The Department of Psychology has a vacancy for a PhD position in Consumer Attitudes and Behavior Towards Climate Change.

The PhD project will be conducted within the program group of Social Psychology at the Department of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which is ranked 10th in the QS World University Rankings. The University of Amsterdam has access to state-of-the-art research facilities (Labs psychology / Spinoza center) to implement and coordinate the proposed research. The PhD candidate will develop and execute experimental studies in the context of the research project, and report results at project meetings, conferences and in international journals, leading to a PhD dissertation. The candidate will also provide teaching assistance (15%).

The PhD candidate will work under the daily supervision of dr. Frenk van Harreveld (Social Psychology, UvA) with Prof. Gert-Jan Gruter (UvA, Chemistry) and Prof. Bas Haring (LIACS, UL) as co-promotors. This PhD project is part of the NWO-funded program New Materials for a Circular Economy, which involves various partners from academia (UvA, UL) and the industry (Avantium, LEGO).

Despite being one of the most important societal challenges of the 21st century, public engagement with climate change currently remains low. Mounting evidence from across the behavioral sciences has found that most people regard climate change as a non-urgent and psychologically distant risk (spatially, temporally, and socially), which has led to deferred public decision making about mitigation and adaptation responses. Moreover, if consumers do experience a sense of urgency about mitigating climate change, they often have limited insight into how to effectively translate this into behavior. In this project, insight will be provided into what causes consumers to experience a sense of urgency to combat climate change and 2) how their environment as a consumer can be modified to make the translation of this sense of urgency into behavior most likely.

We are looking for highly motivated candidates preferably with a 2-year research master diploma in Psychology or Communication Science, and with demonstrable interest in the topic of the PhD project. The present research strives for scientific and societal impact and candidates are therefore expected to have an interest in the societal applications of their research. Applicants should also possess strong writing skills and have an excellent command of English.

The PhD position is for four years (initial employment is 12 months and after a positive evaluation, the appointment will be extended further with 36 months) and should lead to a dissertation. Based on a full-time appointment the gross monthly salary will be €2,222 in the first year, increasing to €2,840 in the fourth year 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