When people share their emotions, they often show the same rhythms in movements, heart rate and brain activity. In this project, you will investigate how such synchrony contributes to interpersonal emotion regulation in healthy partners and cancer survivors and their partners. To this end, you will use complex statistical techniques (e.g. time-frequency analysis, autoregression models).

Your duties

• designing and conducting experiments regarding interpersonal emotion regulation and synchronization of movements and physiological responses
• analyzing complex data on interpersonal synchronization processes
• editing and analysing of video recordings of body movements, cardiological measurements and possibly EEG
• collecting data from healthy volunteers and cancer survivors and their partners
• writing a coherent series of articles in English, culminating in a dissertation, and publishing these articles in leading scientific journals
• collaborating with other PhD students and national/international experts at the Amsterdam Emotion Regulation Lab
• communicating about the research results via popular (social) media
• attending and presenting research at international conferences

• completed WO / MSc education, in the field of social, cognitive or clinical psychology, exercise science or cognitive neuroscience
• knowledge and experience of/with conducting experimental-psychological or psychophysiological research

experience with quantitative research methods and complex statistical analyses.

• experience with programming in advanced statistical software such as R or MATLAB is a plus
• adequate command of the Dutch language (for communicating with test subjects)

As a university, we strive for equal opportunities for all, recognising that diversity takes many forms. We believe that diversity in all its complexity is invaluable for the quality of our teaching, research and service. We are always looking for talent with diverse backgrounds and experiences. This also means that we are committed to creating an inclusive community so that we can use diversity as an asset.

We realise that each individual brings a unique set of skills, expertise and mindset. Therefore we are happy to invite anyone who recognises themselves in the profile to apply, even if you do not meet all the requirements.

Fixed-term contract: 1 year.

A challenging position in a socially engaged organisation. At VU Amsterdam, you contribute to education, research and service for a better world. And that is valuable. So in return for your efforts, we offer you:

• a salary of minimum € 2.770,00 (PhD) and maximum € 3.539,00 (PhD) gross per month, on a full-time basis. This is based on UFO profile PhD candidate. The exact salary depends on your education and experience.
• a position for at least 0.8 FTE. Your employment contract will initially last 1 year.

We also offer you attractive fringe benefits and regulations. Some examples:

• A full-time 38-hour working week comes with a holiday leave entitlement of 232 hours per year. If you choose to work 40 hours, you have 96 extra holiday leave hours on an annual basis. For part-timers, this is calculated pro rata.
• 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus
• the possibility to work partly from home
• contribution to commuting expenses
• space for personal development

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

The PhD research is part of the NWO Open Competition project entitled 'The Rhythm of Relating: How Emotional Sharing Emerges from Interpersonal Synchrony in Movements, Physiology, and Neural Activations'. The focus of the project is on basic research, but the resulting insights may eventually be used to improve social-emotional support for people in everyday life.

Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences
Developing knowledge for an active, healthy and meaningful life: that is our mission at the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences at VU Amsterdam. We maintain a broad focus on the fields of behaviour and health. Our teaching and research programmes are devoted to current developments in society. From healthy aging to e-health, and from training top athletes to social media as a teaching tool. We combine three academic disciplines: psychology, movement sciences and education. A multidisciplinary approach allows us to arrive at a better understanding of human behaviour and movement. Our aims are to help people live healthier lives, learn better and function better.

Are you interested in joining Behavioural and Movement Sciences? You are the kind of person who feels at home working in an ambitious faculty, with an informal atmosphere and short lines of communication. We offer you all the space you need for personal development. Together with your 630 colleagues, you will take care of about 4,200 students.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam stands for values-driven education and research. We are open-minded experts with the ability to think freely. - a broader mind. Maintaining an entrepreneurial perspective and concentrating on diversity, significance and humanity, we work on sustainable solutions with social impact. By joining forces, across the boundaries of disciplines, we work towards a better world for people and planet. Together we create a safe and respectful working and study climate, and an inspiring environment for education and research. Learn more about our codes of conduct

We are located on one physical campus, in the heart of Amsterdam's Zuidas business district, with excellent location and accessibility. Over 5,500 staff work at the VU and over 30,000 students attend academic education.

Diversity
Diversity is the driving force of the VU. The VU wants to be accessible and receptive to diversity in disciplines, cultures, ideas, nationalities, beliefs, preferences and worldviews. We believe that trust, respect, interest and differences lead to new insights and innovation, to sharpness and clarity, to excellence and a broader understanding.

We stand for an inclusive community and believe that diversity and internationalisation contribute to the quality of education, research and our services.

Therefore, we are always searching for people whose backgrounds and experience contribute to the diversity of the VU community.