Exclusion elicits the same response in children as in adolescents and adults. That is what psychologist Mara van der Meulen found when she studied brain activity in primary schoolchildren. ‘What is new for us is that it is the same in childhood as later in life.’ Doctoral defence on 10 December.

It was already known that social anxiety disorder often affects more than one person in the same family. But research by PhD student Janna Marie Bas-Hoogendam has now shown that there are genetic brain characteristics that are associated with social anxiety. The PhD ceremony will take place on 14 Ja…

Bleda Düring was interviewed alongside researchers working on ancient religions and primates, for an article in the Swiss magazine bref on the emergence of social inequalities. Although perspectives on the rise of social inequalities differ between these researchers they all agree more research on how…

Parents may pass anxiety onto their offspring by exposing them to anxious behaviors in novel situations. Just as the parents’ anxious signals lead to anxiety, parents’ confident signals can ward off anxiety in the offspring. This project is seeking a new way to break anxiety transmission in the family…

Shyness is perfectly normal, Michiel Westenberg stated in his farewell lecture. But that doesn’t mean that social anxiety shouldn’t be identified and addressed in good time. ‘Serious shyness has strong genetic roots; you don’t just get over it.’

This article explores how to think about solidarity, considering the diverse stories, spaces, practices, bodies, and temporalities that shape a city.

Negative perceptions of ambiguous social cues, social performance and physical arousal in socially anxious youth

The interdisciplinary programme Social Resilience & Security is inviting proposals for seed funding. The programme aims to combine knowledge and expertise from five different faculties to study transgressive behaviours, its dimensions, aetiology, and effects of interventions with a multidisciplinary…

Our research regularly receives attention in the (Dutch) popular media. Here is an overview.

EU migrants receive less frequent and lower benefits and allowances than Dutch citizens. This is according to research by Leiden economists Olaf van Vliet and Eduard Suari Andreu published as part of the Social Citizenship & Migration research programme. The research is discussed in Dutch newspaper…

The call for a social media ban for children is louder than ever. Professor of Children's Rights Ton Liefaard argues in ‘Trouw’ newspaper that this would be unwise. 'For children, online and offline aren't different worlds'.

Here I propose to study the relationship between autonomic pupil-synchronisation and trust, at the behavioural and neural level, and examine a targeted set of possible contextual moderators.

Samir Negash, PhD candidate at Leiden University and Olaf van Vliet, Professor by special appointment Comparative Welfare State Analysis at Leiden University wrote a paper regarding the topic of immigration and the conditionality of unemployment benefits in OECD countries.

This project investigates which aspects of social media content adolescents attend to and how these relate to their credibility judgments, aiming to systematically understand their susceptibility to misinformation and inform effective educational programs that foster youth’s resilience to misinforma…

On the first day at a new job, you have sweaty palms, nerves race through your system, and you feel insecure. Now, a couple of months later these feelings have left. You know what to do in your new role and have become part of the organization. The process leading to this result is called organizational…

The Australian parliament passed a law banning social media for youth under sixteen in late November. This solves nothing, argues Simone van der Hof, Professor of Law and Digital Technologies, in NRC. ‘Services should be held to the law.’

As schools in the U.S., students have to enter through security gates; schools in Belgium were forced to remain closed for several days after the attacks there; and even in the Netherlands various bomb scares have led to children having to stay at home. And yet fear of terrorism remains a difficult…

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.

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

OSCL members, amongst which our representative in the Archaeology faculty, were part of Data Carpentry for Social Sciences. Here's what happened.

CERQ is a questionnaire measuring cognitive coping strategies developed by Dr. Nadia Garnefski and Dr. Vivian Kraaij.

Jelle van Buuren, university lecturer at ISGA, discusses the role that social media played in the storming of the Capitol last Wednesday

Our researcher and PhD candidate Helena Ursic was interviewed with Druzina, one of the biggest weekly newspapers in Slovenia.

As part of Nexus 1492 Subproject 4: A Future for Diverse Caribbean Heritages, which seeks to shed light on how local communities interpret and engage with heritage in the present day, this doctoral study aims to gain insight into how indigenous heritage is represented in the school curriculum for social…

Jifeng Liu defended his thesis on 2 February 2017

The main question I want to answer is about the mutual influence between the cultural and settlements changes that occurred between the Bronze and the Early Iron Age in Margiana and the management of water resources.

With the emergence of online social networks (OSNs), the way people create and share information has changed, which becomes faster and broader than traditional social media.

Wenxin Wang defended her thesis on 26 October 2016

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

Investigating neurobiological endophenotypes of Social Anxiety Disorder

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?

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…

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…

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.

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

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.

'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…