Blog
Today I taught the first lecture of Culture and Diversity at Work, a course I care deeply about. I introduced the topic by discussing what diversity is and by giving an overview of group inequalities in the Netherlands. Students seemed into it and I already look forward to the second lecture when we'll get to discuss self-fulfilling prophecies and other challenges that members of stigmatized groups face on the work floor.
Image: Ole Houen via Creative Commons
This year the annual conference of the Association for Dutch Social Psychology conveniently took place right outside my doorstep, at the University of Amsterdam. An intimate gathering where a cross-section of Dutch social psychologists shares its latest research.
I presented my work on the psychological underpinnings of national attachment; a somewhat older project, cast in a new light by connecting it to the symposium's theme of "Looking for Prejudice Where it Doesn’t Belong."
Melissa Vink, my former graduate student who is currently pursuing a PhD at Utrecht University, presented her thesis research "On Being Different: Effective and Inclusive Diversity Policies for Both Majority and Minority Group Members." One of her first presentations and already impressing the crowd!
Back from maternity leave with a bang with a very successful first installment of the regional Political Psychology Conference at the University of Amsterdam! Co-organized with Bert Bakker, Yphtach Lelkes, Mark Dechesne and Alina Feinholdt. A program chock full of exciting new research and over a hundred attendees.
Inspired by success of the biannual Political Psychology Meetings we organize, the conference brings together scholars and practitioners with diverse involvement in politics, allowing to bridge theory and practice, exchange ideas, and explore mutually reinforcing avenues for further study. This way, we hope to contribute to a close-knit regional network by inspiring collaboration within and across national borders and to facilitate the dialogue between political psychologists and practitioners of politics on how social science can inform society and vice versa. Check out the program here
Haha! I was nominated for the VIVA400 Awards in the category bright minds!
Each year, Dutch women's magazine VIVA, selects 400 inspiring women in four different categories. Besides bright minds, there are the creatives, powerhouses, and world improvers. The VIVA400 woman "is ambitious and enterprising. She inspires by who she is, what she does and what she achieves in a team, as an entrepreneur, and/or for society. With her innovative mentality and working method, she has a clear objective. She won a prize in the past year, started a successful own business or performed a great feat with which she made a difference." Very honored indeed!
See what Leiden University writes here
Image credit: Sanoma Media Netherlands BV
Today was a very good day! I was awarded the Gratama Science Prize for young scientists who distinguish themselves by their innovative, societally relevant, and high-profile research. A great honor!
After a lunch with board members and guests of the Gratama Foundation, I received the prize during the opening of the academic year, which took place in the Pieterskerk in Leiden. As I said in my acceptance speech: "This prize is not only my crowning glory but also an encouragement to continue doing where my passion lies: research that is both theoretically as well as practically relevant. Because this is what I think science is all about, that in the end we can utilize the knowledge we generate. That, in my eyes, is the real science prize."
I'm proud to announce that our conference paper was awarded the Roberta Sigel Early Career Scholar Paper Award 2015. The paper is entitled "A Sense of Powerlessness Fosters System Justification: Implications for the Legitimation of Authority, Hierarchy, and Government" and was presented at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology that took place in Rome, Italy.
Professor Sigel, whom the award honors, has been a distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers University since 1973. She is author and editor of seven books and many articles and book chapters, mostly in the areas of political socialization and democratic citizenship.
Read more here
Woohhh! The Political Psychology Conference we're planning to organize in December will be funded by the Small Grants Program of the International Society of Political Psychology and by the Conference Grants Fund of the The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. With this support, it is a go! Stay tuned.
