I am an Associate Professor at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (University of Amsterdam). My work focuses upon contemporary issues social polarization and populism. In particular, I study the psychological roots of citizens’ political beliefs with the most attention to the role of personality and emotions. Besides I am motivated to work as transparent as possible and stimulate others to do the same. My work has appeared in journals such as Nature Human Behaviour, Journal of Communication, the American Political Science Review and the Journal of Politics.
I also serve as an Associate Editor at the Journal of Experimental Political Science. I am the co-founder of the Hot Politics Lab, a lab-group in which we study the role of emotions and personality in politics (here). I am also the founder and co-organizer of the Dutch Political Psychology Meetings which are held twice a year at the University of Amsterdam.
I teach the course the psychology of political communication in the Master Communication Science and in the Research Master I teach courses on Experimentation and Good Research Practices. Besides, I advice students while writing their Master thesis and during their (professional) internships.
PhD Supervision
The Hot Politics Lab aims to use political psychology and adjacent fields to explain salient socio-political themes. To date our work engages with themes such as populism, polarization, the role of emotions in politics and the quality of leadership. To this end we research citizens and elites combining traditional social science research methods such as surveys and experiments with computational and neuroscientific research methods.