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?

What are the developmental pathways to social anxiety (disorder), the causal processes and maintaining factors? How do these factors interact in the development of social anxiety disorder? How can this knowledge be used to design and implement effective preventive intervention programs for youth?

The consequences of social tendencies for the legislation and institutions in the fields of social security, the labor market policy and pension reform are examined in this multdisciplinary research program..

Ellen de Bruijn and Berna Güroğlu, both of the Psychology Institute, have been proposed for professorships by the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. Güroğlu: ‘I feel honoured that the University has approved the appointment.’ De Bruijn: ‘It’s great, and really motivating, that Leiden University…

Season 2 of the Leiden Psychology podcast has started, and we're kicking it off with a special Q&A featuring our new hosts Aziza and Priya. In this episode you are offered a chance to get to know them better.

Transferring to the Bachelor's programme in Psychology at Leiden University

Two Leiden researchers of the Institute of Psychology have been given the opportunity to realise their research plans for the coming three years thanks to a Veni grant from the Netherlands organisation for scientific research. Hanneke Hendriks is researcher in the field of Social and organisational…

Which adolescents are more at risk of developing social anxiety disorder later in life?

On the Psychology Science Day 2019 bachelor students were granted a certificate for participating in the Honours Research Bachelor Project (HRBP) and the Honours Lectures. The HRBP participants and the Research Master students also presented their latest research by means of poster presentations and…

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

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

This project aims at studying the social media reception of African publications as covered by the most important “altmetric” sources.

The theses awards go to Maud van den Eijnden (MSc) and Michael Aristodemou (MSc research). PhD candidates Frank Doolaard and Meriem Manaï wrote the best scientific articles. Anna van Duijvenvoorde wins the Leiden Psychology Blog Award. Corry Donner gets an award for administrative staff of the Institute…

Social anxiety disorder is one of the most common disorders in children and young people. Social anxiety is characterized by excessive fear and avoidance of social situations. The primary fear in children with social anxiety is that they will be negatively judged by others. To date, the most frequently…

Efficiently responding to others’ emotions has great survival value, especially for social species, such as primates, who establish close, long-term bonds with group members. The closest living relatives to humans are the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Studying these species, and comparing them on the exact…

Psychology teacher of the year is Anouk van der Weiden. The master thesis awards are for Irina Verhülsdonk and Christel Klootwijk. Eliška Procházková receives the PhD publication prize; Katja Cardol and Judith Tommel the PhD wild card: the Open Science Award. Conny Binnendijk earns the OBP prize and…

We talk with Sophia Dittmar about starting a career in Psychology. Dittmar is currently studying the master's specialisation in Economic and Consumer Psychology at Leiden University. We talk about what she learned from her internship, why she switched masters and how to get the most out of an internship.…

The Psychology Teaching Award goes to the entire team of teaching staff. PhD candidates Wouter van Loon and Hilmar Zech wrote the best scientific articles. The master's thesis awards go to Robert-Jan de Rooij and Florian Thomas-Odenthal. Marion Duijsman gets an award for administrative staff and Gert-Jan…

This dissertation takes an important step in understanding the phenomenon of non-take-up of social support and what it means for contemporary social policies.

‘Very interesting’ is what two bachelor students have to say about the stories by Liesbeth van Vliet and Niki Antypa during the Psychology Science Day. The icing on the cake were the poster presentations about the bachelor's theses, admired and commented on by scientists and fellow students. Teachers…

Americans are electing a new president in November but they also have other choices to make in the polling booth. Alumnus Sanne Rijkhoff works at a Texas university and is trying to help make students more aware of the elections.

Also in 2024, our colleagues from the Institute of Psychology were visible in the media in various ways. Check out their appearances in Dutch media, from NRC to the Podcast psychologist.

Have you ever experienced the feeling of awkwardness when attending a party where you didn’t know anybody? Ever felt shy at a party within the first few minutes? While this feeling is labelled loosely as feeling socially anxious, social anxiety disorder goes to a much further extent.

On February 15th 2018 former students in Methodology & Statistics (M&S) of Leiden University share their current and previous professional activities to provide M&S students an insight into their career perspectives.

Study information

Study information

In our collective journey to bridge social, economic, and cultural inequality in society, we must al play a part, says Wilco van Dijk. Unfortunately, notes Carolien Rieffe, minority groups are often not included in this 'we.' This became a focal point of discussion during the fifth Psychology Connected…

Robotics, using social mechanisms like hormonal modulation, may accelerate our understanding of core sociality principles. By looking at social robotics through an evolutionary lens, we propose this field as a promising framework to investigate the fundamental bricks of sociality from an evolutionary…

The key subject of the Team Economic and Social History is Inequality (at local, national and global levels). We study this from an intersectional perspective: gender, class, ethnicity or race, religion, sexuality, age, ability/disability, citizenship and legal status. We study these categories of power…

This article examines leadership encouragement and psychological safety as antecedents of prosocial rule-breaking (PSRB) behaviour.

The studies outlined in this volume explore how connectedness continues to change Africa and how Africa continues to shape the social life of connections.