Psychology

The PhD programme Psychology is based on the insight that human cognition and action are always motivated and driven by personal interests, emotions, and individual and social goals. What we think and do reflects and expresses what we want and feel.

• Brief outline of the programme
• Additional research
• Admission requirements
• Supervisors

Brief outline of the programme

The view that human beings are adaptive agents that construct their own intellectual and physical environments is not only highly relevant to basic research in psychology, but also to a wide variety of applied issues. In daily life, cognition cannot be separated from individual attitudes and ambitions. Motivation, emotion and cognition are inextricably linked and have a combined effect on action control.

Additional research

Research is the principal part of the PhD programme. Students conduct original research leading to a dissertation under the guidance of a supervisor. Almost all PhD candidates are engaged in additional research projects, either individually or with other PhD students or members of the staff of the institute, and they routinely attend scientific conferences where they present their work.

The research of the Institute for Psychology is accomodated in the Leiden University Institute for Psychological Research (LUIPR). In addition, the institute is a member of the following research schools:

• experimental psychology - EPOS
• psychometrics and sociometrics - IOPS
• developmental psychology - ISED 
• social psychology - Kurt Lewin 
• experimental psychopathology - EPP
• psychology and health - PandH

Admission requirements

A prospective PhD candidate in this field should have:

1. considerable methodological knowledge and skills;
2. some experience in designing and conducting empirical studies;
3. up-to-date knowledge of psychology;
4. good writing skills;
5. a strong interest in doing original research at the highest level.

Supervisors

All full professors at the institute have the ius promovendi (the right to act as a PhD supervisor). Their research specialisations can be summarised as follows: