Principal Investigator

Dr. Yannick Boddez

Research Interests

My research concerns learning principles and their application. I have, for example,

studied the role of learning in (the reduction of) psychological suffering

(e.g., anxiety, grief, insomnia / fatigue) and in art appreciation. Generalization and extinction are recurrent topics in this work. 

Academic Bibliography

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Dr. Sean Hughes

Research Interests

• ​Attitude Formation and Change
• Learning and Behavior Modification
• Open Science
• Chronic Pain
• Misconceptions and Misinformation
• Measurement and Validation

Academic Bibliography

• ResearchGate
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• UGent Bibliography
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Dr. Tal Moran 

Research Interests

My research focus on implicit and explicit social cognition. Specifically, I investigate the
processes underlying and the moderators of the automatic activation of stereotypes, attitudes
and beliefs. In addition, I investigate interventions for reducing automatic biases. In another line
of my research, I investigate the role of diagnosticity in formation and updating of implicit and explicit evaluations.

Academic Bibliography

• ResearchGate
  

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Dr. Pieter Van Dessel

Research Interests

My research primarily concerns the manner in which spontaneous (implicit) preferences are learned and can be changed. I investigate effects of mere exposure, evaluative conditioning, and approach-avoidance training as well as effects of instructions and persuasive arguments. In each of these research lines, I focus on the role of propositional and inferential learning. 
My work also aims at elucidating the mental mechanisms that underlie (implicit) evaluation. I focus on the relation between evaluation and memory processes. Other empirical interests include implicit cognition, learning psychology, cognitive control, and psychopathology.

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Femke Cathelyn

Research Interests

Within psychological research and real world contexts, the most commonly used type of measure to examine and predict psychological attributes in individuals, are self-report measures (e.g. questionnaires). Yet, these types of measures have a few important limitations. Over the past twenty years, different kinds of  implicit measures have been developed to overcome these limitations. Even though these implicit measures are used in a wide variety of studies and have provided valuable contributions to theory-driven research, it seems that there are hardly any instances in which these measurement procedures have proven their utility outside the academic world. Nevertheless, there are different reasons to assume that certain real world contexts could benefit from the use of implicit measures. This is why I am examining the utility of implicit measures in a wide variety of real world settings, ranging from smartphone use to road safety behaviour. 

Other research interests include psychopathology and couple and family psychology. 

Academic Bibliography

• ResearchGate

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Jamie Cummins

Research Interests

Currently I am primarily focused on the development and validation of new measures

of (implicit) beliefs. As well as this, I conduct research on implicit measures more generally

in terms of investigating their measurement properties, testing their underlying assumptions,

and their use in assessing histories of learning. Additionally, I am interested in functional approaches to psychology, Open Science practices, and the philosophy of (psychological) science/meta-psychology.”

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Sarah Kasran

Research Interests

My research focuses on social learning, a broad term that refers to the many ways in which

a person’s behavior can change as a result of observing other people when they interact with

the environment.

Specifically, I study how and when observing the reactions of another person to a stimulus can influence your own response to that stimulus (e.g., whether you like or dislike it, fear it, or want to avoid it).

My doctoral project investigates the idea that this type of effect is mediated by propositional processes. Testing the predictions of this theoretical account can help us discover important moderators of the effects of observational learning (i.e., tell us under which conditions an observer’s behavior will or will not be influenced by the reactions of others). My other research interests include implicit cognition and the effects of persuasive arguments.

Academic Bibliography

• ResearchGate
  

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