Background

Hillie Aaldering works as assistant professor at the department of Work and Organizational Psychology at the UvA. She finished her PhD project on individual cooperation in intergroup conflict and representative negotiations at the same department in June 2014.

Research
In my PhD project, I have researched determinants of parochial and universal cooperation in intergroup conflicts. When confronted with an intergroup conflict, individuals can choose how to invest their resources: a) In their own group, thereby helping their group to win over the party but potentially simultaneously increasing the severity of the conflict and hostilities between the two parties, or b) in the overarching collective of the two parties, thereby trying to help the parties find an agreement towards conflict resolution. Alternatively, individuals can choose to c) do nothing and keep their resources to themselves.
A specific and interesting case of this cooperation dilemma is faced by representative negotiators. They need to reach an agreement with the other party while defending the interests of the party they represent. Again, they can choose to take a competitive stance and fight for their party, which can lead to a win-lose or a lose-lose agreement, or try to integrate interests of two parties and reach a win-win solution.
In my research, I investigates which factors on different levels (ie personality variables, intragrooup variables such as discord within the group/ constituency or communication between representative and constituency, and intergroup variables such as the severity of the conflict and the degree to which interests of the parties are (not) aligned) influence how individuals cooperate in intergroup conflicts.

Future research areas include investigating how constituencies can influence the negotiation process, how representatives could and should sell reached agreements to their constituency in order to gain approval and support from their constituency as well as to reach subsequent harmony in intergroup relations, further investigating psychological determinants of cooperation in intergroup conflicts and investigating when and why groups decide to start a conflict by displaying (defensive) agression (preemptive strike). 

 Additional research interests are social mindfulness in conflict and cooperation, cooperation and competition in intragroup conflicts and the use of ethics in negotiations.

 My research has mainly been conducted with lab experiments, investigating controlled cooperation and negotiation behavior through negotiation paradigms and experimental games. Future research will continue using these methods as well as focus on applied and practically oriented research towards conflict process facilitation and mediation in organizational negotiations. 

General Research Interests 

Intra- and Inter-group Conflict, Cooperation and Competition, Negotiation, Social Decision Making, Social Dilemmas, Experimental Games

Teaching

- Conflict and cooperation (work and organizational psychology master specialization course)

-  Motivation and work behavior practicals (Motivatie en Arbeidsgedrag; work and organizational psychology  bachelor specialization course)

-  SOAP practicals (Academic writing and research, work and organizational psychology master   specialization course)

-  Bachelor theses for work and organizational psychology students

-  (Research) Master theses for work and organizational psychology students

If you are a motivated and hard working (research) master student and you have a specific interest in the described research areas for your master thesis, feel free to contact me (in Dutch or English)!  

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