We are looking for a highly motivated candidate for a 4-year PhD position on the psychology of science scepticism, which is part of a project funded by an ERC grant awarded to Dr Bastiaan Rutjens. Within the project, you will work closely together with the other members of the core project team, which will consist of Bastiaan Rutjens, a postdoctoral researcher, another PhD student, and a research assistant.

The PhD project will be conducted within the Social Psychology programme group at the University of Amsterdam. Within the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, the discipline of Psychology offers a range of Bachelor's and Master’s degree programmes, while its research is carried out at the Psychology Research Institute (Psyres). The successful candidate will be part of the Social Psychology programme group.

Job description

Increases in science scepticism among the public represent an important societal challenge. While recent research has shed light on some of the ideological correlates of specific manifestations of science scepticism - such as climate change denial and vaccine hesitancy - a unifying psychological principle that can be applied to science scepticism more generally has not yet been identified. In this project, psychological distance to science will be investigated as a precursor of science scepticism in various domains. This will be done with large-scale cross-national surveys, controlled experiments, and daily diary studies.

The PhD candidate will work under the daily supervision of Dr Bastiaan Rutjens and Prof. Frenk van Harreveld, who are both based at the Department of Psychology of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which is ranked 16th in the QS World University Rankings. The University of Amsterdam has access to state-of-the-art research facilities (Psychology labs / Spinoza center) to implement and coordinate the proposed research. The PhD candidate will report the research results at project meetings, conferences and in international journals, ultimately leading to a PhD dissertation. The candidate will also provide teaching assistance (15%).

• Master’s degree (preferably obtained in a research master program) in Social Psychology, Cultural Psychology, Sociology, Communication Science, or equivalent programme;
• passion for research and a demonstrable interest in the topic of the project;
• strong writing skills;
• excellent English proficiency;
• willingness to learn Dutch (if applicable).

The PhD position is for four years (initial employment is 12 months and after a positive evaluation, the appointment will be extended with 36 months). The project should lead to a dissertation. Based on a full-time appointment the gross monthly salary will be €2,325 in the first year, increasing to €2,972 in the fourth year (in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities).

University of Amsterdam

With over 5,000 employees, 30,000 students and a budget of more than 600 million euros, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is an intellectual hub within the Netherlands. Teaching and research at the UvA are conducted within seven faculties: Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, Law, Science, Medicine and Dentistry. Housed on four city campuses in or near the heart of Amsterdam, where disciplines come together and interact, the faculties have close links with thousands of researchers and hundreds of institutions at home and abroad.  

The UvA’s students and employees are independent thinkers, competent rebels who dare to question dogmas and aren’t satisfied with easy answers and standard solutions. To work at the UvA is to work in an independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society.

http://www.uva.nl/en/home

Department of Psychology

In the psychology department, talented and internationally renowned scholars work in their own wayward manner to gain a better understanding of the human mind and human behavior. The critical UvA-student is educated by them during this quest, in which independent thinking is expected and nothing and no one is beyond critique.

https://www.uva.nl/en/faculty/faculty-of-social-and-behavioural-sciences/disciplines/psychology/psychology.html