Ilja van Beest primary research interests lie in the domain of group and interpersonal processes with a specific focus on coalition formation, conflict detection, ostracism, fairness, deception, trust, emotions and symptom attribution. Notable awards are the best dissertation award of the Dutch society for social psychology for research on coalition formation, the Ig-nobel prize for research on symptom attribution. He has been associate editor of the ISI journal Group Processes and Intergroup Relations. He is founding board member of the journal Behavioral Public Policy, and currently serves as editor-in-chief of Social Influence