The section Psychology of Conflict, Risk and Safety in the Technology, Human and Institutional Behaviour (HIB)-department is currently seeking an assistant professor in human - virtual avatar and/or agent interactions. Cornerstone of our section is the countless ways people can get involved in events that threaten the psychological, community, or societal safety and which challenge their resilience. We take an interdisciplinary approach to understand and develop interventions to counter such threats, combining (social) psychological perspectives with communication sciences, and public administration. Our work includes topics such as conflict (e.g., polarization) and crisis management, risk perception and risk communication (e.g., about environmental or technological risks), crime prevention (e.g., cybercrime and subversive crime), and restorative justice interventions. Our research and teaching is designed:
- around new technology (e.g. for physiological measurements, eye tracking, sociometry, virtual reality, automated emotion detection, online communities), facilitated by our BMSlab (including our state-of-the-art mobile lab facility);
- in close collaboration with partners from practice in the Netherlands and abroad, such as National Crisis Centres, TNO, law enforcement agencies, the military, ministries and municipalities, Kenniscentrum Veilige Digitale Samenleving (Apeldoorn) and the Dutch Perspectief herstelbemiddeling.
Your challenge
Currently, we seek a colleague who has expertise in and can strengthen our profile and ambitions in the area of human - virtual avatar / agent interactions that are aimed at eliciting conducive behavior change in the domains of conflict, risk or safety (e.g., persuading people to take pro-environmental measures in their lives). Several of our colleagues focus on the development of VR / AR applications and interventions to promote risk prevention and awareness, conflict management and/or law enforcement (e.g., VR training applications for law enforcers and mediators). An important challenge in this domain is how to best design such applications for situations in which some reluctance, resistance and/or non-cooperative tendencies exist: how should encounters between humans and avatars / agents be developed and set up to elicit behavior change among the targeted humans in the virtual environment? You will contribute to our interdisciplinary research domains of resilience, emerging technologies and societal transformations, or health in the Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social sciences (BMS).
In addition to research, you will contribute to the education of our students, by coordinating, developing and teaching courses in the Bachelor and Master Programme of Psychology. You will engage in supervision of Bachelor and Master-theses in the Psychology programmes and will supervise PhD-students.