From a successful April Fool’s prank and alumni love stories to a fabulous float on 3 Octobe: these were the highlights of our year on our social media channels. Hope you’re following us?

PhD defence

Up to 50% of all children and adolescents growing up worldwide are exposed to at least one form of childhood adversity (CA), which is one of the strongest predictors for later-life psychopathology.

Why are not all children equally responsive to variations in the social environment?

Receiving positive support and seeing yourself as being a quitter may help smokers quit, say Eline Meijer and colleagues. The health psychologists published their study in Social Science & Medicine.

All the world leaders have had to choose an approach during the global Covid-19 crisis. But which approach is the most effective? André Gerrits, Professor of International Studies & Global Politics, who lectures in the BA International Studies, is observing some interesting developments. ‘Democracies…

UnMiSSeD studies the interaction between misinformation and science in societal debates using a mixed qualitative-quantitative approach.

Investigating neurobiological endophenotypes of Social Anxiety Disorder

On the 1st of November 2017, Ingrid Leijten hosted an expert-seminar titled ‘Tailored Provisions, Social Rights Compliance?’ (‘Maatwerk als Mensenrecht?’).

The rise of extremism in Europe has increased polarisation. The EU-funded DRIVE project, led by Tahir Abbas, Professor of Radicalisation Studies from Leiden University’s Institute of Security and Global Affairs, explores how social, structural, and individual factors contribute to radicalisation, offering…

Leiden psychologist Wilco van Dijk and communication scientist Jaap Ouwerkerk of VU University Amsterdam published a book about the emotion Schadenfreude. The authors describe what the emotion Schadenfreude really is, when people experience the emotion, and what role it plays in social relations.

Throughout the world fundamental labour rights in supply chains are being violated. Since the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh shook the world, we can no longer turn our heads away.

Nowadays children grow up with social media. This may influence the development of brain regions involved in social interaction. In their review article in Nature Communications, Crone and Konijn illustrate how neuroscience can contribute to a better understanding of how media and peers influence adolescents'…

'Academics who share their knowledge with the outside world on social media are often insulted or even threatened. Especially female academics and academics of colour seem to regularly be the victim of sexist and racist comments.' This is what Ineke Sluiter, Professor of Greek Language and Literature…

It’s been a turbulent, bizarre and extraordinary year, 2020. Coronavirus turned the lives of everyone at our University upside down. Out teaching, research and all the events that are held in a year: nothing was the same as before. That this affected all of us is clear from the highlights and many reactions…

Africa is online. Leiden Africa expert Mirjam de Bruijn is fascinated by the fast development of mobile telephony and social media in Africa. She maintains a website on the topic, focusing on isolated, marginalised and conflict-ridden areas in Middle Africa.

On Thursday 28 September, the Committee on Social Minimum, of which Koen Caminada is a member, presented its second report to outgoing minister for poverty policy in the Netherlands, Carola Schouten. The Committee was established by the minister at the request of the House of Representatives.

The aim of the project is to contribute to the process of archive formation ongoing in Post-Apartheid South Africa through the inclusion of photographs that have been either unacknowledged or excised from the national canon.

In the present-day United States, to what degree(s) are far-right men and women similar and/or dissimilar in their motivating factors for engaging in far-right social movement activism?

In June the Final Festival took place, the closing event of the 'Social Science Lab'. New participants of Honours College Science and Society presented their solution for a current social problem.

Compare human social behaviour at a country level and you will find differences. Japan has the highest score whereas the Netherlands is just above average. This is what psychologist Niels van Doesem discovered in research with an international team of 64 colleagues in 31 industrialised countries. Their…

A 5 million euros grant from the Dutch Research Agenda allows Anouk de Koning and co-applicants Femke Kaulingfreks and Maartje van der Woude to study social interventions in eight Dutch cities in an innovative and interdisciplinary way.

Double Bind. Public service professionals coping with contrasting demands. How do public service professionals align their PSM with contrasting demands set by the organizational and social contexts in which they work?

During the event 'Fout?' by De Jonge Akademie, Ellen de Bruijn held a lecture about the social context of making mistakes and the psychological elements of learning from it.

Organised jointly by the Europa Institute, Leiden University and the Lisbon Centre for Research in Public Law, University of Lisbon on 31 May 2021.

Monday 26 September, 2016 saw the first confrontation between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Expectations were high – not only about the content of the debate, but also about how the two presidential candidates would behave, and how this might influence their campaigns. We asked three researchers…

Could policies aimed at preventing radicalisation undermine the very trust and social cohesion they aim to strengthen?

How do people living in a remote part of Northern Mongolia experience the post-socialist transition that occurred twenty years ago? Based on extensive fieldwork, cultural anthropologist Richard Fraser argues that this is not at all clear. In his PhD dissertation, he developed a new framework based on…

Understandably, coronavirus is often viewed from a medical perspective. However, researchers in the social sciences and humanities possess a great deal of expertise that could improve our understanding of the virus outbreak and its impact on society. A new portal is consolidating this knowledge.

The Social Resilience & Security interdisciplinary programme broadens its scope by embedding two research projects lead by Dr. Joanne Mouthaan. The projects adress suicide prevention skills and mental health of Ukraine refugees. Both projects will be integrated in the programme with the aim to improve…

On Friday 17 November at 15.30h Prof. Simon Deakin will give the first seminar of the Reform of Social Legislation Speaker Series

The Developmental and Educational Psychology unit nominated Jiemiao Chen's paper

In a new essay for Ethics & International Affairs, Dr Henning Lahmann, Assistant Professor of International Law & Technology at eLaw, addresses the question whether states should resort to social media to warn a civilian population ahead of military operations.

From the 19th century, Dutch colonisers on Curaçao relied heavily on the Catholic church. Missionaries provided not only teaching and spiritual care for the Catholic Afro-Caribbeans, they also ensured social order and peace. However, these benefits came at a price. The gap to good education and participation…

The Netherlands has also announced special measures to fight SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. These measures have at times caused questionable behaviour, such as stockpiling or charging exorbitant sums for masks. But the intentions behind this seemingly antisocial behaviour are not necessarily bad, says Professor…

Nature, nurture and neural mechanisms of social emotion regulation in childhood

Slavoj Žižek is one of the most prominent public intellectuals of the left. His central claim holds that “today, it is more crucial than ever to continue to question the very foundations of capitalism as a global system”.

In de maanden maart, april en mei organiseerde het programma Transparantie in Informatie, van de ministeries van Economische Zaken en Klimaat (EZK) en Landbouw, Natuur en Voedselkwaliteit (LNV), gesprekken over de veranderopgave naar een Open Departement. De sessies hadden als doel om een eerlijk en…

Empathic or anxious mistakes? A neurocognitive investigation of the development of social performance monitoring in youth growing up in stressful versus non-stressful environments