Are you a researcher with a background in social psychology (or related areas) and interested in new approaches to study people’s trust judgments and their fairness perceptions? And do you want to examine how this research can help humans to respond in adaptive ways to crises pertaining to important topics in society, such as radicalisation, pandemics, and climate issues? Join our team!
Your job As part of the
Gravitation project Adapt!, we are looking for a PhD candidate who will conduct methodologically innovative studies on perceived trust and fairness judgments. These studies can involve both lab and field experiments, but other types of empirical studies are also welcome.
Trust in other people and in social institutions is critically important to the effectiveness and legitimacy of a crisis response. However, people often lack the information they need to decide whether others (including abstract entities such as institutions) can be trusted and regarded as reliable interaction partners. This lack of information becomes especially poignant in times of crisis. Furthermore, under conditions of uncertainty, fairness is an important concern. For example, people want to know whether they are being treated fairly and in a just manner by parties having power over them.
Importantly, while these assumptions about trust, fairness, and uncertainty have been around for some time, solid empirical evidence is still missing. Therefore, as a PhD researcher, you will examine these issues in controlled laboratory and field experiments. Moreover, you will study how the findings thus obtained inform practical strategies for what people, groups of people, and societal institutions can do when they are navigating through various crises. This includes addressing issues of social cohesion and how people form and restore trust judgments.
You will have the following tasks and responsibilities:
- publishing peer-reviewed journal articles and write a dissertation;
- helping with events, workshops, and conferences;
- participating in project meetings, and collaborating with the other members of the research team;
- assisting with knowledge dissemination and other activities of Adapt!;
- presenting research results at national and international workshops and conferences.