The Department of Psychology has a vacancy for a PhD position in developmental neuroimaging.

In this project you will investigate how the willingness to invest effort affects reinforcement learning. You will do so in a set of behavioural and fMRI studies in which you investigate the effects of 1) age (children, adolescents, adults) and educational level; 2) state, e.g. the amount of sleep; and 3) motivation, e.g. by inducing a growth instead of fixed mindset or by inducing a sense of autonomy. An important aim of the project is to generate knowledge and tools that can be applied in educational practice.

Additional information

• The project is a cooperation between the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Lydia Krabbendam), Leiden University (Anna van Duijvenvoorde) and the University of Amsterdam (Hilde Huizenga);
• the project is embedded in the psychology research institute. The Department of Psychology is internationally renowned for its high quality research, with #11 in the QS psychology world ranking, the highest of continental Europe;
• the project consists of .875 fte research and .125 fte teaching. Teaching activities include supervision of bachelor and (research) master theses, which might yield publishable data;
• we also have to offer a competitive pay and excellent benefits; a very friendly, interactive and international working environment and an office located in the city centre of one of Europe's most beautiful and lively cities.

The candidate should:

• have completed a research master (or expected graduation within 3 months) with a focus on neuroimaging, developmental or educational research;
• have excellent writing skills;
• be very well able to work in a team;
• have acquired sufficient Dutch oral proficiency by June 2018.

The following will count in favour of the candidate: experience with FSL; experience with effort discounting and/or reinforcement learning; experience with developmental populations.

The full-time appointment will be for a period of 12 months plus a further 36 months contingent on a satisfactory performance during the first year.

The gross monthly salary will range from €2,222 in the first year to €2,840 in the final year, based on a full-time position of 38 hours per week. The annual salary will be increased by 8 % holiday allowance and a 8,3 % end-of-year bonus, in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for 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 our 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.

http://www.uva.nl/en/disciplines/psychology