them understand and trust others better. The aim of Mariska Kret is to develop an interactive virtual-reality training tool (E-VIRT) for a broad group of users, including patients. Kret provides a brief description of her idea for…

Deaf and hard-of-hearing children keep pace with hearing peers in emotional development News - 19 February 2025
Deaf and hard-of-hearing children can find it challenging to blend in during recess on the playground. Yet, in recent studies, two PhD researchers studying children in China and Portugal showed that the emotional development of these children is largely on par with their hearing classmates.

Bonobos, unlike humans, are more interested in the emotions of strangers than acquaintances News - 11 January 2023
Humans and bonobos show striking similarities as well as differences when they see pictures of conspecifics. Both are more interested in photos of conspecifics that show emotion. But while our human attention is more easily drawn to photos of family members and friends that express certain emotions,…

How can people with autism and social anxiety understand others’ emotions better? News - 23 January 2025
A smile, tears in your eyes or a blush on your cheeks: we understand one another better by mirroring one another’s emotions. In her PhD dissertation, Julia Folz concludes that people with autism or social anxiety can be helped by interventions focused on the body.

Psychologists on NOS Jeugdjournaal about research on emotions in children. Join project Fearless? News - 27 May 2024
In het LUMC in Leiden onderzoeken ontwikkelingspsychologen hoe kinderen en jongeren omgaan met emoties. Daarvoor maken ze een mri-scan van de hersenen van de deelnemers (9 - 16 jaar). De 11-jarige Olivier in het Jeugdjournaal: ‘Ik vind het leuk om het onderzoek te helpen.’ Wil je ook de wetenschappers…

Emotions in the courtroom: research into the impact of victim impact statements on judges News - 9 September 2024
In court, victims of violent crime and sexual offences are permitted to comment on the defendant’s guilt and the sentence to be imposed. But legal experts believe this allows them to influence the judge. Lecturer Joyce Schot has received a Meijers PhD grant to investigate whether the right to speak…

What should the university do? Questions and emotions at university conversation on Israel-Palestine News - 2 July 2025
Should we cut our ties with Israel or maintain them? The event ‘A university conversation on Israel/Palestine’ on 1 July revealed the depth of feeling about the conflict, with students and staff grappling with academic values and moral dilemmas.

drives humans? How Mariska Kret manages to touch science with her emotion research News - 20 February 2024
In zoos, at festivals and in a mobile lab at the market: everywhere, Mariska Kret tries to understand human and animal emotions with her distinctive behavioural research. Now she has received the Mercator Sapiens Stimulus of €1 million for her efforts.

Beyond iced coffee and face masks: ‘True self-care is about emotional awareness and living according to your values’ News - 9 October 2025
In hun klinische stage leren Psychologiestudenten mentale steun bieden aan anderen, maar hoe zorgen zij als toekomstige therapeut ook voor zichzelf? Met video’s, podcasts en een panel wil Kelly Ziemer haar studenten de nodige zelfzorg-skills bijbrengen.

When speech becomes emotional Event - 16 December 2025
PhD defence