Grants Department Developmental Psychology
Much of the research we conduct is funded by external grants, some of which are personal grants.
- Manon van Scheppingen, Katya Ivanonva, and Jeroen Vermunt received funding from the Tilburg University Herbert Simon Research Institute (Cross-cutting theme: Healthy lifespan) for a PhD position for the project “Going Against the Norm: Links between Personality, Well-Being, and Deviating Family Trajectories in Young Adulthood”. Young adults show large differences in whether and when they go through family transitions, such as cohabitation or parenthood. At the same time, they show substantial changes in personality and well-being. This project focuses on how deviations from normative pathways of family transitions relate to psychological development in young adulthood.
- Yasemin Erbas, Joran Jongerling, and Seger Breugelmans received funding from the Tilburg University Herbert Simon Research Institute (Cross-cutting theme: Healthy lifespan) for a PhD position for the project “The Emotions Within: Improving the Accuracy and Impact of Emotion Measurement in Wellbeing Across the Lifespan”. Throughout life, people emotionally adapt to life-events. Experience Sampling Methods are key to studying the dynamics of emotional adaptation and its impact on wellbeing; however, current measures are not fit for such methods. This project uses an innovative approach to improve the study of emotion and wellbeing across the lifespan.
- Marianne van Woerkom, Elien de Caluwé, and Stefan Bogaerts received funding from the Tilburg University Herbert Simon Research Institute (Cross-cutting theme: Adaptive societies, organizations and workers) for a PhD position for the project “Positivity in Captivity. A Positive Psychology Approach to Forensic Healthcare Work”. Forensic Healthcare Workers (FHWs) have a highly demanding job that may negatively affect their well-being, ultimately leading them to leaving their job prematurely. We investigate FHWs well-being using a variety of methods and test the effectiveness of a Positive Psychology (PP) intervention to enhance the well-being and resilience of FHWs.
- Alexandra Hering and Nicola Ballhausen received a Velux foundation grant in cooperation with researchers from the University of Padua and the University of Bologna. The project aims on enhancing problem-solving skills in healthy older adults using an adaptive web-based training. They will also investigate the potential benefit of social interactions during the training compared to individual training.
- Manon van Scheppingen received a NWO Veni grant for her project “Major Life Transitions and Personality Development in Young Adulthood”: What drives personality development in young adulthood? A large body of research has shown that people become more agreeable, conscientious, and emotionally stable from young through middle adulthood. At the same time, young adults go through important changes in social roles: they start careers, relationships, and families. This project focuses on how multiple life transitions contribute to personality development young adulthood, and if personal experiences during the transition (e.g., stress, impact) explain why some people change more than others.
- Manon Kleijn and Stefan Bogaerts received funding from Fivoor Science and Treatment Innovation for Manon’s PhD project entitled “Online and offline child sexual offenders: Who are they and what strategies do they use?” Approaching minors for sexual activities online, also known as online grooming, is becoming more common due to the accessibility of the Internet. And although more of the individuals who approach minors for sexual activities on the Internet are voluntary or coerced to stay in outpatient centers or forensic psychiatric centers, we still do not know much about the personality traits and behavior of these online groomers. Psychologists and therapists more often have to deal with patients who sexually exploit minors online and offline and therefore, there is a need for more knowledge about this group. This knowledge can contribute to more specific treatment programs to tackle child sexual abuse. The aim of the current study is to investigate who these individuals are who approach minors, what strategies and motives they use to approach these minors, and whether they are a distinctive group of sexual offenders by comparing them with a group of child pornography offenders, offline child sexual abusers, and a sample of individuals from the general population.
- Stefan Bogaerts is co-PI of different projects on, for instance, domestic violence victimization in psychiatric patients (NWO), Virtual Reality Aggression Prevention Training in forensic clinics (NWO), static and dynamic risk factors in the outpatient forensic field (Kwaliteit Forensische Zorg), and forensic prognoses, treatment duration and outflow for TBS patients (Kwaliteit Forensische Zorg).
- Stefan Bogaerts received TSB faculty funding for a project titled "Forensic Mental Health Workers during Covid-19: mental health of forensic professionals and buffering effects of personal strengths?" This study examines the following longitudinally: 1. What is the prevalence of inpatient violence towards forensic staff since the lockdown? 2. Do prevalence rates of inpatient violence differ before, during and after the lockdown? 3. Does resilience, social support and social context influence positively the association between negative psychological factors and victimization?
- Elien De Caluwé received funding from the Tilburg University Fund for her project entitled 'Rebel or psychopath? Advancing the differentiation between normative rebellious behavior, conduct problems and psychopathic traits in adolescents: A pilot study'.
- Alexandra Hering, Gabriel Olaru, Yvonne Brehmer and Geert van Boxtel (Department Cognitive Neuropsychology) received Seed-Funding from the HSRI (Tilburg University) for a cross-departmental project. Using electroencephalography, they will investigate the neural correlates of the relationship between personality and cognition across the adult lifespan. Link HSRI
- Theo Klimstra (now at Tufts University), Anne Reitz, Jelle Sijtsema, Joanne Chung (now at University of Toronto), and Bart Engelen and Alfred Archer (both from the Department of Philosophy), received funding from the Templeton Foundation for a project entitled “The Role of Emotions in Exemplar Interventions for Academic Character Building”.
- Gerine Lodder examines in her Veni-project (“The Proximity Project”) what processes - such as daily contact, friendships and perceptions of social relations - can explain why some adolescents remain lonely whereas others are only temporary lonely. For more info, check the webpage.
- Gerine Lodder, Manon van Scheppingen, Anne Reitz and Elien De Caluwé received funding from the ministry (VWS) to investigate loneliness during the Coronavirus outbreak, social changes and effective coping strategies.
- Ruth Mark, Kyle Lang and Yvonne Brehmer got funding by the Tilburg University Herbert Simon Research Institute (Cross-cutting theme) for a PhD position on Personalized Cognitive Diagnostics for Early Detection of Dementia. This project will improve early diagnosis of dementia (including Mild Cognitive Impairment) by using statistical learning methods to develop personalized ‘norms’ for an online “famous faces test”. By comparing the findings to tests currently used to diagnose dementia in clinical practice the superior sensitivity for early detection will be investigated.
- Anne Reitz examines self-esteem change in young adults’ transition into the workforce in a project funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions of the European Commission.
- Anne Reitz and Christina Meyers received funding from the Tilburg University Herbert Simon Research Institute (Cross-cutting theme: Healthy Lifespan) for a PhD position. The project is on personality development and adjustment during the transition from education to work. An intensive longitudinal design will be used. The focus is on environmental and individual factors and change processes. The overarching aim is to generate insights that universities can use to facilitate a successful transition into the workforce and employers to design growth-promoting workplaces and interventions.
- Jelle Sijtsema and Yvonne Brehmer got funding by the NWA Idea Generator (NWO) for their project on 'Bullying and Aggression in Nursing Homes: Types, Motivations, Prevalence, and Consequences' (2019-2020). This project will transfer insights from bullying research in childhood and adolescence to understand and counteract bullying in old age: Are the constructs (i.e., affiliation, aggression, social status) driving bullying behavior early in life also driving interpersonal aggression and bullying in nursing home residents?
- Jelle Sijtsema, Sophie Lammertink, Josh Weller, Stefan Bogaerts, Jenny Houtepen, and Rosalind van der Lem (Fivoor Ambulant) have a project on 'Responsivity in forensic patients with ADHD' (2019 - 2020) that is funded by Kwaliteit Forensische Zorg.