I am Assistant Professor of Psychology at Utrecht University.
My research is mainly focused on why, when, and how people adhere (or do not adhere) to moral norms and/or behave according to their personal or shared moral values. Moreover, since people may not always be able or willing to report their attitudes about moral issues or to reflect on their (im)moral intentions, I take a psychophysiological and neuroscientific approach to examine people’s (implicit) behavioral tendencies as well as the affective and cognitive processes underlying these inclinations. To this end, I complement the use of self-report questionnaires with (explicit or implicit) behavioral measures and psychophysiological or neuroscientific research methods (e.g., ECG/EEG/ERP). Furthermore, my goal is to provide insights in the more fundamental psychological processes associated with (im)moral issues, behavior, and decision-making to complement applied scientific research on, for instance, ethical climates in organizations or the implementation of organizational and public policies.
I work in the Organizational Behavior Group (https://www.uu.nl/en/research/organisational-behaviour), where I supervise several PhD students and research associates involved in projects related to the topics of morality, integrity and ethics. I also supervise BA and MA thesis students within the Social Influence track of the Social, Health and Organisational Psychology program, and teach courses in the minor Social Neuroscience.
In 2009 I completed a Research Master in Developmental Psychology at Leiden University, and graduated on a project about the neural underpinnings of social decision-making in adolescents. After that, I became a research assistant at the Social and Organizational Psychology Unit at Leiden University, where I conducted research concerning the neural, cognitive, and affective processes associated with moral behavior and compliance to moral group norms. These studies became part of my PhD research. In 2014, I successfully defended my dissertation titled ‘Neural correlates of the motivation to be moral’, and I continued to work within the Leiden Social and Organizational Psychology Unit as a post-doc. In September 2016, I started my current position as assistant professor at Utrecht University.
